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Comment by fwlr | Hacker News Reader

A 40 billion dollar fine if you don’t do as the EU says… at some point tech companies are just going to pull out of the EU, right? For most (but not all!), GDPR was worth complying with (and had benefits for citizens). This is likely to also be worth complying with (and also has benefits for citizens), but I imagine the EU is going to run out of ideas that legitimately benefit users long before it runs out of desire to levy huge fines.

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If you pull out of the EU you've now created a unified market of half a billion consumers that need a alternative to your product. That seems like a good way to kickstart a competitor.

Except EU is not a single market: there's 27 countries, speaking multiple languages, having different laws, so to serve the EU you need at least a dozen versions of your app.

Also, EU has just decided that this half billion of consumers will be downgraded to the third world standard of living (google "Fit for 55"), so they won't really have much money to spend on tech toys anyway...

> EU has just decided that this half billion of consumers will be downgraded to the third world standard of living (google "Fit for 55")

"Fit for 55 is a package by the European Union designed to reduce the European Union's greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030."

I call bullshit on your statement.

The only way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% is to push everyone into poverty, basically. Make the car ownership too expensive for common folks, as well as meat consumption, buying new clothes, heating your apartment in winter, air travel, and more.

Why wouldn’t massive buildout of nuclear energy plants allow hitting that greenhouse emission goal while simultaneously tripling the amount of power used per person?

Tell me you don't understand the distinction between U235 and U238 without telling me you don't understand the distinction between U235 and U238

That's an extremely uncharitable and snarky answer given the open-ended nature of my question.

Thorium reactors don't use either and a fusion reactor wouldn't involve any isotope of uranium. Others may disagree, but I don't think it's a forgone conclusion that all R&D in nuclear energy grinds to a halt.

I disagree with the GP's claim that poverty is "the only way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55%."

No scifi nuclear reactor concept is going to be mass deployed by the early 2030s. The only nuclear fuel source that has ever been used in commercial application is U235, with a little bit of Pu239 to boost yield. There is no viable source of U235 for even a fraction of current energy use.

OP's claim is garbage (insulation, ending car dependency, and legislating products that aren't landfill help the poor rather than hindering them), but the constant nuclear shilling and shilling for growth is much worse.

> (insulation, ending car dependency, and legislating products that aren't landfill help the poor rather than hindering them)

That's not at all what "Fit for 55" program is about. I agree, those things, over long enough timespan (say, 20 years) could be net positive. Instead, "Fit for 55" means imposing additional "carbon tax" on many industries, and on goods imported from China, based on how much carbon was emitted when producing them. And given the short, 7 years time frame the net result of those policies will be what I originally claimed: pushing everyone to poverty.

EU politicians say it quite openly really, that in order to "save us from the climate catastrophe" we need to sacrifice the standard of living.

So distribute those taxes to the poor.

Problem solved. It won't hurt anyone but anybodybwho is already doing the right thing will be far better off.

If people who choose to drive (and it will be a choice because non-car infrastructure is part of the plan) pay more, then nothing of value has been lost.

When was the last time in history of mankind when taxes were actually distributed to the poor? I mean in significant amounts, not as a lame attempt to win upcoming elections.

Then agitate for thwt rather than simping for daddy Koch.

If Apple just pulls iMessage from EU, nothing changes, the competitor already exists, is already dominant, and is a US Silicon Valley social media company.

Why do you assume bad faith on behalf of the EU?

Maybe when they run out of things to fine firms for that don't benefit their citizens ... they'll just stop fining them ...

The EU doesn't exist for the purpose of giving fines to companies, if they "run out of ideas", they just keep doing what they're already doing most of the time. The whole 'fines' thing is just a small part of a much bigger thing.

The EU is a 17 trillion dollar economy. It's the second largest market in the world for most of these companies, they'll never pull out. It is simply hot air. They'd never even leave China unless the US gov. forces them at gunpoint.

Not true in Google’s case: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-chin...

Google never really had any traction in China to start with, their search results were useless for Chinese content, so then they pretended to leave for some noble cause. Same with Amazon who tried for much longer until it gave up after decade.

That's not true. They were at over 40% and growing at that time:

https://gs.statcounter.com/press/google-gained-market-share-...

That's assuming sites/users in China use statcounter, completely misleading data.

According Wikipedia and at least 2 different sources they quote, Google peaked in China at 29-35% and even that seems way too optimistic, if you ask anyone who used search in China back then or have been there. By my experience from years ago was Google search in Chinese language useless.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China

Even that percentage of China’s population is equivalent to all of the EU’s.

Happy to go by your numbers, that was just the first search result. 35% is still very significant, so your initial claim about it having no traction and this being just a face-saving gesture was not correct.

Do you think the EU is a capitalistic entity, with a board room of members that party with the fine money because they can buy themselves a few new yachts?

Strange how you don't seem to realize that all these "ideas for fines" come years or decades after the "efficient and self-regulating free market" ends up what it will always end up: entrenched monopolies, moats, little competition and high barriers of entry.

What do you expect? The legislature to guess what will become the popular, largest and essential years before and regulate it beforehand?

No. It was just a reflection if what these fines are, and why they come about.

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