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Netherlands should respond with passing a law that any platform company that does that is subject to a 97% tax on the revenue generated via platform stores, pay

Netherlands should respond with passing a law that any platform company that does that is subject to a 97% tax on the revenue generated via platform stores, payable 5 years in advance with the overpayments refunded at the end of the tax year. When a company goes to war with the government, the company always loses. It is time for Cook to learn it. He is under a delusion that he is god.

scarface74 5y ago
The Netherlands population is a little more than half of Texas’s population. Apple could completely pull out of the Netherlands and wouldn’t even feel the affect.
- notyourday 5y ago
  Nah, Apple would never pull out of a country. If it does that in Netherlands, the next country is going to do the same..
- rpadovani 5y ago
  Except they cannot. If you have an EU point of sale, you cannot deny service to any EU citizen based on nationality. So, they can stop _selling_ in the Netherlands, but given how close is any Dutch to another EU state, I don't see it as a problem for purchasing a phone. Apple will sustain that, given the phone wasn't bought in the Netherlands, they are not subject to their laws. Good luck with that.
  - scarface74 5y ago
    How do you punish a company because people bought a product that wasn’t for sale in your country?
  - gruez 5y ago
    >> Apple could completely pull out of the Netherlands and wouldn’t even feel the affect. >Except they cannot[...] >[...] they can stop _selling_ in the Netherlands I don't get it. Aren't you agreeing with the parent poster?
    - sangnoir 5y ago
      Apple cannot "pull out" of the Netherlands by just not selling in the country. Dutch people can order phones from Belgium or elsewhere in the EU, and Apple will still be legally on the hook.
      - scarface74 5y ago
        How is Apple legally on the hook for a product that they don’t sell in a given country? How are the Dutch going to come after Apple if they don’t have a presence in the country?
        sangnoir 5y ago
        The same way Attorneys General from midwestern states can sue coastal tech firms with no offices there: jurisdiction over where the users being harmed are. > How are the Dutch going to come after Apple if they don’t have a presence in the country? The EU is a single market, for good or for ill.
        scarface74 5y ago
        Apple actively sells devices in every state. It accepts credit card users from every state. If I only sold a physical product in GA and someone from Texas bought it and took it home. They could only sue me in GA under GA laws. The US is also a “single market”. But each state has its own laws.
        sangnoir 5y ago
        There's also federal law. The AGs may not be (directly) involved - but there's an umbrella jurisdiction for consumers to get satisfaction. Just like the EU.
      - gruez 5y ago
        >Dutch people can order phones from Belgium or elsewhere in the EU, and Apple will still be legally on the hook. Okay, so they'll have iPhones brick themselves (or disable all third party purchases) if location services detect they're within the netherlands.
- bogwog 5y ago
  This is completely incorrect. Apple will feel the hurt if they lose a market with 17 million people. They won’t go out of business, but whoever was adjacent to that decision will be losing their job.
  - scarface74 5y ago
    Out of those 17 million (which when Apple was still giving out number of iPhones sold was about a quarter’s worth of sales in a low quarter)… - not all are buying iPhones - roughly 3 million of the population are under 15.
    - bogwog 5y ago
      That doesn’t make a difference. The long term growth opportunities in a country are huge, and for a company the size Apple, any opportunity for growth is extremely valuable.
      - scarface74 5y ago
        If Apple sold a $1500 maxed out iPhone Pro to everyone above the age of 15 in the Netherlands, that a little over $2 billion in revenue - or 1/8th the amount that Google reportedly pays Apple every year to be the default search engine on Apple devices. Growth at all costs regardless of margin is what money losing unicorns do. Not what companies do that are worth 3 trillion dollars.
        bogwog 5y ago
        The cost of losing an entire country is more than the hypothetical revenue of a year’s sales. Even ignoring the potential lifetime value of an Apple customer, that’s an entire country of children, engineers, businesses, influencers, etc who are not exposed to your products/brand. And Apple is not a money losing unicorn. They don’t sell anything at a loss, and they wouldn’t be selling at a loss even if they made a good faith effort to comply with these regulations. The question is what their margins look like: reasonable, or obscene? Apple is fighting to maintain the latter. Pulling out of the country would make them less money than complying.
- raydev 5y ago
  NL would then take their concerns to the EU at large, and they have more levers they can pull at that level. This is the first step to "completely pull out of EU member countries or comply".
  - scarface74 5y ago
    Because the EU really has a great history of tech laws…

scarface74 5y ago

The Netherlands population is a little more than half of Texas’s population. Apple could completely pull out of the Netherlands and wouldn’t even feel the affect.

notyourday 5y ago
Nah, Apple would never pull out of a country. If it does that in Netherlands, the next country is going to do the same..
rpadovani 5y ago
Except they cannot. If you have an EU point of sale, you cannot deny service to any EU citizen based on nationality. So, they can stop _selling_ in the Netherlands, but given how close is any Dutch to another EU state, I don't see it as a problem for purchasing a phone. Apple will sustain that, given the phone wasn't bought in the Netherlands, they are not subject to their laws. Good luck with that.
- scarface74 5y ago
  How do you punish a company because people bought a product that wasn’t for sale in your country?
- gruez 5y ago
  >> Apple could completely pull out of the Netherlands and wouldn’t even feel the affect. >Except they cannot[...] >[...] they can stop _selling_ in the Netherlands I don't get it. Aren't you agreeing with the parent poster?
  - sangnoir 5y ago
    Apple cannot "pull out" of the Netherlands by just not selling in the country. Dutch people can order phones from Belgium or elsewhere in the EU, and Apple will still be legally on the hook.
    - scarface74 5y ago
      How is Apple legally on the hook for a product that they don’t sell in a given country? How are the Dutch going to come after Apple if they don’t have a presence in the country?
      - sangnoir 5y ago
        The same way Attorneys General from midwestern states can sue coastal tech firms with no offices there: jurisdiction over where the users being harmed are. > How are the Dutch going to come after Apple if they don’t have a presence in the country? The EU is a single market, for good or for ill.
        scarface74 5y ago
        Apple actively sells devices in every state. It accepts credit card users from every state. If I only sold a physical product in GA and someone from Texas bought it and took it home. They could only sue me in GA under GA laws. The US is also a “single market”. But each state has its own laws.
        sangnoir 5y ago
        There's also federal law. The AGs may not be (directly) involved - but there's an umbrella jurisdiction for consumers to get satisfaction. Just like the EU.
    - gruez 5y ago
      >Dutch people can order phones from Belgium or elsewhere in the EU, and Apple will still be legally on the hook. Okay, so they'll have iPhones brick themselves (or disable all third party purchases) if location services detect they're within the netherlands.
bogwog 5y ago
This is completely incorrect. Apple will feel the hurt if they lose a market with 17 million people. They won’t go out of business, but whoever was adjacent to that decision will be losing their job.
- scarface74 5y ago
  Out of those 17 million (which when Apple was still giving out number of iPhones sold was about a quarter’s worth of sales in a low quarter)… - not all are buying iPhones - roughly 3 million of the population are under 15.
  - bogwog 5y ago
    That doesn’t make a difference. The long term growth opportunities in a country are huge, and for a company the size Apple, any opportunity for growth is extremely valuable.
    - scarface74 5y ago
      If Apple sold a $1500 maxed out iPhone Pro to everyone above the age of 15 in the Netherlands, that a little over $2 billion in revenue - or 1/8th the amount that Google reportedly pays Apple every year to be the default search engine on Apple devices. Growth at all costs regardless of margin is what money losing unicorns do. Not what companies do that are worth 3 trillion dollars.
      - bogwog 5y ago
        The cost of losing an entire country is more than the hypothetical revenue of a year’s sales. Even ignoring the potential lifetime value of an Apple customer, that’s an entire country of children, engineers, businesses, influencers, etc who are not exposed to your products/brand. And Apple is not a money losing unicorn. They don’t sell anything at a loss, and they wouldn’t be selling at a loss even if they made a good faith effort to comply with these regulations. The question is what their margins look like: reasonable, or obscene? Apple is fighting to maintain the latter. Pulling out of the country would make them less money than complying.
raydev 5y ago
NL would then take their concerns to the EU at large, and they have more levers they can pull at that level. This is the first step to "completely pull out of EU member countries or comply".
- scarface74 5y ago
  Because the EU really has a great history of tech laws…