5 ms·

The fine should be a deterrent. If the fine is too low, it’s just absorbed as a “cost of doing business” and ceases to be a deterrent.

by dartos 2y ago

gruez 2y ago
>The fine should be a deterrent. That's a reasonable position to hold, but crappy comparisons like in the OP doesn't contribute little to the discussion. The fine might be tiny part of worldwide revenue, but how much money are they making off apple cards? If that's tiny as well then the argument is moot.
- dartos 2y ago
  > The fine might be tiny part of worldwide revenue, but how much money are they making off apple cards? If that's tiny as well then the argument is moot. I disagree. I don’t think the fine should be relative to money gained by breaking a rule. Then it’s not a deterrent for large companies. You end up in a situation where very large companies can act in illegal ways and just absorb the fine. A company doing anything worth fining should be fined relative to the size of that company (by some metric)
  - gruez 2y ago
    So going back to the Liechtenstein example, if Apple did a bad there what would be the appropriate punishment? Based on what you're saying you'd want them to be fined a significant portion of their worldwide revenue, which seems absurd. It would basically deprive people living in small countries access to products from multinational companies, because nobody would want to risk 5% (or whatever) of their worldwide revenue to get 1% more market share.
    - dartos 2y ago
      > It would basically deprive people living in small countries access to products from multinational companies, because nobody would want to risk 5% (or whatever) of their worldwide revenue to get 1% more market share. Sorry, I’m not sure I follow. How would selling products to smaller countries automatically incur fines for illegal activity?
      - StackRanker3000 2y ago
        I don’t think anyone’s saying it would be automatic. But the risk of running afoul of laws and regulations is non-zero, and if the penalties are too steep, then it may be a wiser choice to stay out of small markets entirely.
        dartos 2y ago
        > But the risk of running afoul of laws and regulations is non-zero, So the solution is to make breaking laws not truly punished? Seems like companies should be damn sure they’re not breaking laws… Of course not every fine needs to put the company in danger of bankruptcy. Fines could start relatively small and grow quickly and exponentially with repeated offenses. But they should act as a real deterrent.
      - gruez 2y ago
        Apple wants to operate in Liechtenstein. Under your proposed regime of a "deterrent", that would put them at risk of fines worth 5% (or whatever) of their global revenue. Of course, they're not going to intentionally break laws, but shit happens and despite their best efforts they might still get fined. Faced with that prospect, they go "nah" and stay out of the market entirely, because the extra 0.1% profit is massively outweighed by the potential 5% revenue in fines. All 40k Liechtensteiners are worse off as a result. This isn't a hypothetical. It's happening in EU right now, as Apple doesn't want to deal with the legal headaches associated with Apple Intelligence and therefore opts out of the EU market entirely.
        dartos 2y ago
        > Of course, they're not going to intentionally break laws I wish I lived in your world. > but shit happens and despite their best efforts they might still get fined. You’re telling me that it’s okay that laws are sometimes broken with no real consequence because the company in question may mistakenly break laws? Yikes… > Under your proposed regime of a "deterrent", that would put them at risk of fines worth 5% (or whatever) of their global revenue I don’t know if revenue is the exact metric to use to making a deterring fine. It very well may not be. But the fine should act as some real deterrent > All 40k Liechtensteiners are worse off as a result. This isn't a hypothetical. It's happening in EU right now, as Apple doesn't want to deal with the legal headaches associated with Apple Intelligence and therefore opts out of the EU market entirely. This is a very complex topic and I don’t feel well equipped to discuss it with any real nuance. But here I go anyway… I’m not convinced that not having access to Apple intelligence makes a country worse off. Not all countries need to be supported by a large corporation. That’s not strictly a good thing. If they (the EU) wanted that, they’d lax their regulations…
  - refurb 2y ago
    This still makes no sense. If a company with $1B in revenue, rolls something out to make $10M, then anything over $10M is suitable punishment - you turned a profitable venture into a money losing venture.
    - dartos 2y ago
      Yeah that works fine if the company in question is $1B. $10M is 1% of that company. That’s a deterrent. But if that company was $1T then that fine is effectively the cost of legal research. It won’t deter that company from trying to weasel their way around regulations in the future as the cost of trying justifies the potential upside.
      - refurb 2y ago
        I disagree. It doesn’t matter if it’s a $1T company, the fine effectively turned their profitable decision into a loss. That seems like a reasonable approach. By your logic, if a company is running at a loss should the fine be negative?
        dartos 2y ago
        > It doesn’t matter if it’s a $1T company, the fine effectively turned their profitable decision into a loss. Sure, but I don’t think just causing any amount of loss acts as a deterrent. Especially if the company is large enough to absorb the loss with no real consequences. > By your logic, if a company is running at a loss should the fine be negative? No, that’s a dumb question. A negative fine isn’t a fine and isn’t a deterrent… I don’t know what metric one should use to determine how to make a fine a deterrent. Maybe market cap? But the point of a fine is to be a deterrent.
        refurb 2y ago
        > But the point of a fine is to be a deterrent. Is it? Or is it purely to make the action a net negative?
- eric_h 2y ago
  The tight integration of the Apple Card with their hardware also means it makes their hardware (iPhones) better. They can lose money on the Apple Card and make money if it means some people like the integration enough to buy into the iPhone ecosystem (sign up for an Apple Card and get an interest free loan to buy an iPhone? I can see that getting new customers)
BobAliceInATree 2y ago
The total fine is ~3x the apparent consumer loss, which seems reasonable.
- dartos 2y ago
  If you expect the fine to be more legal retribution for consumer loss, sure. I’d like to live in a world where fines are deterrents, though.

The fine should be a deterrent. If the fine is too low, it’s just absorbed as a “cost of doing business” and ceases to be a deterrent.

by dartos 2y ago

The fine should be a deterrent. If the fine is too low, it’s just absorbed as a “cost of doing business” and ceases to be a deterrent.

gruez 2y ago

>The fine should be a deterrent. That's a reasonable position to hold, but crappy comparisons like in the OP doesn't contribute little to the discussion. The fine might be tiny part of worldwide revenue, but how much money are they making off apple cards? If that's tiny as well then the argument is moot.

dartos 2y ago
> The fine might be tiny part of worldwide revenue, but how much money are they making off apple cards? If that's tiny as well then the argument is moot. I disagree. I don’t think the fine should be relative to money gained by breaking a rule. Then it’s not a deterrent for large companies. You end up in a situation where very large companies can act in illegal ways and just absorb the fine. A company doing anything worth fining should be fined relative to the size of that company (by some metric)
- gruez 2y ago
  So going back to the Liechtenstein example, if Apple did a bad there what would be the appropriate punishment? Based on what you're saying you'd want them to be fined a significant portion of their worldwide revenue, which seems absurd. It would basically deprive people living in small countries access to products from multinational companies, because nobody would want to risk 5% (or whatever) of their worldwide revenue to get 1% more market share.
  - dartos 2y ago
    > It would basically deprive people living in small countries access to products from multinational companies, because nobody would want to risk 5% (or whatever) of their worldwide revenue to get 1% more market share. Sorry, I’m not sure I follow. How would selling products to smaller countries automatically incur fines for illegal activity?
    - StackRanker3000 2y ago
      I don’t think anyone’s saying it would be automatic. But the risk of running afoul of laws and regulations is non-zero, and if the penalties are too steep, then it may be a wiser choice to stay out of small markets entirely.
      - dartos 2y ago
        > But the risk of running afoul of laws and regulations is non-zero, So the solution is to make breaking laws not truly punished? Seems like companies should be damn sure they’re not breaking laws… Of course not every fine needs to put the company in danger of bankruptcy. Fines could start relatively small and grow quickly and exponentially with repeated offenses. But they should act as a real deterrent.
    - gruez 2y ago
      Apple wants to operate in Liechtenstein. Under your proposed regime of a "deterrent", that would put them at risk of fines worth 5% (or whatever) of their global revenue. Of course, they're not going to intentionally break laws, but shit happens and despite their best efforts they might still get fined. Faced with that prospect, they go "nah" and stay out of the market entirely, because the extra 0.1% profit is massively outweighed by the potential 5% revenue in fines. All 40k Liechtensteiners are worse off as a result. This isn't a hypothetical. It's happening in EU right now, as Apple doesn't want to deal with the legal headaches associated with Apple Intelligence and therefore opts out of the EU market entirely.
      - dartos 2y ago
        > Of course, they're not going to intentionally break laws I wish I lived in your world. > but shit happens and despite their best efforts they might still get fined. You’re telling me that it’s okay that laws are sometimes broken with no real consequence because the company in question may mistakenly break laws? Yikes… > Under your proposed regime of a "deterrent", that would put them at risk of fines worth 5% (or whatever) of their global revenue I don’t know if revenue is the exact metric to use to making a deterring fine. It very well may not be. But the fine should act as some real deterrent > All 40k Liechtensteiners are worse off as a result. This isn't a hypothetical. It's happening in EU right now, as Apple doesn't want to deal with the legal headaches associated with Apple Intelligence and therefore opts out of the EU market entirely. This is a very complex topic and I don’t feel well equipped to discuss it with any real nuance. But here I go anyway… I’m not convinced that not having access to Apple intelligence makes a country worse off. Not all countries need to be supported by a large corporation. That’s not strictly a good thing. If they (the EU) wanted that, they’d lax their regulations…
- refurb 2y ago
  This still makes no sense. If a company with $1B in revenue, rolls something out to make $10M, then anything over $10M is suitable punishment - you turned a profitable venture into a money losing venture.
  - dartos 2y ago
    Yeah that works fine if the company in question is $1B. $10M is 1% of that company. That’s a deterrent. But if that company was $1T then that fine is effectively the cost of legal research. It won’t deter that company from trying to weasel their way around regulations in the future as the cost of trying justifies the potential upside.
    - refurb 2y ago
      I disagree. It doesn’t matter if it’s a $1T company, the fine effectively turned their profitable decision into a loss. That seems like a reasonable approach. By your logic, if a company is running at a loss should the fine be negative?
      - dartos 2y ago
        > It doesn’t matter if it’s a $1T company, the fine effectively turned their profitable decision into a loss. Sure, but I don’t think just causing any amount of loss acts as a deterrent. Especially if the company is large enough to absorb the loss with no real consequences. > By your logic, if a company is running at a loss should the fine be negative? No, that’s a dumb question. A negative fine isn’t a fine and isn’t a deterrent… I don’t know what metric one should use to determine how to make a fine a deterrent. Maybe market cap? But the point of a fine is to be a deterrent.
        refurb 2y ago
        > But the point of a fine is to be a deterrent. Is it? Or is it purely to make the action a net negative?
eric_h 2y ago
The tight integration of the Apple Card with their hardware also means it makes their hardware (iPhones) better. They can lose money on the Apple Card and make money if it means some people like the integration enough to buy into the iPhone ecosystem (sign up for an Apple Card and get an interest free loan to buy an iPhone? I can see that getting new customers)

BobAliceInATree 2y ago

The total fine is ~3x the apparent consumer loss, which seems reasonable.

dartos 2y ago
If you expect the fine to be more legal retribution for consumer loss, sure. I’d like to live in a world where fines are deterrents, though.