17 ms·

While I am in the camp of apple allowing side-loading, i am not a fan of monopolistic regulations like this. It opens all kind of questions, like 1. What devic

• ls15 4y ago
  Sony's market capitalization exceeds €75bn (the threshold over which the regulation applies).
  • GoOnThenDoTell 4y ago
    Is there something to stop worthless shell companies from shielding the parent company's size
    • sfe22 4y ago
      Enjoy the special edition European only, double i phone, now available at the closest Aapple store.
    • arlcode 4y ago
      Hopefully existing regulations that prevent companies from hiding behind shells. Otherwise any regulation could be skirted by having a constantly revolving roster of fronts that import your product.
    • toyg 4y ago
      There is the law and there is the spirit of the law. Judges (and European regulators alike) don't like being taken for fools.
  • musicale 4y ago
    Fortunately for Sony and Microsoft they don't operate the sorts of highly profitable game stores for PlayStation and Xbox that Apple and Google do for iOS and Android. Otherwise they'd be in trouble.
• judge2020 4y ago
  the first two are very important questions. For example, if I make $500 “unhackablePhone”, where it literally doesn’t run web apps and every app is vetted by top-talent security researchers for weeks, and then I sell billions of these devices, do I then have to open up the ecosystem to allow anyone to be able to take a phone, punch in the passcode, and install a third party App Store? This is synonymous with the current iPhone situation as many people only buy it for the benefit of Apple screening everything that can run on their phone, albeit at a lower security level where some mistakes are fine assuming Apple almost never allows known exploits to exist on the most up-to-date iOS release.
  • frostburg 4y ago
    Yes. Users will just elect not to do that if they want to benefit from your curation.
    • judge2020 4y ago
      The selling point for this theoretical device is that, even if someone steals your passcode, it can’t be hacked. This enabled evil maid (or customs processors, nation-state agencies, etc) attacks on the most vulnerable users looking to have defense-in-depth. To avoid this it seems you’d either be forced to sell it at an insane markup (to avoid having too many users) or means test people to make sure they don’t purchase it if they’re not super vulnerable to attacks that matter.
      • Vogtinator 4y ago
        Or just have a way that prevents those kind of attacks. Like having the trusted bootloader light a LED or show a hash code of the configuration on screen.
        • judge2020 4y ago
          What are the chances some third-party OS vendor complains that they have to work with iBoot to launch their OS and demand they be able to replace it?
• tirpen 4y ago
  Most of these rules apply only to companies above a certain size, both in number of users and revenue. Those get classified as "digital gatekeepers" and they are the companies that have to comply with extra requirements. So no, this will not affect startups and harm innovation, it will just force the monopolistic behemoths to play nice and cease actively harming innovation.
  • buscoquadnary 4y ago
    It also starts to bother me quite a bit when we go from treating everyone equal before the law to creating certain requirements based on other factors. Further it seems more like a moat to keep anyone else from getting as big as these "digital gatekeepers" are as suddenly when you get to a certain size you have an enormous expense. If these companies really are that large that they have to get special laws for them isnt the solution to dissolve their monopoly and split the company up instead of starting to create separate classes of laws.
    • mk89 4y ago
      Did you ever read Thinking in Systems (D. Meadows)? It's quite a nice read and there are some nice paragraphs about why we need rules to prevent or reduce monopolies.
      • trh0awayman 4y ago
        There are very real, very scary monopolies in Europe that are actually an issue that will never be dealt with. Whether or not iMessage can talk to Whatsapp has almost zero effect on my life.
    • MichaelCollins 4y ago
      > It also starts to bother me quite a bit when we go from treating everyone equal before the law to creating certain requirements based on other factors. Like tax brackets? Treating big things exactly the same as small things seems ideological, not rational.
• LeanderK 4y ago
  I very much welcome this legislation (and I use an iPhone). How would you approach this otherwise? The EU probably can't break up Google or Apple (how would this even look like?) and the walled gardens are clearly a market failure, including apples fat margins. You mention details, but regulation can be well made and just continuing the status quo is also bad. All regulations open up questions but it's not the wild west here, we have rules and they regulate the economy, even for big multinational giants like apple. Sometimes companies even get nationalised (or nationalised companies get sold)!
  • hhh 4y ago
    I would allow the same approaches taken today. I don’t want any of these things, and would buy an android phone if I did.
  • wussboy 4y ago
    “I oppose this legislation that will bring massive good because I can imagine a few edge cases that have almost certainly been addressed but weren’t explicitly stated in the summary I glanced at.” This type of comment is everywhere on the Internet and completely predictable.
    • x0x0 4y ago
      Plus an inability to accept that there will be corner cases and some drawbacks, and that the best you can do with legislation is have the good well outweigh the bad.
    • expensive_news 4y ago
      Frankly I don’t see how this legislation could possibly bring massive good. For one I like my iPhone how it is and don’t see how I could possibly benefit from this passing. As an American I think regulation should only be enacted when absolutely necessary, and these laws seem anything but necessary. I’ve rarely seen convincing cases of innovation being stifled or people being harmed by Apple’s walled garden approach. It’s clearly not a market failure because (1) it is extremely profitable and (2) it is not a monopoly. As you can see in this thread, tons of people prefer differently, and those people can buy Androids. I also don’t like how this EU legislation mainly targets American companies. Forcing Apple to allow other voice assistants will only strengthen Google and Amazons dominance in the voice assistant ecosystem. Forcing messaging apps to allow cross compatibility only will give them more of my unencrypted messages. I could go on, but I’m very curious what all of these “massive goods” that I’m not seeing are.
• lifeisstillgood 4y ago
  These are excellent points. And I first want to approach it from the "good faith" point of view. The past 20 years have seen a sea change in what surveillance and devices can do. And as such we (society at large) needs to adjust our understanding and approach to this new technology. Firstly the opportunities are immense. With almost (*) every person having some kind of heart, lifestyle, monitoring and measurement we could see transformational medical and epidemiology breakthroughs. On top of which access to (free, correct!) information, hell GPS is amazing. We know Secondly there are opportunities for abuse, and there is justifiable concern about privacy, about affect on democracy, truth etc. I personally think these are..the wrong terms to use, but never mind. I think we have to assume Good Faith from the EU here. They don't know the answers any more than the rest of us do. But they have been upfront abut tackling obvious big problems - the GDPR, for all its many faults was first, and a again big Good Faith step in right direction (pace all the stupid cookie warnings) As for answers Which devices apply - which ever ones are "owned" by a Gatekeeper (45 Million users / 7Bn turnover). Should Sony open up Playstation. Yeah basically. Xbox too. Will that cause problems - I expect so. In 99% of cases a big warning saying "you are side-loading this is dangerous" will prevent most horrors. I expect this will not lead to an Open source free for all. I expect there will be develop licensing programs and approvals - because I certainly see the walled garden of iOS as a real benefit. The bank transaction signing thing is interesting. The definition of a gatekeeper (Article 2 in the Act) is fairly specific to things like online search engines, intermediation services, OSes etc. I think its unlikely 45 million users is a big floor for such a thing. (#) 4.5 Bn smartphones are in use globally, that's almost every adult. In "western" countries there are 10s of millions of people with daily heart rate monitoring.
• spywaregorilla 4y ago
  I always see comments like this and they're so confusing. They just kind of assume that nobody has thought about these questions. Did you even check if they were addressed? If not, why are you asserting that these questioned are opened? For one, it's not about devices, it's about digital market platforms. That's why it's called the digital markets act. Let's see what we get when we google this? Here's one: https://www.akingump.com/en/news-insights/digital-markets-actthe-new-era-of-eu-digital-regulation-for-big-tech.html https://www.akingump.com/en/news-insights/digital-markets-ac... Core platform services include: online intermediation services. online search engines. online social networking services. video-sharing platform services. number-independent interpersonal communications services. operating systems. web browsers. virtual assistants. cloud computing services. online advertising services, including advertising intermediation services. > The compromise text clarifies that the definition of core platform services should be technology neutral and should be understood to encompass those provided on or through various means or devices, such as connected TV or embedded digital services in vehicles. > “Gatekeeper”, in turn, refers to an undertaking providing core platform services that meets the following qualitative and quantitative criteria, set out in Article 3: > First, it must have a significant impact on the EU internal market. An undertaking is presumed to satisfy this requirement where (a) it either has achieved an annual EU turnover equal to or above EUR 7.5 billion in each of the last three financial years, or where its average market capitalization or its equivalent fair market value amounted to at least EUR 75 billion in the last financial year, and (b) it provides the same core platform service in at least three Member States. > Second, it must provide a core platform service which is an important gateway for business users to reach end users. This requirement is presumed to be met where the undertaking provides a core platform service that had on average at least 45 million monthly active end users established or located in the EU and at least 10,000 yearly active business users established in the EU in the last financial year.2 Users are to be identified and calculated in accordance with a methodology set out in an Annex to the DMA. > Third, it must enjoy an entrenched and durable position in its operations. This requirement is presumed to be met where the threshold points in the paragraph above were met in each of the previous three financial years.
  • ekianjo 4y ago
    All these numbers and criteria seem to be completely cherry picked to fit specific companies. So bad.
• Tryk 4y ago
  Monopolistic regulation? This is clearly aimed against existing monopolies, i.e. gatekeepers. Can you explain how ensuring that 1. Making unsubscribing is as easy as subscribing, and 2. Guaranteed interoperability between instant messaging services, and 3. Sharing marketing and/or advertisement performance with business users will "kill competition"?
  • sfe22 4y ago
    • Tryk 4y ago
      Okay, so would it not follow that all regulation is monopolistic by this definition? Again I am curious how you believe this will "kill competition" by regulating for points 1-3 in my previous post.
      • sfe22 4y ago
        Monopolistic regulation kills competition by increasing the cost of entering that market, while established players have the capital and necessary connections for workarounds. For example imagine a new company trying to build an iPhone with minimal app store, well guess what, now they have to also build support for third party store, developer tools, etc… which increases their cost to launch. Apple on the other hand will have all this taken care of. It will have multiple people making sure regulators are happy (or rich). While I later found that this will not target small companies, so in this aspect this regulation will likely have minimal impact.
        • fabianhjr 4y ago
          > For example imagine a new company trying to build an iPhone with minimal app store, well guess what, now they have to also build support for third party store, developer tools, etc… which increases their cost to launch. That new company won't have neither 45 million users nor over 7.5 Billion EUR turnover in the last 3 consecutive-years. You are making a false and bad-faith argument against the regulation in question just to promote your laissez-faire ideology.
• znpy 4y ago
  > monopolistic regulations like this If anything, this is anti-monopolistic. With sideloading, unlocked nfc and alternative stores and payment providers this will likely kickstart whole new markets (eg: a better app store for the iphone). This is just great.
  • sfe22 4y ago
    See my comment here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32170049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32170049
• water-your-self 4y ago
  • sfe22 4y ago
    Negative interest actually, I sold my tech stocks early this year, while as an app developer the revenue cut we get are likely to increase after this kicks in. I am more inclined to explain the consequences and incentives of these actions rather than their intentions.
  • woojoo666 4y ago
    I've been seeing more of these comments on HN lately. This is snarky
• pabs3 4y ago
  Most car infotainment systems ship with Linux, just they don't let you change it, which might be a GPL violation.
  • sfe22 4y ago
    But what if that system had a small app store? Now it should allow any app store and apps to be installed?
    • pabs3 4y ago
      Sounds good to me.
      • sfe22 4y ago
        You are free to buy cars that meet your needs for yourself, such as multiple app stores. So it looks your standards are achievable if your willing to actually pay for it. This is more limiting freedoms and harming others, for example more expensive cars for me to satisfy one your desires. Or less innovation or competition because of higher cost of startup.
  • hgsgm 4y ago
• diffeomorphism 4y ago
  You mean "anti-monopolistic" regulations. That also answers all of your questions. > This looks like it will kill competition and harm European innovation I don't really understand how you got from "you are not allowed to stifle competition" to having less of it?
  • sfe22 4y ago
    It is monopolistic because it comes from a monopoly (the regulator) with no way around it for Europeans that disagree. Well rent control is also supposed to lower rents but usually what it does is make them more expensive and lower the quality on the long term.
    • diffeomorphism 4y ago
      Haha, "democracy=monopoly". Haven't heard that one before.