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Y Combinator urges the White House to support Europe's Digital Markets Act
- dmitrygr 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- 9283409232 2y agoI don't see this happening although I would have a beer belly laugh if all of these tech oligarchs got on their knees just for Trump to piss on their heads.
- yapyap 2y agoThat would be pretty sweet
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- drivingmenuts 2y agoSupposedly, he's not into watersports. Given his temperament, his attitude toward SiliValley CEOs could change in the next 5 minutes, then go another direction 5 minutes later. We are not dealing with a stable individual here. The only predictable trait he has is vindictiveness.
- Calvin02 2y ago[flagged]
- chmod775 2y agoWhat's wrong with "cherry-picking" things you like, and supporting those? Honestly the more I think about your comment, the less I can make sense of it. You are talking about their support of the DMA as "cherry-picking", right?
- crowbahr 2y agoIt's a lot easier cognitively to just choose a side than it is to have nuanced opinions
- compootr 2y agoeverything's so partisan and not nuanced today - tons of people go with the idea "the [political party] are 10,000% correct, and nothing you say can make me think otherwise!! i don't like any one party or group unconditionally. while I have a leaning, nuanced opinions on issues can be a good thing :)
- DecentShoes 2y agoHow does this make sense? Cherry picking things you agree with is exactly what you should do. Based on reason and evidence.
- callc 2y ago> The DMA designates six tech companies as “gatekeepers” to the internet — Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, and Microsoft — and limits these technology kingpins from engaging in anticompetitive tactics on their platforms, in favor of interoperability. DMA seems like a no-brainer for those that support users’ freedom. Since DMA came into effect almost two years ago, can anyone comment on its effectiveness? Side note, I’m glad the EU takes normal people’s rights seriously. Wish the US was a leader on this too.
- nodoll 2y agoI don't like they are designated as "gatekeepers".
- walterbell 2y agoDo you ________ take this immortal corporation ________ to be your lawful internet Gatekeeper?
- nativeit 2y agoI object to this foul, tainted union. The children will have crossed toes and webbed eyes. God expressly forbids this in Romans: “Yea, unto thee I say, no man shall lay with an algorithmically-endowed data sucking Beast With A Billion Bucks as they would with a woman…shit, or with a guy, it’s 2025–evangelicals are off the rails, political leaders are depriving a suffering majority of life saving services while propping up a gilded minority, all manner of unsavory acts are being committed in My name, frankly I think it’s well past time I gave Adam and Steve my official blessing. You do you, as long as it’s all love, go with Me, God” (paraphrasing a bit at the end there) Anyway, what was this originally about? Armageddon?
- s1artibartfast 2y agoWhy? the designation comes with obligations, but Im not aware that it confers any benefits.
- margalabargala 2y ago
- econ 2y agoWhat worries me is the way big tech is forced to build some kind of law book (they call their TOS) some kind of detective apparatus, some kind of kangaroo court and a model for punishing the citizen (user) which is not something anyone should want them to do including them. It is like the old time court where every decision is made though the lens of profit. It gets even more dystopian in a closed ecosystem.
- mcny 2y agoThis is really our (US) fault. Terms of service is not the law. It should never be the law. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is a terrible piece of legislation that is completely out of touch with reality. It should have been abolished a long time ago and yet we have taken no steps to abolish it here in the US. This is all our (US) doing. We blazed the trail like this and have done nothing to correct our mistakes.
- ProAm 2y agoY Combinator "Urges the Whitehouse" is nothing but a fiduciary tight rope walking bribe to receive governance in your favor.
- personomas 2y agoYeah, I'm sure Y Combinator is not biased hahahaha (sarcasm of course)
- thrance 2y agoCan't blame them, bribery is the only way to get heard by this administration.
- willmadden 2y ago1) that will never happen. 2) that should never happen.
- nbzso 2y agoWe all are trapped by TOS into data mining operation. There is no denying this fact. You don't own your computer or smartphone. You don't own your data. Practically speaking, we don't have an accessible and user-friendly tool to protect ourselves. The humanity collective data output is weaponized, and the surveillance state is transforming itself to an AI governance. Publicly announced by the WEF. And embraced by the masses, which have nothing to hide. Moreover, this thing is labeled as inevitable progress and the only option is transhumanism and post human ethos. Add to this incoming digital dollar/euro plus social scoring systems, and we are cooked. So, welcome China apparatus. :)
- gunian 2y agolmao you had me until china you probably believed ministry of information saying free world :)
- hnlurker22 2y agoYC can't even urge it's own startups to do anything
- darthrupert 2y agoThe current admin is not going to support anything sane or european. But nice sentiment.
- blitzar 2y agoThis forum is not going to support anything sane or european. But nice sentiment.
- jonhohle 2y agoI personally don’t care about alternative app stores, but I know many do, especially here. I really want two things: * companies cannot engage in any activity a common person would consider “spying”, cannot take the data collected by users of that service and transfer it to another entity, and third parties may not aggregate data collected about persons for any reason. There are a million and one useful reasons to do each of these things, but companies have proven themselves morally bankrupt and should lose that ability. This would go beyond “opt-in”, just make it illegal or the impractical (e.g. it would require a notary, licensed broker, or lawyers on both sides to engage in the practice) * digital “purchases” are transferrable and have all of the rights and privileges afforded to physical goods. The producer/consumer balance shifted completely in favor of the producer with digital goods. Terms need to be more favorable to the purchaser as well as protections following the dissolution of a digital marketplace.
- BrenBarn 2y agoI'd go further and apply something like the notary/broker approach to the collection of data. Types of data should be defined in law. Some (say, email address) would be "free" to collect, but subject to strict sharing requirements like you describe (e.g., you can ask anyone for their email address, but you can't do anything with it except use it yourself to contact them). Others (mailing address) would be allowed for certain purposes (e.g., you need to mail the person a package). Companies should expect regular audits and stiff financial penalties if they collect such data but cannot objectively demonstrate that they actually need it to perform a service they are providing to the person who provides it. (This means you can't collect someone's mailing address unless you actually need it to do a specific thing for that person; simply using it as input to your internal analytics isn't good enough.) Others (e.g., location tracking) would require an approval process akin to being licensed to transport hazardous waste or something, so that it would be straight-up illegal to collect such data without prior approval. That approval process would involve full public disclosure of all intended uses of the data. You can't collect sensitive data without telling everyone exactly what you're going to do with it. A large portion of the data that is illegally shared should never have been collected in the first place.
- 2y ago
- BrenBarn 2y agoCouching your stance towards a policy in terms of its effect on "innovation" is a surefire way to lose me.
- 9283409232 2y agoThis is phrasing targeted at the current administration. Using words like "ethics" has no effect on them.
- giraffe_lady 2y agoI would not change my language to that preferred by the segregationist political movement that has seized power but then I was born with a spine and not everyone is so lucky.
- tempodox 2y agoYou can't both have a spine and only exist to make money.
- seydor 2y agoThe outcome of the dma is better served by breaking up the companies so that google cannot share data with YouTube or facebook with Whatsapp. The EU regulations so far did not achieve much (other than eradicating EU ads market) , and the YC knows that. They want to distract the government away from breaking up bigtech and towards an anodyne (but annoying) regulation.
- raverbashing 2y agoSo, when was the last time a company was split by the SEC or such? I can only think of older examples (Boeing, AT&T, etc) What I think regulators are seeing is that they split, wait a bit then merge all over again, negating that effect And I agree about the GDPR, though the DMA seems to have had bigger effects (including preventing EU from getting the wet dud known as Apple Intelligence - I guess we can recognize this was a cop-out from Apple for a poor product instead of an actual hurdle)
- patrickmcnamara 2y agoThe DMA does make it so you can unlink your Google account from your YouTube account, or your Facebook account from your Instagram account, and that they can't share data. Or what are you meaning?
- ankit219 2y agoSupporting a policy or a regulation which looks at just competition with zero incentives to care for users because it may help the portfolio is not a good look. People may argue otherwise, but DMA exists to make sure the gatekeepers lose market share to their rivals, even if it comes at the expense of consumers. Eg: Google asked to remove maps from their search page, which means a user has to do extra clicks to get to the info they want. Bad experience yes. And now, they still did not lose market share so EU is asking google to do more. I am not against the spirit of the act, but their goal is to listen to competition and ask for changes accordingly. If it screws up users, so be it. There would be no winning. Yes, google search is a monopoly, and should not be so big. The act is unbalanced. A lot of proponents of iMessage example miss out that WhatsApp won outside of USA. By just building a better product and utilizing network effects.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- nolist_policy 2y ago> And now, they still did not lose market share so EU is asking google to do more. Can you elaborate on that?
- ankit219 2y agoSo, after the first round of compliances, they did a review of the changes and did meetings with the likes of Yelp etc. This led to the next round of changes.[1] I am for the changes, just that I think you should also look at it from user perspective too, especially when what the user wants vs the competitor wants is conflicting. [1]: https://www.wsj.com/tech/google-proposes-further-changes-to-search-results-in-europe-292c6f57 https://www.wsj.com/tech/google-proposes-further-changes-to-...
- owebmaster 2y agoWe should not pay more to Google/Apple to do less clicks, they use the same logic to make it difficult to cancel or stop paying for things. You seem to be confused about what screwing up users mean.
- h1fra 2y agoNext time your startup is saying "no politics allowed in our company" remember this kind of announcement.
- gdedhitchhiker 2y agoWorker 17 needs to get access to their app to complete their work!
- Cupprum 2y agoSex workers in Bangkok pay around 10% of their salaries to the bars where people can find the workers. Apple and other companies take around 30% as a fee for using their marketplace. I don't see a reason why big tech should get a higher cut.
- thrance 2y agoI don't see why they should get any cut, do you pay Dell whenever you install a game on your laptop?
- 9283409232 2y agoThis is a silly argument and I'm sure you know it.
- thrance 2y agoIt's silly in that it shows how ridiculous the situation is. No one asked for Apple or Google to be the wardens of what users can or can't install on their devices. Asking for a fee for this "service" is the cherry on top. We've been able to install whatever we want on our PCs since the dawn of personal computing and it never was an issue. I don't see why we couldn't have a similar system on mobile devices too.
- ryandrake 2y agoWe should also apply the same logic to game consoles. Why should Sony get a cut of every game I buy? It's not like they even have hosting costs associated with it--I'm buying a physical game from a store. Why should I need to get Nintendo's blessing in order to make a game for Switch? Why can't I download games directly from the game developer's web site for any of these console platforms?
- thrance 2y agoAre you arguing that mobile devices are closer to game consoles than personal computers? Because I really don't think they are. Also, why even defend the right of megacorps to lock users in their walled garden? What could society or even you possibly win through this? I am certainly not opposed to gaming companies opening their SDKs and consoles to hobbyists.
- aurelien 2y agoWell, the American credit scrore is made of ketamine ... EU do not need, nor have to respect any deal with a country under addictive substance.
- c16 2y agoI think where this will fall on deaf ears is due to its branding. ~Europe's~ America's Digital Markets Act might work better with this administration, irrespective of how good or bad the content contained within it is. In terms of what to focus your efforts on, this can be re-evaluated in a few years time when staff will actually dig in, beyond the optics.
- dogethrowaway42 2y ago[dead]
- s_dev 2y agoThis is absolutely not what I would have expected. I love Paul Graham but he's always criticised the EU for having too much of a heavy hand regulating things and 'stifling innovation' while there is plenty of room for nuance here -- the EU can be doing both. I think this suggests many in YCombinator are not as 'Libertarian' as they originally thought and there small mindset change happening.
- lblume 2y agoBy this point, it should be fairly clear that unregulated markets lead to monopolies. If modern libertarianism still entails "the freer the markets, the freer the people" I would consider this to be empirically disproven[1]. [1] Except for minimal states which have not succeeded in reality because some type of strong organization's force will likely always exceed the market's implicit one.
- s_dev 2y agoI'm hoping YCs next 'big' move for growth is to open an accelerator in either the UK or the EU. The US is moving in the wrong direction and the EU needs institutions like YC. Plenty have tried and failed to replicate YCs success both in the US and the EU but I think YC could make it happen.
- thecleaner 2y agoYCs success has nothing to do with just YC (not to take credit away) but rather from the fact that the US is a large unified well-regulated market. EU has sensible rules sure but the market isnt unified and the individual countries dont have big enough markets to sustain large numbers of software companies. YC itself is honestly quite open with their knowledge but its just that EU in itself is a pretty terrible place to run a business. Lots if regulation, some good ones.
- malthaus 2y agoyou have to judge people for their actions, not their philosophical essays. ycombinator (which, nota bene, also spawned sam) is nothing but distilled capitalism with a fig leaf to appeal to a subset of nerd culture and you all ate it up
- paxys 2y agoIt's hard to believe that so many Americans, including prominent industry leaders like YC, are so delusional about the political situation in America today. You are not getting such regulation. You aren't getting any regulation. If rules do pass it will be because of politics and corruption, not the public good.
- boxed 2y agoSelf fulfilling prophecy.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- shadowgovt 2y agoDoes the law define criteria by which gatekeeper companies are identified, or does it explicitly call out six companies for scrutiny? In the US, in general, that kind of targeted law is highly frowned upon (bills of attainder were a tool the King used to target political opponents and the Constitution wrote them out as a result).
- hsuduebc2 2y agoBreaking up monopolies used to be one of America's greatest strengths—Standard Oil, AT&T, even Microsoft faced real antitrust action. That willingness to enforce competition fueled economic growth and innovation. But under Trump, there’s little chance of that happening. Big Tech has only grown more entrenched, and instead of being challenged, it’s likely to gain even more influence. The era of real trust-busting is over for now, and these companies aren’t going anywhere. I hope for the best in future. I'm interested how it would be with Musk. He has enormous influence over the markets but he is not an "company" but an individual. I wonder how this would be resolved. I guess just let him choose what he can keep? That's sounds fishy to me.
- yatopifo 2y agoI take it the legislative branch is completely irrelevant in the US at this point… how quickly you gave adapted to living under a dictatorship!
- FreebasingLLMs 2y ago[dead]
- VagabundoP 2y agoBig tech has always driven me mad with how they leverage their monoplies once they reach a certain size. Why can't I swap cloud backends on the mobile platforms? I shouldnt need a gmail/icloud account to setup an android/ios device. Open those api's and let me use another hosted service or host my own. After a device becomes unsupported release the unlock codes or whatever. At that point it becomes a security hazard anyway. I should be able to create custom roms/software to keep using it if I want.
- enriquec 2y ago"unlock codes or whatever" As an engineer, I can tell you it's not even easy to keep things working internally - let alone support every possible integration. Just because it's easy to say, doesn't mean it's feasible to do. But if you're convinced its what people want, there's nothing preventing you from making it your life - like other people have done with their strategies.
- refulgentis 2y agoI appreciate the engineering perspective, and you're right that supporting every integration isn't trivial. Is there a difference between providing an "unlock code" upon deprecation, and requiring "support for every possible integration"(?)? Setting that aside, it seems it not every possible combination needs official support, but rather that providing an open or documented way for motivated users or communities to build upon or repurpose devices would be beneficial. Many projects exist precisely because tech companies allowed or at least tolerated community-driven solutions. It's less about expecting everything to be effortless for the original manufacturer, and more about avoiding deliberate restrictions that prevent the community from extending a device's useful lifespan.
- GTP 2y ago> Is there a difference between providing an "unlock code" upon deprecation, and requiring "support for every possible integration"(?)? As a different engineer than the one you where replying to, I can say that yes, there is a substantial difference between the two. What the original comment was likely referring to with unlock codes, is the ability of unlocking a smartphone's bootloader so that one is able to install custom ROMs. But this is very different from providing support for said ROMs. A company can totally say: "here's the unlock code, but you use this under your sole responsibility, we will void your warranty if you do this". Being able to install custom ROMs at the cost of losing the warranty is a compromise I'm willing to accept: one can still wait for the warranty to expire and then install custom ROMs.
- 6d6b73 2y agoFolks, let me tell you, our Big Tech is going to be absolutely massive—bigger and better than anybody's ever seen. We don’t need Europe, okay? Their tech companies? Total losers. We’re going to keep on winning—so much winning you’re gonna say, “Please, Mr. President, enough with the winning!” But we won’t stop. If we don't win the first time, we'll slap tariffs on them so fast their heads will spin. And if tariffs don’t work, guess what? We’ll just buy them out—it’ll be huge. And if that doesn’t do the trick… well, let’s just say you really don’t want to know what comes next. We’re gonna win bigly, folks. Tremendous.
- lxe 2y agoAt this point we should not be supporting ANY legislation related to technology that's coming from the EU.
- notorandit 2y agoGood luck. I fear it will be a waste of time and resources.
- zoobab 2y agoDMA is cementing a duopoly in mobile OSes. Trop break that duopoly, we need rules for hardware manufacturers to store complete spécifications in a trusted public registry, with fines if the doc is incomplete, misleading, etc...
- pizzly 2y agoThis is also about being a monopoly, when there's a monopoly there's no competition. It would be similar to a dictatorship. Developers and customers should've more freedom to buy or sell without being controlled by a dictator. Briefly, there should be more choices from different competitors. This will be healthy for developers and customers.
- musicale 2y agoWhy not enforce anti-trust law?
- musicale 2y ago> Specifically, YC in its letter points to Apple reportedly delaying its LLM-powered version of Siri until 2027, years after competitors brought generative AI voice assistants to market Apple reportedly delayed its iPhone until 2007, years after competitors brought smartphones to market.
- EdricChaska 2y ago[dead]