9 ms·
Apple should play their Trump card and threaten to pull out of the EU. The EU would blink first because the public backlash would be career ending.
by kernal 2y ago
Apple should play their Trump card and threaten to pull out of the EU. The EU would blink first because the public backlash would be career ending.
- viraptor 2y agoRight, get rid of their 2nd largest market, at size ~⅔ of the US one. Yes, that will definitely show the EU who's the boss. /s
- yard2010 2y agoBut what if they will though? Won't china happily replace the EU market? It's much bigger too and Winnie the Pooh doesn't care about ppl privacy that much
- refactor_master 2y agoI think it’s much more likely that China sees this as “Apple refuses to bend to local laws”, and in turn kick them out. Remember, China has its own online universe and Apple is just desperately trying to be part of it. https://www.mobileworldlive.com/apple/china-forces-apple-to-remove-whatsapp-threads/ https://www.mobileworldlive.com/apple/china-forces-apple-to-...
- Hamuko 2y agoApple is losing market share in China and iPhone shipments are down almost 20%. What bold strategy is going to make Chinese sales make up for the entirety of the European Union? https://www.reuters.com/technology/apples-q1-phone-sales-china-fall-191-huaweis-up-70-2024-04-23/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/apples-q1-phone-sales-chi...
- forgetfreeman 2y agoThis assumes Apple has something to offer the Chinese market that it incumbents aren't already providing. I'm skeptical.
- olalonde 2y agoThe iPhone is already the best selling phone in China...
- forgetfreeman 2y agoYeah? Where's it manufactured?
- olalonde 2y agoMostly in Shenzhen, why?
- forgetfreeman 2y agoNo reason, just asking.
- retor 2y agoIsn’t Apple already in China? There must be a reason why they are not selling much there already, but perhaps they could dump prices and increase marketing. Although China and US is in a trade war right now, so prices are more likely to increase as China increase import taxes to balance ones the US has put on imports from China.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoChina already is, although it's Chinese manufactured goods (including iPhones) moreso than Chinese developed electronics. The US based companies don't care about people's privacy that much either, which is why we have privacy protecting laws in place. Also, there's yet to be evidence that China is doing mass surveillance through electronics or tiktok or whatever; a lot of it sounds like unsubstantiated fearmongering. Don't get me wrong, I don't trust them either, but I don't trust the US either, and there's evidence of their mass surveillance thanks to whistleblowers like Snowden. Or in other words, the US cannot claim the moral high ground when it comes to privacy and surveillance; most privacy-focused EU laws like the GDPR can be traced directly back to US companies taking liberties.
- servus45678981 2y agoYou underestimate the European Market. All safe systems are from Europe
- redeeman 2y agoyou seriously think the people of EU will accept policies that makes apple leave? the government will lose. People must have their retarded icrap and facebook, its the sedation the governments need to do all the crap they do. take their facebook away and they will dissolve the governments in 1 second
- viraptor 2y agoNo, I'm saying Apple will not quit the market, because Europe provides too large portion of its revenue. None of the FAANG level companies will quit. Not only that, given the fun of the Brussels effect, in a while the US market will get similar benefits to the EU rules. (After Apple gets tired of acting grumpy and announces it as a positive thing, like they did with RCS)
- theyinwhy 2y agoSo Apple preferring to reduce profit instead of complying to law? It will definitely be seen as a very bold move.
- zarzavat 2y agoApple shareholders have faster trigger fingers. Tim Cook would get fired before the EU population even realized what was up.
- servus45678981 2y agoNot the population, but the commission would definitely notice
- servus45678981 2y agoNo it wouldn‘t. Instead European Brands like Nokia, Fairphone, Gigaset and Nothing would grow.iMessage and other Apple specific services are not really popular, even if the iPhone sells good.
- mrweasel 2y agoThis comes up everything the EU/Europe and Apple comes up: iMessage is hugely popular, it is just not the most popular (or even third or second) messaging platform. Also the largest is Facebook Messenge, and in the top five is another Meta product, WhatsApp. So it's not like it's all Signal, Viper or Telegram, it's mostly platforms from another US tech giant.
- Hamuko 2y agoIs iMessage actually popular or is it just "popular" because it automatically takes over if you try to send an SMS to a person with an iPhone?
- mrweasel 2y ago> takes over if you try to send an SMS to a person with an iPhone? That's a huge part of it. Finding good stats is hard, but take Denmark and Sweden, it more likely that not that the person you're messaging also have an iPhone. Still most countries, from the statistics I've seem, have around 20 - 33% iMessage usage. Sure some of these people also have Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp, but 30% is still a massive number. The thing Apple has going for it is that people can't switch, or they can, but the alternative is SMS. Some seem to think that if iMessage goes away, people will just switch to WhatsApp or Signal. NO, they'll fallback to SMS/MMS.
- Kwpolska 2y ago> Some seem to think that if iMessage goes away, people will just switch to WhatsApp or Signal. NO, they'll fallback to SMS/MMS. In the US? Maybe. In Europe, where many people have Android phones and iPhone users need WhatsApp/Messenger anyway? I doubt it.
- MrDresden 2y agoYou are taking the side of a 3 trillion dollor consumer goods company's bottom line, rather than 500 million people's right to choice and privacy. You do realise that, don't you?
- kernal 2y agoNo, I'm taking the side of sanity over an overly bureaucratic union that requires all its websites to show cookie banners.
- growse 2y agoWhere does the EU require websites to show cookie banners?
- drivebyhooting 2y ago[flagged]
- raverbashing 2y ago> And the side of American prosperity and hegemony. An argument that was often used to justify things like no limit to working hours, no worker's rights, etc
- subroutine 2y agoPffft. Maybe the EU would have some big tech companies of their own if they didn't take entire summers off work.
- ben_w 2y agoThe EU makes a reasonable number of tech companies (though these days, is there really a distinction between tech and non-tech?), they just keep getting bought out.
- ben_w 2y ago
- harry_ord 2y agoCareer ending for who? People barely know who works in the EU apart from the council president
- SXX 2y agoYeah sure. Apple continue presence in Russia, paying fines and taxes there and comply with every murderous dictatorship demand. Like censoring political apps 2 years into full scale war. Yet they'll pull out of EU. Sure.
- pjerem 2y agoAlso, Apple feels less brave when it comes to China.
- yxhuvud 2y agoWhat? No, that is laughable. What would be career ending would be the massive reduction of income within Apple. That would end careers, and quickly change enough minds that they would change policies.
- yard2010 2y agoExcuse me for my nativity but can't they just buy back a trillion more stocks or something, keeping the stock price where it is no matter what? I don't think something can really hurt your income when you have that much money.
- tasuki 2y ago> Excuse me for my nativity but can't they just buy back a trillion more stocks or something, keeping the stock price where it is no matter what? Stock buybacks are net neutral wrt the company's value. They're just one of the ways to return money to stock holders. It's not a magical perpetuum mobile kind of thing. > I don't think something can really hurt your income when you have that much money. Of course many things can hurt your income no matter how much money you have. The only entities whose income can't be hurt are the ones who don't have any!
- bitpush 2y agoApple's cash reserves are not infinite. And any desperate attempt to "hold up" the price will be punished by the market. This is very different from usual $15B stock buyback, which you can explain but try doing it with $200B and you are seriously weakening the company.
- freetanga 2y agoThe executives role is to increase share price and Company evaluation for shareholders. If all you can do is sit on a pile of cash without any good ideas on how to turn that cash into larger profits, or you just burn it to buy stock back or give dividends, it is a way of saying “I have no vision for the future of this company, I don’t know what else we can do, we will not continue to grow aggressively, so might as well take the cash dear shareholder” Not a great move in front of the board. Done marginally is fine, sends a “we made more that we can use” cocky statement. Doing it massively to keep stock afloat, means you are out.
- riffraff 2y agoThe EU commission and EU parliament are somewhat removed from public backlash, it's one of the reasons people complain about the EU being "undemocratic". So the commission or random EU MEP would be affected after 5 years or so. Tim Cook would get backlash from stockholders the moment he announced he wanted to stop getting EU revenue rather than comply with regulations.
- Kwpolska 2y agoThere's an EU parliament election in a few weeks or so, how is that undemocratic?
- pjerem 2y agoThe EU Parliament can’t make decisions, it can only veto the commission which acts as an unelected government (nominated by elected representatives of each country). But I agree with you that this idea of an undemocratic EU is rather false and really dangerous. Everyone feels like this because nobody understands that the commission don’t represent the interests of their country but those of all the European countries which few people are capable of naming years after school.
- hulitu 2y ago> The EU Parliament can’t make decisions, So it has no power > that this idea of an undemocratic EU is rather false and really dangerous Of course it is false and dangerous. Any disturbance in lobby money, flowing to the corrupt, unelected politicians, is false and dangerous. /s
- malermeister 2y agoThe Comission is appointed by directly elected governments, e.g. with one proxy in-between. It is as (un-) democratic as the American Presidency, considering the Electoral College. Yet you never hear complaints about the EC from the same types that love to rally against the Commission.
- 2y ago
- mrweasel 2y agoThey can't, Apple management have a responsibility to its shareholders and pull out of the EU or even threatening to do so would hurt the stock price. Also imaging the marketing spin you'd have to create: No no, we can't do business in the EU do to it's consumer protection laws. China is fine, they just execute or forcefully re-educate people, much easier people to do business with.
- nl 2y ago> They can't, Apple management have a responsibility to its shareholders and pull out of the EU or even threatening to do so would hurt the stock price. This isn't how "responsibility to its shareholders" works. While it's true activist shareholders often launch lawsuits over issues they don't like in the US, they are rarely successful and more often looking for a settlement involving a secondary, less significant issue. US Courts have repeatedly given a large amount of freedom to management to do whatever they want in terms of "delivering shareholder value". They allow management so consider long term goals against next quarter (as they should). Additionally there's an excellent precedent for this: Google withdrawing from the Chinese market. There are other precedents for threats like this: Both Facebook and Google threatened to withdraw from Australia in various forms during negotiations over payments for news. (Not arguing this is a good idea, just that it's completely within the realm of what Apple could do).
- portaouflop 2y agoAnything is in the realm of possibilities. Apple could shut down all of their business tomorrow - just because it’s possible it’s still extremely unlikely. Apple will 100% never turn its back on the EU and I’m willing to take any bet on that.
- nl 2y agoSure. I'm certainly not arguing against that - just the limited point where the OP is misunderstanding what "responsibility to its shareholders" actually means under law and in practice.
- 2y ago
- wiseowise 2y agoWe have at least 10k worth of Apple hardware at home I fucking dare them to do it.
- McDyver 2y agoThat would be a net win for Europe, European citizens and companies. As soon as Apple/Meta/Google/... sulk and leave, other companies would find the space to grow and fill that space with similar products which would respect the users. Users outside of Europe would realise it's possible to have those kinds of products without abusive practices, and would start demanding Apple/Meta/Google/... for the same.
- pjerem 2y agoI don’t think we need the GAFAM to leave to obtain this situation, strong and meaningful regulation (like the DMA) should be enough to make room for sane competition. Also, the EU is really smart here because they are not doing protectionism. So if GAFAM decides to leave, they’ll take the risk of new competitors which would have no reason to be banned from the US market.
- simion314 2y agoHow Apple would justify the big financial hit? The evil EU forces us to give our customer choices, this will hit our profits so we derided we should lose even more money by just not participating in the market. Though I REALLY want to find an Apple fanboy defending the policy where Apple does not allow an app to display some text like "if you buy or extend this subscription on our website it is cheaper, you have a choice dear Apple user". Informing Apple users is not allowed by Apple.
- martimarkov 2y agoAs a fanboy what I want to see is not this message because this means fragmentation. I’d like to be able to manage my subscriptions from the settings menu. Honestly the most important part I feel DMA should have tackled and not just forced stuff on big tech. Yeah they are gatekeepers but they also provide value as gatekeepers. Force everyone to use an API for subscriptions management and if they don’t participate allow me to chargeback and not have any legal repercussions and I would NEVER have a problem with any alternative stores. Also don’t want apps which are saying: visit this to get cheaper rates or completely not offer me to buy in-app as it is a waste of time to go their random website power by Y platform. You establish this go to website to subscribe and it will increase overall fraud. These are my problems with the above. Very easily solved I think but I’m just worried that every greedy developer will try to get every single % they can (same as Apple) and I don’t believe this will create a “safer” world.
- simion314 2y agoNobody forces you do not use the Apple Store, Apple Pay, Apple Music, Apple Siri Competition COULD make Siri improve, competition could make the Store better etc. You did not told me why you reading the text "if you buy your subscription from our website cheaper" is harming you? Are you having trouble with extra usefull information, I am not aware of this health issue.
- martimarkov 2y agoNo, the problem is I’m sharing my card data with a randomly company on the internet. I trust Apple and I want to be protected by their platform and to be able to easily cancel and not go into dark patterns where I need to call someone. We all know that if this is an option and developers are greedy (which they are as humans) then they will do everything they can to push ppl to the payment gateway with least fees regardless of the customer’s privacy or security. The text on its own is fine but it also increases the attack vector for most people.
- bborud 2y agoI don't think downvoting this is very useful. You may agree or disagree with the statement, but raising the point provides an opportunity to investigate and discuss it. I don't think Apple can and will exit the EU since it would upset the shareholders. Also, if Apple does, it just creates a vacuum that will be filled by other tech companies. Tech companies that can then come after Apple in the markets where they are still present. It is also likely that other countries and trading blocks will make similar demands, at which point Apple will either have to comply or shrink further.
- surgical_fire 2y ago> Apple should play their Trump card and threaten to pull out of the EU. The EU would blink first because the public backlash would be career ending. I want this to happen so much. And I want it to be binding, that Apple cannot back down from that threat afterwards.
- bee_rider 2y agoThey could. I think it would be a capital-t Trump card; a spiteful move, wrapped up in the pretext of business acumen, the type of strategic thinking that could bankrupt a casino.
- dmz73 2y ago100% agree, Apple should play their Trump card and end up in the positions where Trump is now, sued for their user hostile and ant-competitive practices. And if Apple does pull out of EU and let their competitors roam free in a market of 400 mil people, what could possibly go wrong for Apple?