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Comment by Sakos | Hacker News Reader

One of the best things about Europe is that courts rule on intent, not the fineprint/wording of a law like in the US, which often leads to insane loopholes being exploited by corporations in the US.

I hope Apple gets a big clapback for what they're trying to pull here.

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I think that difference is exactly why US-based companies always confidently project a "don't worry, we found a series of loopholes around the law", thinking things worked the same way as at home, only to proceed to be shocked by the fact that things are a bit different over the pond.

Yeah in these discussions it also bears repeating that the DMA has explicit clauses about malicious intent. I don't think we've heard the end of this. Right now EU is probably busy noting backlash and seeing if there is merit to their arguments.

I wouldn't even be surprised if they end up with a product ban in the EU.

Apple will capitulate before a product ban, that’s if the EU is ballsy enough to even do it, which even with all that’s gone on is not a given.

Completely disregarding the rights of those of us who want to buy the products and don't give a fuck about this macho fight the EU is trying to pull.

The EU is merely enforcing rules that the majority of citizens appear to agree upon. And if you care enough, you can always buy in another country and import those products yourself. Except, of course, if the manufacturer tries the monopolistic playbook and locks you out, to prevent you from circumventing their price differentiation. But I'm optimistic that Apple would never so blatantly put profits over its users' wishes ;)

Your right to buy electronics doesn't trump my right to a market undistorted by monopolist power.

That's where I disagree. I think individual rights must trump collective rights. Unfortunately (for me) the elites are with you (at least by now).

Don't you think it's weird to be calling a democratically elected parliament 'elite' over a multi-billion company attempting to throw its weight around?

The parliament can’t create or propose new laws or directives, only the undemocratically appointed commission.

The EU parliament is mainly a joke which costs a lot of money

The EU Parliament can block laws, their role is to review the Commission's proposals and judge if they should pass or not. It can also ask the Commission to propose laws, they also hold the power over approval of the Commission body and the power to ask for the Commission resignation.

It's not a joke, although it has many flaws...

> It can also ask the Commission to propose laws, they also hold the power over approval of the Commission body and the power to ask for the Commission resignation

So very limited actual power compared to any real parliament. Maybe it’s not a joke but it’s about on the same level as the partially democratic European Monarchies from the 1800s as far as being democratic (I assume that’s enough for some people).

The other thing is, the Parliament is not the only democratic institution, even if it is the only directly elected one.

The Council consists of democratically elected heads of democratic governments, similar to the way each state in the US elects its senators.

The Commission consists of Commissioners that are appointed by democratically elected governments. It's one step removed, just like the US presidency is through the electoral college.

Every single institution is democratically legitimized one way or another.

Calling the EU parliament democratically elected is really a stretch.

On the other hand I make the direct choice of buying (or not) certain products. A choice that should be nobody's business but mine. It's not like I'm dumping nuclear waste in the river. It's a stupid phone.

Huh? The EU parliament is indeed directly elected, the elections will be held in June.

Do you mean the Commission or something?

The EU parliament does not create new laws it just rubber stamps them. Basically it’s less or about as relevant as the parliaments of pseudo-democratic European empires of from ~1900 like Tsarist Russia, Germany etc.

That is demonstrably false [1].

[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-parliament-set-sue-e...

A real parliament would have dissolved and appointed a new one. This kind of only proves my point, they basically have the same recourse that every ordinary citizen or organization does.

Again the EU parliament has about as much power as the German Imperial Bundesrat did back in the 1900s. Which is of course better than nothing but far from a real democracy

No laws are passed without the agreement of Parliament. Granted, I think that they should also propose all laws but to claim that it's a rubber stamp is demonstratively untrue.

I think that is just straight up selfish thinking and if further left unchecked, the reason we are all doomed in the long-term.

Individuals cannot handle systemic problems, almost by definition. We either ignore them at our peril or we recognise that there's a reason humanity decided to organize as civilizations as opposed to hermits in mountain caves.

> That's where I disagree. I think individual rights must trump collective rights.

That's an utterly insane principle to follow, though one that's often made seductively appealing by propaganda full of cherry-picking and oversimple toy models.

The only sensible position is that individual and collective rights must be balanced. If you go too far towards exclusively favoring one or another, you get terrible outcomes for most people.

Don't you have a right to vote for an elected representative? Is allowing foreign trillion dollar corporations to do whatever greedy acts they want popular amongst the people? I suspect it is not.

None of your rights are being infringed.

> Don't you have a right to vote for an elected representative?

Of course not. The EU parliament is just there to rubber-stamp the decisions coming from the undemocratically appointed commission. They can’t propose any laws or directives.

No voters would elect such a person like https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_von_der_Leyen to a top office. She’s thoroughly incompetent, corrupt, self-entitled as it gets and has zero charisma (literally zero redeeming qualities).

The Parliamenet is not a rubber-stamping body. It can block legislation ad infinitum. That's the opposite of rubber-stamping. The democratic crisis of EU is well documented and there are valid critiques. Yours are not.

Voters elected those who chose her :V

I remember at least one government that crowed a lot about will of the people first crowing how they voted for her then spending time demonizing her :V

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