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They are, in Europe, where we have decent regulation and consumer protection with teeth.

rglullis 4y ago
I'll buy that when the German auto makers get to pay properly for Dieselgate. Until then, EU regulation will be just a demonstration that money and power still talks just like in the US, the only difference is that Europeans are better at fooling themselves about their moral superiority.
- riedel 4y ago
  I fully agree that automakers should be held responsible. However, I am feeling a bit of negative sentiment here. What does 'properly' mean? There has been court cases that have been decided against them. Sure there is always more. But this sounds a bit like whatabotism. Also there is a high probability of defeat devices in Citroen, Dacia, Fiat, Ford and Honda cars as well. It is however true that the EU create a huge grey zone. But what does that mean in terms of court cases against cloud providers??
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    It's not whataboutism. Read the comment it was replying to.
  - rglullis 4y ago
    "Properly" means that the automakers should pay a fine per vehicle sold that was producing more emissions than allowed, and that fine should be so high as to effectively get them into bankruptcy. It should also put in jail anyone that was aware of the violation and did not report to the authorities. Everyone, from the CEO to the test engineer who knew about the cheating devices. Anything less than that and all you are getting is an incentive for the make a risk calculation between profit and losses of being caught. > Also there is a high probability of defeat devices in Citroen, Dacia, Fiat, Ford and Honda cars as well. Which would be a sign that the regulations are not really working and consumers are just getting fooled into believing that their beloved EU is oh-so-awesome.
    - nottorp 4y ago
      Meanwhile, in the EU the price displayed/set in the contract is the price you pay.
      - rglullis 4y ago
        Meanwhile, the prices in EU are overall higher even after sales tax included... We could spend the whole day in this pointless display of "my dad is better than your dad", but can we just skip it please? Having lived in the US and now living in Germany for over 9 years, I have no intention to leave. But this idea that "regulations" could fix the consumer hostility of Big tech is naive at best and damaging at worst. To assume that the differences between US and Europe are due to lack of regulations is a terrible mistake of reversing cause-and-effect. Cultural differences between and Europe can explain a lot better why things work different, while "regulations" assume that people are just automatons who can do nothing but follow orders established by some higher authority.
        nottorp 4y ago
        > Meanwhile, the prices in EU are overall higher even after sales tax included... Regulation has its costs. Predictable. > Cultural differences between and Europe can explain a lot better why things work different Yep, the cultural differences that lead to even a "left" US government to be a lot more hands off than any EU government :)
    - lelanthran 4y ago
      > Anything less than that and all you are getting is an incentive for the make a risk calculation between profit and losses of being caught. But that logic applies to anything that any company does. You want to effectively kill any company for any infraction? That sounds a little too severe.
      - rglullis 4y ago
        If the infraction was intentional and with the sole purpose of getting unfair competitive advantage in the market, yes, the company should be dissolved for it.
- spopejoy 4y ago
  This is a non-sequitur. EU has shown plenty of effectiveness enforcing consumer-facing regulation especially in tech/internet. Dieselgate is a case of corruption in Germany, a particularly horrific and embarrassing one sure. But the existence of corruption in a single member state is not sufficient to disregard EU-wide regulatory efforts in a broad swath of consumer-facing industries.
  - rglullis 4y ago
    The point is that no matter how good they are at enforcing, they still can't manage to use the regulations to actually regulate behavior of the economic agents in a way that is beneficial to society. "Strict emission laws" did not stop EU car makers to focus on ICE cars, it worked only to give consumers a false belief that their cars were not as clean as they believed. It's not regulation that is changing the industry, it is Tesla. GDPR did not (and will not) stop big companies to collect and exploit user data. "Right to repair" did not get the big manufacturers to stop producing devices that are consumer friendly and don't stop planned obsolescence. Europeans have this stupid sense of moral superiority, but the people still buy from China, still look at cost above ethics and just use the "but our govt is strong" as an excuse to redeem themselves of personal responsibility.
blibble 4y ago
consumer protection doesn't tend to apply to businesses

I'll buy that when the German auto makers get to pay properly for Dieselgate. Until then, EU regulation will be just a demonstration that money and power still talks just like in the US, the only difference is that Europeans are better at fooling themselves about their moral superiority.

riedel 4y ago
I fully agree that automakers should be held responsible. However, I am feeling a bit of negative sentiment here. What does 'properly' mean? There has been court cases that have been decided against them. Sure there is always more. But this sounds a bit like whatabotism. Also there is a high probability of defeat devices in Citroen, Dacia, Fiat, Ford and Honda cars as well. It is however true that the EU create a huge grey zone. But what does that mean in terms of court cases against cloud providers??
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  It's not whataboutism. Read the comment it was replying to.
- rglullis 4y ago
  "Properly" means that the automakers should pay a fine per vehicle sold that was producing more emissions than allowed, and that fine should be so high as to effectively get them into bankruptcy. It should also put in jail anyone that was aware of the violation and did not report to the authorities. Everyone, from the CEO to the test engineer who knew about the cheating devices. Anything less than that and all you are getting is an incentive for the make a risk calculation between profit and losses of being caught. > Also there is a high probability of defeat devices in Citroen, Dacia, Fiat, Ford and Honda cars as well. Which would be a sign that the regulations are not really working and consumers are just getting fooled into believing that their beloved EU is oh-so-awesome.
  - nottorp 4y ago
    Meanwhile, in the EU the price displayed/set in the contract is the price you pay.
    - rglullis 4y ago
      Meanwhile, the prices in EU are overall higher even after sales tax included... We could spend the whole day in this pointless display of "my dad is better than your dad", but can we just skip it please? Having lived in the US and now living in Germany for over 9 years, I have no intention to leave. But this idea that "regulations" could fix the consumer hostility of Big tech is naive at best and damaging at worst. To assume that the differences between US and Europe are due to lack of regulations is a terrible mistake of reversing cause-and-effect. Cultural differences between and Europe can explain a lot better why things work different, while "regulations" assume that people are just automatons who can do nothing but follow orders established by some higher authority.
      - nottorp 4y ago
        > Meanwhile, the prices in EU are overall higher even after sales tax included... Regulation has its costs. Predictable. > Cultural differences between and Europe can explain a lot better why things work different Yep, the cultural differences that lead to even a "left" US government to be a lot more hands off than any EU government :)
  - lelanthran 4y ago
    > Anything less than that and all you are getting is an incentive for the make a risk calculation between profit and losses of being caught. But that logic applies to anything that any company does. You want to effectively kill any company for any infraction? That sounds a little too severe.
    - rglullis 4y ago
      If the infraction was intentional and with the sole purpose of getting unfair competitive advantage in the market, yes, the company should be dissolved for it.
spopejoy 4y ago
This is a non-sequitur. EU has shown plenty of effectiveness enforcing consumer-facing regulation especially in tech/internet. Dieselgate is a case of corruption in Germany, a particularly horrific and embarrassing one sure. But the existence of corruption in a single member state is not sufficient to disregard EU-wide regulatory efforts in a broad swath of consumer-facing industries.
- rglullis 4y ago
  The point is that no matter how good they are at enforcing, they still can't manage to use the regulations to actually regulate behavior of the economic agents in a way that is beneficial to society. "Strict emission laws" did not stop EU car makers to focus on ICE cars, it worked only to give consumers a false belief that their cars were not as clean as they believed. It's not regulation that is changing the industry, it is Tesla. GDPR did not (and will not) stop big companies to collect and exploit user data. "Right to repair" did not get the big manufacturers to stop producing devices that are consumer friendly and don't stop planned obsolescence. Europeans have this stupid sense of moral superiority, but the people still buy from China, still look at cost above ethics and just use the "but our govt is strong" as an excuse to redeem themselves of personal responsibility.

blibble 4y ago

consumer protection doesn't tend to apply to businesses