4 ms·

Wonder how much this regulation cost to draft, pass, and implement? Several million dollars? Any EU tax payers care to justify this insanity? I mean does any n

by kypro 3y ago

Wonder how much this regulation cost to draft, pass, and implement? Several million dollars? Any EU tax payers care to justify this insanity? I mean does any normal person even care about this? Eg, not people on HN with Macbook Pros – your average Windows user. At the end of the day Windows does loads of stuff I don't like. That's why I don't use Windows anymore. Like with most things the EU regulates this just isn't an issue. Windows using a different browser for system apps is so far down on the list of things I don't like about Windows that even if you asked me to write a 100 point list of things I don't like about Windows I'm not sure this would make the list. Guess we need some more regulation. Edit: Please don't downvote simply because you disagree with me. It's better to have a discussion. Different perspectives are good.

eur0pa 3y ago
I agree these grapes look very sour
iSnow 3y ago
>Several million dollars? Any EU tax payers care to justify this insanity? Probably several millions, yes. Considering the EU has 450 inhabitants, that*s increasing my tax bill by cents. Well worth the money to me. Probably, MS will try to backtrack and violate regulations at some point so it will pay for itself too. I'll never get the US masochism where interference by regulators to defend the end-user is somehow seen as odious.
- kypro 3y ago
  > Probably several millions, yes. Considering the EU has 450 inhabitants, that*s increasing my tax bill by cents. Well worth the money to me. But this never ends. Every week there's a new article here about how the EU is forcing electronics makers implement their preferred charger ports, or displaying cookie notices to EU visitors, or making phone batteries replaceable. It's endless crap that adds drag to businesses trying to operate in EU, costs tax payers hundreds of millions and has almost no significance to the average person's life. I'm not anti-regulation at all. I just think it needs to be limited to places where there's a clear need to regulate. Honestly sometimes it seems like the EU is just looking for the next pointless thing to regulate so they can continue to justify their jobs. Please take this as a separate point on taxation more generally, but I tend to find the most pro-tax people I know are those with the highest incomes. Those in favour of people's income being redistributed to regulators in this way I find are often the same people who argue in favour of spending "a little more" for free ranged eggs, and organic fruits, etc. I'm not suggesting you don't do this already, but we should consider if those pennies would be better in the pockets of workers rather than taken by government regulators so you don't have the displeasure of using Edge when you occasionally need to use Windows instead of your Mac.
  - ndngmfksk 3y ago
    Microsoft want to advertise to users because it makes them money. That money will come from the pockets of the people you're describing, and not as a fraction of their income as with many taxes.
    - kypro 3y ago
      Companies making more money isn't bad? > That money will come from the pockets of the people you're describing Very indirectly maybe. Ad spend is a cost to businesses, not consumers. I'll also add that making ad spend less inefficient (as this regulation will do) will ultimately cost either the business or consumer as someone will need to eat those extra costs. Assuming that those inefficiencies are not passed to the consumer and is instead is a cost to the business, this would still only be a good thing if you believe companies making more money is bad.
      - ndngmfksk 3y ago
        Money spent on ads doesn't cost businesses money, it makes them money. Otherwise they wouldn't do it. That money comes directly from consumers, who are also taxpayers. I haven't said whether this is good or bad.
  - iSnow 3y ago
    >has almost no significance to the average person's life. I very much disagree that prescribing a common charging port for phones has had no significance to the avg. person's life. I am old enough to remember my drawer full of chargers for various phone companies - some even created new plugs for newer generations of phones. > we should consider if those pennies would be better in the pockets of workers That's not how it works, those pennies would end up in the pockets of anonymous wealth funds and the family offices of the filthy rich while workers had to buy phone chargers with all their new phones.
    - kypro 3y ago
      > I very much disagree that prescribing a common charging port for phones has had no significance to the avg. person's life. I am old enough to remember my drawer full of chargers for various phone companies - some even created new plugs for newer generations of phones. The market ultimately fixed this though (mostly anyway). Personally I like Apple's charger ports, but I'll soon no longer have this choice as a consumer because regulators think they know what's best for me. > That's not how it works, those pennies would end up in the pockets of anonymous wealth funds and the family offices of the filthy rich while workers had to buy phone chargers with all their new phones. We're getting into an economic debate now. I think generally it's good to assume that the more a business makes, the more people it will be able to employ and the more those employees will make. I think the problem you're touching on here is that in recent years the bottom line of businesses don't correlate well with the income if its workers. I think there are better ways to solve this problem so that if Apple makes more money on chargers their workers would share in the profits. Regulating phone chargers and browser preferences may not be the best solution here.
krzyk 3y ago
Why having a choice is something bad?
- kypro 3y ago
  It's not. Obviously. You're either misunderstanding or purposefully misrepresenting my point. Happy to clarify my position if it's a misunderstanding.
martin_a 3y ago
> Any EU tax payers care to justify this insanity? EU tax payer here. I was asked by the EU if they could use my tax money for this and I was fine with that. I think my neighbour was also asked and he was cool with that, too, so the EU went this way. Don't worry, it wasn't your money that was spent here...
Barrin92 3y ago
>Any EU tax payers care to justify this insanity? Yes. The EU has an annual economic output of about 17.4 trillion Euros. A few million dollars in taxes is probably like what, 0.0001% of the zones tax burden, a fraction of a cent of my taxes? I'll do you one better, if I could kill one of big techs user hostile features with a regulation I will chime in 50 bucks per bill. Windows probably runs on 90%+ of people's home and work devices, no regular user is just switching off Windows, you're not the norm.
walthamstow 3y ago
You use a word like 'insanity' then plead with people for sensible debate. If you think different perspectives are so good, why do you immediately call the opposing view insane?
- kypro 3y ago
  [flagged]
cowl 3y ago
what kind of question is that? what user does not care that the OS is not respecting his choice of Browser? It greatly impacts the daily work. You are logged in into services in your browser of choice, you have autofills in your default browser, you have your preferences (language, cookie settings etc) set in your default browser and just because a link is opened from somewhere inside windows you find yourself in another browser where you are not logged in in your services, you don't have saved passwords, you don't have bookmarks or the extensions you use etc, so you have to copy the URL and paste into your browser. Are you telling me you really don't care about this disruption that happens tens of times per day or just that you are not impacted and so noone else should care?

by kypro 3y ago

eur0pa 3y ago

I agree these grapes look very sour

iSnow 3y ago

>Several million dollars? Any EU tax payers care to justify this insanity? Probably several millions, yes. Considering the EU has 450 inhabitants, that*s increasing my tax bill by cents. Well worth the money to me. Probably, MS will try to backtrack and violate regulations at some point so it will pay for itself too. I'll never get the US masochism where interference by regulators to defend the end-user is somehow seen as odious.

kypro 3y ago
> Probably several millions, yes. Considering the EU has 450 inhabitants, that*s increasing my tax bill by cents. Well worth the money to me. But this never ends. Every week there's a new article here about how the EU is forcing electronics makers implement their preferred charger ports, or displaying cookie notices to EU visitors, or making phone batteries replaceable. It's endless crap that adds drag to businesses trying to operate in EU, costs tax payers hundreds of millions and has almost no significance to the average person's life. I'm not anti-regulation at all. I just think it needs to be limited to places where there's a clear need to regulate. Honestly sometimes it seems like the EU is just looking for the next pointless thing to regulate so they can continue to justify their jobs. Please take this as a separate point on taxation more generally, but I tend to find the most pro-tax people I know are those with the highest incomes. Those in favour of people's income being redistributed to regulators in this way I find are often the same people who argue in favour of spending "a little more" for free ranged eggs, and organic fruits, etc. I'm not suggesting you don't do this already, but we should consider if those pennies would be better in the pockets of workers rather than taken by government regulators so you don't have the displeasure of using Edge when you occasionally need to use Windows instead of your Mac.
- ndngmfksk 3y ago
  Microsoft want to advertise to users because it makes them money. That money will come from the pockets of the people you're describing, and not as a fraction of their income as with many taxes.
  - kypro 3y ago
    Companies making more money isn't bad? > That money will come from the pockets of the people you're describing Very indirectly maybe. Ad spend is a cost to businesses, not consumers. I'll also add that making ad spend less inefficient (as this regulation will do) will ultimately cost either the business or consumer as someone will need to eat those extra costs. Assuming that those inefficiencies are not passed to the consumer and is instead is a cost to the business, this would still only be a good thing if you believe companies making more money is bad.
    - ndngmfksk 3y ago
      Money spent on ads doesn't cost businesses money, it makes them money. Otherwise they wouldn't do it. That money comes directly from consumers, who are also taxpayers. I haven't said whether this is good or bad.
- iSnow 3y ago
  >has almost no significance to the average person's life. I very much disagree that prescribing a common charging port for phones has had no significance to the avg. person's life. I am old enough to remember my drawer full of chargers for various phone companies - some even created new plugs for newer generations of phones. > we should consider if those pennies would be better in the pockets of workers That's not how it works, those pennies would end up in the pockets of anonymous wealth funds and the family offices of the filthy rich while workers had to buy phone chargers with all their new phones.
  - kypro 3y ago
    > I very much disagree that prescribing a common charging port for phones has had no significance to the avg. person's life. I am old enough to remember my drawer full of chargers for various phone companies - some even created new plugs for newer generations of phones. The market ultimately fixed this though (mostly anyway). Personally I like Apple's charger ports, but I'll soon no longer have this choice as a consumer because regulators think they know what's best for me. > That's not how it works, those pennies would end up in the pockets of anonymous wealth funds and the family offices of the filthy rich while workers had to buy phone chargers with all their new phones. We're getting into an economic debate now. I think generally it's good to assume that the more a business makes, the more people it will be able to employ and the more those employees will make. I think the problem you're touching on here is that in recent years the bottom line of businesses don't correlate well with the income if its workers. I think there are better ways to solve this problem so that if Apple makes more money on chargers their workers would share in the profits. Regulating phone chargers and browser preferences may not be the best solution here.

krzyk 3y ago

Why having a choice is something bad?

kypro 3y ago
It's not. Obviously. You're either misunderstanding or purposefully misrepresenting my point. Happy to clarify my position if it's a misunderstanding.

martin_a 3y ago

> Any EU tax payers care to justify this insanity? EU tax payer here. I was asked by the EU if they could use my tax money for this and I was fine with that. I think my neighbour was also asked and he was cool with that, too, so the EU went this way. Don't worry, it wasn't your money that was spent here...

Barrin92 3y ago

>Any EU tax payers care to justify this insanity? Yes. The EU has an annual economic output of about 17.4 trillion Euros. A few million dollars in taxes is probably like what, 0.0001% of the zones tax burden, a fraction of a cent of my taxes? I'll do you one better, if I could kill one of big techs user hostile features with a regulation I will chime in 50 bucks per bill. Windows probably runs on 90%+ of people's home and work devices, no regular user is just switching off Windows, you're not the norm.

walthamstow 3y ago

You use a word like 'insanity' then plead with people for sensible debate. If you think different perspectives are so good, why do you immediately call the opposing view insane?

kypro 3y ago
[flagged]

cowl 3y ago

what kind of question is that? what user does not care that the OS is not respecting his choice of Browser? It greatly impacts the daily work. You are logged in into services in your browser of choice, you have autofills in your default browser, you have your preferences (language, cookie settings etc) set in your default browser and just because a link is opened from somewhere inside windows you find yourself in another browser where you are not logged in in your services, you don't have saved passwords, you don't have bookmarks or the extensions you use etc, so you have to copy the URL and paste into your browser. Are you telling me you really don't care about this disruption that happens tens of times per day or just that you are not impacted and so noone else should care?