6 ms·

I guess at some point the EU has to do something if they want companies to keep implementing these regulations under the calculus of “cost of implementation vs.

by twalkz 1y ago

I guess at some point the EU has to do something if they want companies to keep implementing these regulations under the calculus of “cost of implementation vs. cost of fines that arise from non-compliance”. I would love to believe that some companies would follow these regulations even without severe threat, because they’re the right thing to do for users, but I know in a lot of cases it can take significant time, effort, and money to keep up with every regulation coming out of the EU

onlyrealcuzzo 1y ago
Companies don't really care about "the right thing to do for users." They care about maximizing profits from you. If you're hoping companies are going to "do the right thing for you" on their own, you're probably going to be disappointed.
- fullshark 1y ago
  Once upon a time these companies valued their user base, afraid they would leave and find another way to use their time. I guess they’ve got the data that their users are all addicted and will never do that. At least until they push too hard.
  - exe34 1y ago
    that's because of the network effect: while you're a small part of people's network, you can be replaced easily. once you've connected 60-90% of their network (including the sort of people they follow online, not necessary people they meet in meatspace), you don't need to worry too much about getting replaced.
  - Zak 1y ago
    When there's a significant opportunity for growth in userbase, corporate social media is good to users. Once that plateaus, they look to grow something else, usually advertising revenue. The current incentive structure rewards growth more than a stable profitable state, which I think is a mistake.
  - mentalgear 1y ago
    Unfair business practices and quasi monopolies (Microsoft), waled gardens (apple), and in the past 15 years advanced data analysis let's those companies exactly calculate how far they can make their users "suffer/bleed/annoy" and stop just right before the breaking point. Also, if real competition arises, it's just bought and merged (Facebook buying instagram) since anti-trust laws have not been properly applied, especially in the digital sector.
    - immibis 1y ago
      And then the breaking point becomes the new normal, and the new breaking point becomes farther away. Microsoft keeps deleting ways to install Windows without signing up for a Microsoft account. Twice in my life I've created a Microsoft account to do something that required a Microsoft account, and then a few days later they demanded my phone number. Because they know perfectly well that if you demand a phone number during signup, it deters more people from signing up, but if you demand it after they've already started using their account, they're less likely to be willing to throw away the account. I was, though. For some reason they haven't yet done that with my Minecraft-migrated account. Or did they? Maybe I entered my phone number there and forgot I did so.
    - nradov 1y ago
      It's really tough to apply anti-trust law to companies that aren't selling commodities. What would or wouldn't count as a competitor to Instagram? Since it's free for end users, the customers are mostly advertisers. And they have a zillion other channels to get their message out. Meta hardly has anything approaching a monopoly for either advertisers or consumers. Consumers frequently post pictures on X, LinkedIn, Google Photos, Strava, Snapchat, etc.
      - xethos 1y ago
        > It's really tough to apply anti-trust law to companies that aren't selling commodities. The EU, rather famously, managed with Microsoft. It's mostly the US that's beholden to large corporations over people, rather than it being an intractible problem. > Meta hardly has anything approaching a monopoly for either advertisers or consumers Meta does not command the lions share of the time spent on social media, but claiming >20% of revenue is oligopoly territory [0,1] > Consumers frequently post pictures on X, LinkedIn, Google Photos, Strava, Snapchat Do you really belive LinkedIn and Google Photos compete with SnapChat and Facebook for "Sharing photos with friends on social media"? If so, you might as well throw Flikr and Imgur on your list, though I wouldn't count them in the same market either. [0] https://www.emarketer.com/content/meta-s-ad-revenue-share-vastly-exceeds-its-share-of-consumer-time https://www.emarketer.com/content/meta-s-ad-revenue-share-va... [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/242549/digital-ad-market-share-of-major-ad-selling-companies-in-the-us-by-revenue/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/242549/digital-ad-market...
  - palata 1y ago
    > Once upon a time these companies valued their user base Because that's what was bringing profit then. We should never forget, that's the whole point of capitalism: companies maximize profit. Companies are not human beings with emotions, they are profit-maximizing entities. They evolve in a framework set by regulations. The society, made of human beings with emotions, is supposed to define that framework in such a way that what makes companies profitable is also good for the people.
- waltercool 1y ago
  [dead]
mentalgear 1y ago
That's also been the issue for decades with the financial industry: the fines and probability of getting caught are far less (and already 'priced' in) vs the big profits. And if the shit really hits the fan, they know that the government is going to pay to rescue them with taxpayer money (just one example: financial crisis of 2008).
jahewson 1y ago
Censorship is not the “right thing to do” though. Just look at how it’s been abused in recent years.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  Indeed. I'm European and I also see the EU's "banning of disinformation" as a form of censorship in gift wrapping. What about the government disinformation during covid? Did they punish anyone for that? Vague and ambiguous laws like these against disinformation enable selective enforcement for the governments to make sure their PoVs go though the media and everything they deem inappropriate or a threat to their authority gets shut down. Those in power in Brussels are afraid of communication channels they can't control as people become more and more dissatisfied and irate with their leaders, policies and QoL reductions, so they push laws like these plus the ones trying to backdoor encrypted communications in order to gain control over the narrative, monitor and crush any potential uprisings before they even occur.
  - immibis 1y ago
    I'd love to hear your better idea to deal with disinformation. The free marketplace of ideas has obviously not worked. Maybe even better public education could work, and then they wouldn't need to censor it because nobody would believe it anyway?
    - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
      >I'd love to hear your better idea to deal with disinformation. There is no silver bullet solution since we're not in an utopia. On the one hand all private media is controlled by biased oligarchs each with their own interests. On the other hand, governments in power want to control the narrative towards their own interests hence why in many EU countries we have state media. This is how it's always been and how it's always gonna be, a constant tug of war between interest groups, but I don't want any one side to have complete control of the media as that would be even worse. >The free marketplace of ideas has obviously not worked. Why do you think it hasn't worked? To me it seems like it's working, that's why those in power fear it and want to control it all for themselves. My parents lived under communism. The speech control the EU is pushing resembles very well what communism had but with a better PR spin on it. Communism got defeated in part by total freedom of speech winning in the free market place of ideas versus government controlled speech. The Arab Spring revolutions could not have happened without the free media circulating on the internet. So to see the EU trying to lock down on free speech the same way totalitarian regime did, is incredibly suspicious to me like their afraid of their own people revolting against them. I don't want unelected elites in Brussels deciding for me what content and opinions I should be allowed to view. If you want to win in the free marketplace of ideas, then come up with arguments for the people on why you consider each piece of information to be misinformation and debate it in public, not just ban it outright.
MoonGhost 1y ago
EU isn't the only entity with regulations and interests. Which creates a lot of conflicts. Like free speech is limited in EU and less so in USA. Should company in USA implement EU restrictions on USA users? What if both EU and USA users are in the same chat. EU is going to go after Mask's other companies. In other words EU plays dirty as usual, just like with Russian's money. Same story with Telegram. At some point it will backfire.

by twalkz 1y ago

onlyrealcuzzo 1y ago

Companies don't really care about "the right thing to do for users." They care about maximizing profits from you. If you're hoping companies are going to "do the right thing for you" on their own, you're probably going to be disappointed.

fullshark 1y ago
Once upon a time these companies valued their user base, afraid they would leave and find another way to use their time. I guess they’ve got the data that their users are all addicted and will never do that. At least until they push too hard.
- exe34 1y ago
  that's because of the network effect: while you're a small part of people's network, you can be replaced easily. once you've connected 60-90% of their network (including the sort of people they follow online, not necessary people they meet in meatspace), you don't need to worry too much about getting replaced.
- Zak 1y ago
  When there's a significant opportunity for growth in userbase, corporate social media is good to users. Once that plateaus, they look to grow something else, usually advertising revenue. The current incentive structure rewards growth more than a stable profitable state, which I think is a mistake.
- mentalgear 1y ago
  Unfair business practices and quasi monopolies (Microsoft), waled gardens (apple), and in the past 15 years advanced data analysis let's those companies exactly calculate how far they can make their users "suffer/bleed/annoy" and stop just right before the breaking point. Also, if real competition arises, it's just bought and merged (Facebook buying instagram) since anti-trust laws have not been properly applied, especially in the digital sector.
  - immibis 1y ago
    And then the breaking point becomes the new normal, and the new breaking point becomes farther away. Microsoft keeps deleting ways to install Windows without signing up for a Microsoft account. Twice in my life I've created a Microsoft account to do something that required a Microsoft account, and then a few days later they demanded my phone number. Because they know perfectly well that if you demand a phone number during signup, it deters more people from signing up, but if you demand it after they've already started using their account, they're less likely to be willing to throw away the account. I was, though. For some reason they haven't yet done that with my Minecraft-migrated account. Or did they? Maybe I entered my phone number there and forgot I did so.
  - nradov 1y ago
    It's really tough to apply anti-trust law to companies that aren't selling commodities. What would or wouldn't count as a competitor to Instagram? Since it's free for end users, the customers are mostly advertisers. And they have a zillion other channels to get their message out. Meta hardly has anything approaching a monopoly for either advertisers or consumers. Consumers frequently post pictures on X, LinkedIn, Google Photos, Strava, Snapchat, etc.
    - xethos 1y ago
      > It's really tough to apply anti-trust law to companies that aren't selling commodities. The EU, rather famously, managed with Microsoft. It's mostly the US that's beholden to large corporations over people, rather than it being an intractible problem. > Meta hardly has anything approaching a monopoly for either advertisers or consumers Meta does not command the lions share of the time spent on social media, but claiming >20% of revenue is oligopoly territory [0,1] > Consumers frequently post pictures on X, LinkedIn, Google Photos, Strava, Snapchat Do you really belive LinkedIn and Google Photos compete with SnapChat and Facebook for "Sharing photos with friends on social media"? If so, you might as well throw Flikr and Imgur on your list, though I wouldn't count them in the same market either. [0] https://www.emarketer.com/content/meta-s-ad-revenue-share-vastly-exceeds-its-share-of-consumer-time https://www.emarketer.com/content/meta-s-ad-revenue-share-va... [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/242549/digital-ad-market-share-of-major-ad-selling-companies-in-the-us-by-revenue/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/242549/digital-ad-market...
- palata 1y ago
  > Once upon a time these companies valued their user base Because that's what was bringing profit then. We should never forget, that's the whole point of capitalism: companies maximize profit. Companies are not human beings with emotions, they are profit-maximizing entities. They evolve in a framework set by regulations. The society, made of human beings with emotions, is supposed to define that framework in such a way that what makes companies profitable is also good for the people.
waltercool 1y ago
[dead]

mentalgear 1y ago

That's also been the issue for decades with the financial industry: the fines and probability of getting caught are far less (and already 'priced' in) vs the big profits. And if the shit really hits the fan, they know that the government is going to pay to rescue them with taxpayer money (just one example: financial crisis of 2008).

jahewson 1y ago

Censorship is not the “right thing to do” though. Just look at how it’s been abused in recent years.

FirmwareBurner 1y ago
Indeed. I'm European and I also see the EU's "banning of disinformation" as a form of censorship in gift wrapping. What about the government disinformation during covid? Did they punish anyone for that? Vague and ambiguous laws like these against disinformation enable selective enforcement for the governments to make sure their PoVs go though the media and everything they deem inappropriate or a threat to their authority gets shut down. Those in power in Brussels are afraid of communication channels they can't control as people become more and more dissatisfied and irate with their leaders, policies and QoL reductions, so they push laws like these plus the ones trying to backdoor encrypted communications in order to gain control over the narrative, monitor and crush any potential uprisings before they even occur.
- immibis 1y ago
  I'd love to hear your better idea to deal with disinformation. The free marketplace of ideas has obviously not worked. Maybe even better public education could work, and then they wouldn't need to censor it because nobody would believe it anyway?
  - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
    >I'd love to hear your better idea to deal with disinformation. There is no silver bullet solution since we're not in an utopia. On the one hand all private media is controlled by biased oligarchs each with their own interests. On the other hand, governments in power want to control the narrative towards their own interests hence why in many EU countries we have state media. This is how it's always been and how it's always gonna be, a constant tug of war between interest groups, but I don't want any one side to have complete control of the media as that would be even worse. >The free marketplace of ideas has obviously not worked. Why do you think it hasn't worked? To me it seems like it's working, that's why those in power fear it and want to control it all for themselves. My parents lived under communism. The speech control the EU is pushing resembles very well what communism had but with a better PR spin on it. Communism got defeated in part by total freedom of speech winning in the free market place of ideas versus government controlled speech. The Arab Spring revolutions could not have happened without the free media circulating on the internet. So to see the EU trying to lock down on free speech the same way totalitarian regime did, is incredibly suspicious to me like their afraid of their own people revolting against them. I don't want unelected elites in Brussels deciding for me what content and opinions I should be allowed to view. If you want to win in the free marketplace of ideas, then come up with arguments for the people on why you consider each piece of information to be misinformation and debate it in public, not just ban it outright.

MoonGhost 1y ago

EU isn't the only entity with regulations and interests. Which creates a lot of conflicts. Like free speech is limited in EU and less so in USA. Should company in USA implement EU restrictions on USA users? What if both EU and USA users are in the same chat. EU is going to go after Mask's other companies. In other words EU plays dirty as usual, just like with Russian's money. Same story with Telegram. At some point it will backfire.