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Comment by jiofj | Hacker News Reader

0 European companies named.

Can you think of any that actually would have applied under these rules? These markets are basically entirely dominated by American companies.

That's basically what I'm saying. We have nothing. It's shameful.

No, it is shameful that US allows such huge monopolies in the first place. These should not exist at all and should be broken up before becoming so huge.

Umm none of these companies are monopolies. For everyone in the list there is another option

Europe just doesn't have any companies at all

10 of the world's largest 50 companies by revenue are European.

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

This list actually surprised me. The European companies on the list fall into 3 categories: commodities (e.g. petroleum or mining), utilities, and automakers.

Interesting list. The only European companies I recognize are car companies; Volkswagen, Fiat Chrysler, and Mercedes-Benz. The rest are all energy or mining companies, with the exception of Schwarz Gruppe which is apparently a retail chain? It's also surprising how many of the American companies are healthcare-related, and how the relative ordering changes to favor tech and oil companies when you sort by profit instead of revenue.

> For everyone in the list there is another option

Yep. WhatsApp and FB Messenger. Two options. Except that they seem to be owned by the same company.

Signal, iMessage, Telegram, Line, WeChat, Element, SMS ...the list goes on n on

Yeah and if you put it that way Brave or Opera are viable browser alternatives that should be regulated :)

Only ubiquitous thing in that list is SMS. Which is crap and that's why no one uses it any more, and no one ever liked to use it.

They are viable options. I dont know about regulated, but them not being used is their problem. IE6 was king and then phoenix unseated them, followed by firefox. So people have options, them not using the other option is their issue

none of these are options when the only way to talk to my landlord or my customer is whatsapp.

Europe's definition of monopoly is one that actually makes sense, unlike the US's bafflingly stupid version. You do not need over 50% to be a monopoly.

More like, no other financial and investment markets are as liquid and stable as America’s, which attracts the world’s innovators and investors. The US should not replicate the failure and incompetence at the helm of the EU and other major bureaucracies.

> The US should not replicate the failure and incompetence at the helm of the EU and other major bureaucracies.

Yeah, protecting consumers and allowing fair competition, what a shame.

I like that entirely vibes-based reddit discourse has made its way onto this platform.

Fair competition from who? Certainly not the EU.

You missed the point. It doesn't matter where competition comes from, this whole campaign is about loosening the grip a handful of companies ("gatekeepers") have over de facto monopolies.

In short, this would benefit smaller players everywhere.

Spotify arguably would have qualified if they had included an "online music service" category alongside "online video service" (where YouTube was designated). The fact that this was left out is interesting.

Spotify is _way_ below the minimum market cap (75bn, I think).

True. Including market cap in the definition is another oddity in this - why not just look at the size of the active user base?

Specifically so that EU companies like Spotify wouldn't be included.

(I am guessing there is a specific carve-out in the law that exempts Deutsche Telekom, which is bigger than $75b, and Vodafone, which is close.)

DT is primarily a telecom, so already subject to a lot of regulation about carriage and so on. Not sure it would do anything if they were included; it’s not like they’re saying (or could say) “yeah, you can’t phone people who use O2 with this phone”.

IMO the most surprising omission is Telegram (presumably due to the market cap thing). I would have thought they’d be quite keen to bring _that_ into the net.

Looks like Telegram is private (so harder for observers to accurately value) and likely still would be well under the size cap (support for the notion that the size cap is there to exclude EU companies).

Dubai isn't exactly in the EU...

Huh, I thought they were based in Europe, but they now say that is dated: "The Telegram team had to leave Russia due to local IT regulations and has tried a number of locations as its base, including Berlin, London and Singapore."

Not for the Digital Markets Act, but the German clothing company Zalando is iirc large enough to qualify under the stipulations of the Digital Services Act (which is more focused on digital moderation if I'm not mistaken, rather than anti-monopolist behavior).

Last I checked, Zalando sued the CJEU because they were unhappy with the designation.

Zalando objects that for everybody else users were counted, while for them it was visitors (a much looser association, they argue). The decision will sharpen DSA's profile, one way or the other.

Mercedes and BMW with their car software?

The EU is in a bind. Long ago it has outsourced its entire digital infrastructure to the US (opting to finesse internal combustion engines instead).

Nowadays the result is the complete dependence in what is increasingly an existential piece of technology on the unregulated cowboy regime that is charitably termed "big tech".

This rubs alot of people wrong in terms, e.g., of data privacy practices and olipolistic market power, hence these unprecedented regulations and measures.

Whether something meaningful will be achieved is questionable, but anybody trying to dismiss these signals doesn't understand the stresses that are building up in the digital domain.

i don't think that is relevant. every other country in the world except china and maybe russia has the same problem. the EU is the only one at least to be able to do something about it, and in the long term that will help other countries as well (as they now can just demand the same openness, which will allow local alternatives to at least have a chance)

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