[1] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022...
I remember when Nokia represented top tier consumer tech. Oh well.
In fact, EU is taking the lightweight and pro free market approach here. US tried to destroy TikTok instead of regulate it.
What are the areas in consumer tech where Europe enjoys the worldwide advantage in sales and mindshare?
Sad how it’s so hard to give examples of the EUs excellence in mainstream consumer tech, I guess.
There’s nothing wrong with the EU legislating since they can’t win the market share through traditional means. It’s a valid strategy. Let’s just not pretend, please. The restrictions that will be put in place may be what Europe needs to compete, but let’s just act like Europe is already in a strong competitive position.
The result is that European fintechs can skip a lot of groundwork that every US fintech has to deal with and we need less of them in the first place because stuff that needs fintechs in the US is available for everyone in the first place.
Automobiles, video games off the top of my head. In any case, why does it matter? There are other things outside of consumer tech that are innovative and bring money.
[1]: https://companiesmarketcap.com/tech/largest-tech-companies-b... [2]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/546298/euronext-market-c...
Market cap doesn't mean people are making money or shows the economy it creates. Musk sends funny troll tweet or says something that will result in a fine few month down the road and instantly billions of dollars of market cap is destroyed or created. This doesn't exist in Europe or anywhere else, at least not at that scale. The amount of money in the USA is just on another level.
Secondly, that crazy ecosystem in the US sucks all the high potential companies. It's very common for an EU startup to incorporate in the US to tap into that consumer market and that VC ecosystem. The work is done in NL, FR, RO, BG etc but it is a US company. As a result, you have a situation where the EU part of the operations doesn't make any money because it doesn't have to but does all the salary processing and the Silicon Valley HQ makes ridiculous trades and the EU part looks like a loss center. Lots of lots of games are Europe-made, like European talent created the concept, the graphics, the code but if the publisher is American on the books you'll see it as American success.
Europe has this investment culture where investors invest into stuff that make profit, in US companies don't have to make a profit as long as the owners of the stocks can trade them and make profit.
It's just different, I don't think it's fair to say that Europe does oil and textile and not much more. That wouldn't explain the living standards that are on par with the USA.
Case in point: Microsoft Flight Simulator (the latest one released in 2020), developed by a French studio, Asobo (the same company also develops the A Plague Tale franchise). Of course, it was augmented by Microsoft technologies like Azure which hosts the cloud and servers for the streaming scenery, but even so, most of the development is European.
That's because you've redefined technology to mean 'software company'. Oil & gas, automotive, industrial machinery, pharmaceuticals, chemical industry, transportation, aviation, construction, telecoms is technology. They're high productivity, high complexity and highly automated sectors. In Ludwigshafen were I grew up there's BASF's chemical complex, literally the largest one in the world. Is that not tech because it doesn't have a smoothie bar and hip people with macbooks in the lobby?
the productivity in wealthy European countries is roughly as high as in the US, and the only way that is possible is due to tech. Otherwise you'd be an agrarian society and much poorer.
It has support of the EU Council, Parliament and Commission.
If you read DMA it gives quite a lot of executive powers to EU Commission, so that approach can be adjusted as needed.
As long as there will be political points in bashing American big-tech, it will not fizzle out.
The requirements to provide data to business users and to advertisers are pretty interesting. Same for search engines having to sell all user data that they have.
Probably not, and for good reason. If Europe is moving first, it makes sense to wait and see how their approach fairs. We’ve learned a lot about what works and more about what doesn’t with GDPR, a bit more from v2 in California.
I'm not sure how much to expect in the US. Is a one time VPN connection all you'll need in order to get sideloading working?
It probably will hurt app store revenues, but Apple makes such a premium on hardware that it may make up or even exceed the losses from software competition.
Seems very unlikely to me. the profit margin on app store tax is going to be extremely high. The expert witness at the epic games trial estimated an 80% profit margin on 20 billion dollars of revenue. Comes out to $16B profit out of their total 25ish. That doesn't just disappear if apple allows sideloading, but it could easily shrink a great a deal. Even if apple somehow manages to gain greater market share, I just don't see it coming out as a net positive for them.
Oh man, that's a high percentage. I was under the impression it was closer to 50%. With those numbers, you may be right.
Although, I assume they will heavily market their own store as the only "true" app store and only secure one, etc, and a large amount of customers will stick with just theirs, so I would expect it wouldn't take too major of a hit, although if big names like Epic boycott the App Store that could definitely mess up that strategy.
or maybe they just drop usbc altogether?
Are you sure? I distinctly remember them boasting in a keynote about how many Android users were using their app to switch to iOS. I could definitely believe that it's not a high strategic priority though.
> It is far more profitable now than it would be in a race to the bottom as a commodity hardware maker.
Agreed, but I don't think it would have to turn into a race to the bottom. Apple is a luxury brand now, and I expect they would continue to maintain that. The Apple logo is very much a status symbol (particularly for the young. My teenagers are literally made fun of at school for having "Androids" instead of iPhones), and I wouldn't expect that to change much. In fact I think as more people adopt it, being an Android user would become more of an aberration from cultural expectations than it already is.
> but people who don't because they want the freedom of Android might jump to Apple once that platform is more in line with their wants.
i don’t think so for two reasons:
1. people in europe have much less disposable income and as such prefer cheaper devices.
2. people don’t really care about the so called “freedom of android”
thus android has a steady 60 something percent in europe and as long as there are super cheap android devices, this will continue.
edit in parenthesis for clarity