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This is only phase one; the citizens of Europe must now petition their own countries to implement great "Right to Repair" laws. Important economic fact: If onl

by jll29 2y ago

This is only phase one; the citizens of Europe must now petition their own countries to implement great "Right to Repair" laws. Important economic fact: If only one single European country (with sufficient population) implements a rather strict right to repair law, then likely all manufacturers in all countries will need to adhere to it, since tech companies don't like to have to build multiple product variants (per country), but much rather just have a single "EU" product that gets sold into the 300 million head European single market. So this country-level lobbying in the next phase is really important and can be a game change for the environment.

incognito124 2y ago
A more probable outcome of a single country doing that is that new products won't be available there
- BehindBlueEyes 2y ago
  They said that websites would stop operating in Europe if GDPR got through and guess what, instead they built privacy teams to be compliant and applied the stricter privacy rules more globally. It's all empty threats.
- watwut 2y ago
  That is super improbable in case of big countries.
- Etheryte 2y ago
  Companies like to pretend like that's one possible outcome, but realistically that's never gonna happen. Can you imagine what a field day Samsung would have if Apple suddenly announced they're not gonna sell phones to Germany or w/e anymore?
  - pembrook 2y ago
    Not Germany, France, etc. But I absolutely can imagine them not re-working their entire product line for any of the smaller countries (baltics, balkans, Nordics, Eastern Europe, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, etc). And for hardware startups? Forget about it. It’s already a nightmare to sell physical products throughout Europe given the intra-country shipping costs, multi-lingual requirements, and patchwork of localized distribution partners. You can expand to Europe once you’re big enough to deal with all the localization/regulation. It’s funny, HN used to be a community of startup founders but nowadays you’ll see near-zero thought given toward startups in any discussions on HN. This is now a community of big tech worker bees who are hostile toward big tech companies, but who ironically support legal movements that entrench big tech.
    - theodric 2y ago
      And that isn't just some remote possibility, it's a likely outcome, because it's already a crapshoot with hardware/service availability across Europe. It was the case that for many years - might still be? - you couldn't buy Pixel phones in the Netherlands, which is how I ended up with a secondhand Verizon unit with a locked bootloader. In Switzerland, Digitec/Galaxus grey-markets many products which are otherwise not offered there. Last I checked, you still can't buy a Steam Deck in Switzerland. And none of that is because of additional pressure from onerous laws.
      - Jnr 2y ago
        Switzerland is not in the EU. It is not part of the common market. They can not cut out Baltics, Netherlands, Sweden or any other members of the single market if they want to sell in any of the EU countries. That is the strength of the EU.
        theodric 2y ago
        I'm sorry to disagree so bluntly, but: you are incorrect; they did, and they still do cut whole subregions out. Example: Google has a Google (web)Store in 17 European countries [1] (including the UK and Switzerland), thus 15 of 27 EU countries, and that number does not include the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania. You can buy a Pixel in NL today, but you couldn't in 2019, even though Google had a web store there, because they didn't offer the product line in NL. I don't live in NL anymore, so I can't tell you what still isn't available there, but manufacturers refusing to bother with minority countries or languages (Dutch: "only" 24 million speakers in Europe) is and will continue to be a factor that prevents products from being localized and therefore offered in certain markets, European single market or not. Estonia has a population of ~1.3 million, so I can't imagine it's at the top of Google's priority list. [1] https://store.google.com/regionpicker https://store.google.com/regionpicker
    - Jnr 2y ago
      Then it is good that they can not do it by law. If they are selling products in other EU countries, especially digitally, they have to sell and ship it all across all EU.
jajko 2y ago
More like 450 million, much bigger market than US for example. Plus even non-members cca adhere to most rules, sometimes make them much tougher (ie Switzerland). Britain may be soon an exception, ie US food lobby right to government got very strong right after Brexit, I guess HFCS or GMOs needs more markets to sell. Not all of it it as rich as average US, but overall manufacturers can't ignore us.
AndyMcConachie 2y ago
I saw a similar thing happen with ROHS and WEE. I was working for a hardware manufacturer when ROHS was implemented in the EU and we suddenly had to change all of our hardware to be ROHS compliant. Because why maintain two manufacturing lines? Either we stop selling in the EU or we make all of our hardware ROHS compliant. I suspect it really matters how big the market is that implements the regulation. The finance people come in and ask; Is it better to ignore this market or change our supply chain?

by jll29 2y ago

incognito124 2y ago

A more probable outcome of a single country doing that is that new products won't be available there

BehindBlueEyes 2y ago
They said that websites would stop operating in Europe if GDPR got through and guess what, instead they built privacy teams to be compliant and applied the stricter privacy rules more globally. It's all empty threats.
watwut 2y ago
That is super improbable in case of big countries.
Etheryte 2y ago
Companies like to pretend like that's one possible outcome, but realistically that's never gonna happen. Can you imagine what a field day Samsung would have if Apple suddenly announced they're not gonna sell phones to Germany or w/e anymore?
- pembrook 2y ago
  Not Germany, France, etc. But I absolutely can imagine them not re-working their entire product line for any of the smaller countries (baltics, balkans, Nordics, Eastern Europe, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, etc). And for hardware startups? Forget about it. It’s already a nightmare to sell physical products throughout Europe given the intra-country shipping costs, multi-lingual requirements, and patchwork of localized distribution partners. You can expand to Europe once you’re big enough to deal with all the localization/regulation. It’s funny, HN used to be a community of startup founders but nowadays you’ll see near-zero thought given toward startups in any discussions on HN. This is now a community of big tech worker bees who are hostile toward big tech companies, but who ironically support legal movements that entrench big tech.
  - theodric 2y ago
    And that isn't just some remote possibility, it's a likely outcome, because it's already a crapshoot with hardware/service availability across Europe. It was the case that for many years - might still be? - you couldn't buy Pixel phones in the Netherlands, which is how I ended up with a secondhand Verizon unit with a locked bootloader. In Switzerland, Digitec/Galaxus grey-markets many products which are otherwise not offered there. Last I checked, you still can't buy a Steam Deck in Switzerland. And none of that is because of additional pressure from onerous laws.
    - Jnr 2y ago
      Switzerland is not in the EU. It is not part of the common market. They can not cut out Baltics, Netherlands, Sweden or any other members of the single market if they want to sell in any of the EU countries. That is the strength of the EU.
      - theodric 2y ago
        I'm sorry to disagree so bluntly, but: you are incorrect; they did, and they still do cut whole subregions out. Example: Google has a Google (web)Store in 17 European countries [1] (including the UK and Switzerland), thus 15 of 27 EU countries, and that number does not include the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania. You can buy a Pixel in NL today, but you couldn't in 2019, even though Google had a web store there, because they didn't offer the product line in NL. I don't live in NL anymore, so I can't tell you what still isn't available there, but manufacturers refusing to bother with minority countries or languages (Dutch: "only" 24 million speakers in Europe) is and will continue to be a factor that prevents products from being localized and therefore offered in certain markets, European single market or not. Estonia has a population of ~1.3 million, so I can't imagine it's at the top of Google's priority list. [1] https://store.google.com/regionpicker https://store.google.com/regionpicker
  - Jnr 2y ago
    Then it is good that they can not do it by law. If they are selling products in other EU countries, especially digitally, they have to sell and ship it all across all EU.

jajko 2y ago

More like 450 million, much bigger market than US for example. Plus even non-members cca adhere to most rules, sometimes make them much tougher (ie Switzerland). Britain may be soon an exception, ie US food lobby right to government got very strong right after Brexit, I guess HFCS or GMOs needs more markets to sell. Not all of it it as rich as average US, but overall manufacturers can't ignore us.

AndyMcConachie 2y ago

I saw a similar thing happen with ROHS and WEE. I was working for a hardware manufacturer when ROHS was implemented in the EU and we suddenly had to change all of our hardware to be ROHS compliant. Because why maintain two manufacturing lines? Either we stop selling in the EU or we make all of our hardware ROHS compliant. I suspect it really matters how big the market is that implements the regulation. The finance people come in and ask; Is it better to ignore this market or change our supply chain?