3 ms·

Regulators don't have a monopoly, they only have control over their own countries. For example, you don't like Apple so you leave and join Google's platform.

Regulators don't have a monopoly, they only have control over their own countries. For example, you don't like Apple so you leave and join Google's platform. Regulation is the same, you don't like the EU so you leave to the US. Moreover, DMA does exactly what you say. It keeps competition free. It protects startups from "regulation" by the platforms they sell on.

nickpp 3y ago
Changing your country is kinda harder than changing your phone. The competition was free. Now startups have regulation to contend with. This logically results fewer startups. You can plainly see that too, comparing the EU startup scene with the US one. Just take a look at all the European platforms the DMA is regulating: ...?
- arlcode 3y ago
  Fundamentally the DMA only applies to companies with revenue in the billions and at least 45 million end users (or 10k business users) in the EU. Startups have lots of room to grow before they hit those limits. (Whether other regulations are perhaps overly restrictive doesn't matter for the discussion at hand)
  - nickpp 3y ago
    But startups are created with big dreams. Almost zero chance of success, of course, but that is the nature of the startup founder. When those dreams are illegal, startups don't get created and the founders simply choose to get a cushy job at some FAANG. Just compare how few talented people in EU choose to build startups instead of working for the bureaucracy. The more regulation we have, the more founders-to-be say "why bother?!"
- nulld3v 3y ago
  I would argue changing the app store you sell on is much more difficult than changing your company's HQ. If you are a mobile-first company and you ditch the Apple App Store, you lose 40% of your revenue right there. There is no alternative to getting that revenue back. If you move your company's HQ you could lose a substantial portion of your staff, but you could also have them work remote. Or you can keep your engineering team in the EU and do other everything else elsewhere. There are lots of choices. Regulation plays a factor in the amount of startups in a country but it isn't the only factor and I would argue it is not even the biggest factor. There are plenty of countries out there that have about as much regulation as the US yet much fewer startups. And regulation isn't a black-and-white thing either. There are many cases where regulation would hurt startups (e.g. GDPR) and many cases where regulation basically exclusively targets larger companies (e.g. DMA).

nickpp 3y ago

Changing your country is kinda harder than changing your phone. The competition was free. Now startups have regulation to contend with. This logically results fewer startups. You can plainly see that too, comparing the EU startup scene with the US one. Just take a look at all the European platforms the DMA is regulating: ...?

arlcode 3y ago
Fundamentally the DMA only applies to companies with revenue in the billions and at least 45 million end users (or 10k business users) in the EU. Startups have lots of room to grow before they hit those limits. (Whether other regulations are perhaps overly restrictive doesn't matter for the discussion at hand)
- nickpp 3y ago
  But startups are created with big dreams. Almost zero chance of success, of course, but that is the nature of the startup founder. When those dreams are illegal, startups don't get created and the founders simply choose to get a cushy job at some FAANG. Just compare how few talented people in EU choose to build startups instead of working for the bureaucracy. The more regulation we have, the more founders-to-be say "why bother?!"
nulld3v 3y ago
I would argue changing the app store you sell on is much more difficult than changing your company's HQ. If you are a mobile-first company and you ditch the Apple App Store, you lose 40% of your revenue right there. There is no alternative to getting that revenue back. If you move your company's HQ you could lose a substantial portion of your staff, but you could also have them work remote. Or you can keep your engineering team in the EU and do other everything else elsewhere. There are lots of choices. Regulation plays a factor in the amount of startups in a country but it isn't the only factor and I would argue it is not even the biggest factor. There are plenty of countries out there that have about as much regulation as the US yet much fewer startups. And regulation isn't a black-and-white thing either. There are many cases where regulation would hurt startups (e.g. GDPR) and many cases where regulation basically exclusively targets larger companies (e.g. DMA).