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Or perhaps those companies are simply not possible without anti-competetive, unethical or plain rent-seeking behaviour? The question is do you want companies li

Or perhaps those companies are simply not possible without anti-competetive, unethical or plain rent-seeking behaviour? The question is do you want companies like Apple to exists. If the answer is yes, then maybe you should make it as easy as possible to create them. It is obvious that for some reason's the EU is far behind. Also in other "new" areas like crypto or self driving there are far less innovations coming from the EU. In my opinion it is because of messy regulations where you have the EU + each Country has it's own rules.

seszett 4y ago
> The question is do you want companies like Apple to exists. > If the answer is yes But the answer in the EU is clearly no. The EU doesn't want anti-competitive, unethical and rent-seeking companies to exist. The idea is that if such anti-competitive companies didn't exist, their niche might be occupied by companies fostering a real competitive environment which would benefit consumers.
- emteycz 4y ago
  Speak for yourself, nobody in this entire country asked for this - but a small state has no say. First fix the democratic process, then make statements like this.
  - seszett 4y ago
    Well, this was a decision by the European Commission which is made up of one representative for each EU country, so this is one of the cases where every country has the same voice, yours as well as mine. Assuming from your login name that you are from Czech republic, our countries, both having 10 million inhabitants, are also clearly not "small states" regarding the EU although our local politicians like to make it seem like we are powerless within the EU. But my other country is France and since politicians there cannot reasonably complain about "being forgotten because we are small", they just find other excuses like Germany, or small countries - like ours - having too much decisional power. The first democratic process that needs to be fixed is at the level of countries. The EU is far from being the most important dysfunctional level of administration right now.
    - emteycz 4y ago
      > The first democratic process that needs to be fixed is at the level of countries. The EU is far from being the most important dysfunctional level of administration right now. That for sure. But we didn't have problems such as this, where the EU commission representative had virtually zero approval, without the EU. There are no safe guards, and it goes completely around ours - and yes, we do have them! That's not good democracy. Our representation in EU parliament of course wasn't able to do anything about it since it has less than 2.5% of seats - and the national parliament (that would've surely voted against it) was thus forced to incorporate it, even though everybody here hates it. A country where nobody wants something and yet it happens is not a democracy, it merely acts like one with all this voting and parliaments.
- MichaelRazum 4y ago
  Ok then the EU wants something like Gorillas (German unicorn start up) instead? Food delivery for low prices, where young students are exploited. Instead of providing high paying job's like apple does...
  - emteycz 4y ago
    You're downvoted but it's true, there isn't a big company in EU that isn't exploitative. The biggest are banks and loan sharks. And not a single one pays good wages.
    - nicoburns 4y ago
      This seems like a good reason to strongly regulate big companies in general. If that discourages there from being big companies then that seems like it might be a good thing.
      - emteycz 4y ago
        But we want big companies! We offer everything and the neighbor's dog to them! Tax breaks, special laws, loans, etc... And that's good, and people here think so as well! The only problem is, the environment here is not friendly to moonshot tech startups that could grow big, so instead we only have exploitative big businesses that have enough lawyers, dotation referents and contacts in the public sphere.
    - alwayseasy 4y ago
      Sarcasm is hard to detect online. The largest companies in EU are not banks and I don't see how you can distinguish non-exploitative companies from the "its ok to have suicidal labour in China" without sounding anti-capitalist.
      - emteycz 4y ago
        I really don't think the factory was owned by Apple. AFAIK Apple was a customer and they lobbied to have things changed once they knew it, and they also have a clear track record of switching suppliers in case of problems like this dating from before this issue came to light. That's clearly anti-exploitative to me. It's not easy to know these things about your suppliers, these companies work hard to hide it.
nicoburns 4y ago
Perhaps the question you should ask is: What would exist instead if Apple didn't exist. If you are imagining no tech companies at all, then obviously this is worse. If the answer is a lot of smaller tech companies all competing with each other, then this may be a much better situation.
- MichaelRazum 4y ago
  Maybe one final remark. If you have high competition that often leads to exploitation of the work force - to out compete each other. So it might sounds great but it is not always the case. Although I agree that no competition might be bad as well. Guess there is no clear answer.
go_prodev 4y ago
Another way to think of it is the EU is promoting competition. EU is making it easier for founders to explore new payment methods or grow alternative payment providers or crypto solutions who would otherwise miss a massive opportunity. I believe this will actually grow the Apple ecosystem by giving established companies a reason to build their brand on the iOS platform where they might otherwise have avoided it for lack of control over transactions.

seszett 4y ago

> The question is do you want companies like Apple to exists. > If the answer is yes But the answer in the EU is clearly no. The EU doesn't want anti-competitive, unethical and rent-seeking companies to exist. The idea is that if such anti-competitive companies didn't exist, their niche might be occupied by companies fostering a real competitive environment which would benefit consumers.

emteycz 4y ago
Speak for yourself, nobody in this entire country asked for this - but a small state has no say. First fix the democratic process, then make statements like this.
- seszett 4y ago
  Well, this was a decision by the European Commission which is made up of one representative for each EU country, so this is one of the cases where every country has the same voice, yours as well as mine. Assuming from your login name that you are from Czech republic, our countries, both having 10 million inhabitants, are also clearly not "small states" regarding the EU although our local politicians like to make it seem like we are powerless within the EU. But my other country is France and since politicians there cannot reasonably complain about "being forgotten because we are small", they just find other excuses like Germany, or small countries - like ours - having too much decisional power. The first democratic process that needs to be fixed is at the level of countries. The EU is far from being the most important dysfunctional level of administration right now.
  - emteycz 4y ago
    > The first democratic process that needs to be fixed is at the level of countries. The EU is far from being the most important dysfunctional level of administration right now. That for sure. But we didn't have problems such as this, where the EU commission representative had virtually zero approval, without the EU. There are no safe guards, and it goes completely around ours - and yes, we do have them! That's not good democracy. Our representation in EU parliament of course wasn't able to do anything about it since it has less than 2.5% of seats - and the national parliament (that would've surely voted against it) was thus forced to incorporate it, even though everybody here hates it. A country where nobody wants something and yet it happens is not a democracy, it merely acts like one with all this voting and parliaments.
MichaelRazum 4y ago
Ok then the EU wants something like Gorillas (German unicorn start up) instead? Food delivery for low prices, where young students are exploited. Instead of providing high paying job's like apple does...
- emteycz 4y ago
  You're downvoted but it's true, there isn't a big company in EU that isn't exploitative. The biggest are banks and loan sharks. And not a single one pays good wages.
  - nicoburns 4y ago
    This seems like a good reason to strongly regulate big companies in general. If that discourages there from being big companies then that seems like it might be a good thing.
    - emteycz 4y ago
      But we want big companies! We offer everything and the neighbor's dog to them! Tax breaks, special laws, loans, etc... And that's good, and people here think so as well! The only problem is, the environment here is not friendly to moonshot tech startups that could grow big, so instead we only have exploitative big businesses that have enough lawyers, dotation referents and contacts in the public sphere.
  - alwayseasy 4y ago
    Sarcasm is hard to detect online. The largest companies in EU are not banks and I don't see how you can distinguish non-exploitative companies from the "its ok to have suicidal labour in China" without sounding anti-capitalist.
    - emteycz 4y ago
      I really don't think the factory was owned by Apple. AFAIK Apple was a customer and they lobbied to have things changed once they knew it, and they also have a clear track record of switching suppliers in case of problems like this dating from before this issue came to light. That's clearly anti-exploitative to me. It's not easy to know these things about your suppliers, these companies work hard to hide it.

nicoburns 4y ago

Perhaps the question you should ask is: What would exist instead if Apple didn't exist. If you are imagining no tech companies at all, then obviously this is worse. If the answer is a lot of smaller tech companies all competing with each other, then this may be a much better situation.

MichaelRazum 4y ago
Maybe one final remark. If you have high competition that often leads to exploitation of the work force - to out compete each other. So it might sounds great but it is not always the case. Although I agree that no competition might be bad as well. Guess there is no clear answer.

go_prodev 4y ago

Another way to think of it is the EU is promoting competition. EU is making it easier for founders to explore new payment methods or grow alternative payment providers or crypto solutions who would otherwise miss a massive opportunity. I believe this will actually grow the Apple ecosystem by giving established companies a reason to build their brand on the iOS platform where they might otherwise have avoided it for lack of control over transactions.