European iPhones will have more freedom than American iPhones. Amazing
Apparently it was frowned upon for women to wear pants in the village where they lived, and finally she divorced and left (also for other issues I presume, but she cited closed mindedness as a major one).
She's in her 40s, not in her 80s.
For a large part, it's mistaking indifference and ignorance for open-mindedness. This is not to say that there is not, at certain levels, deep societal reflections happening for an open society -with the same-sex marriage law from 2001 being an excellent case-in-point-, but, on average, philosophy and philosophical reflections are not ingrained in the dutch culture.
A very current backlash of the Netherlands perhaps not being as open-minded as thought can be seen in the slightly problematic consequences of last elections. With anti-immigration parties having booked big gains, ASML is threatening to leave the country if the anti-immigration policies they promised materialize.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/dutch-government-scrambli...
Having already lost Unilever and Shell, this would be a terrible blow.
I’d also like to mention that EU anti-trust law talks about „dominant position“ and not about monopolies. And any Company with more than 40% market share are in a dominant position.
antitrust regulation strictly considers the 'market share' (i guess you could say?), i.e. the size/influence of the alleged monopoly, not its share of the market relative to the whole.
Nobody cares that Nintendo has a monopoly on games published for their hardware.
I think we would care if all the other console makers left the market.
I think this analogy applies to Android vs. iOS — and that's despite me being annoyed by Apple acting as morality police with regard to content, instead of limiting their rules to the security domain.
Neither should matter.
Also, if you think the analogy misleading, please say why rather than calling it dishonest (I need more details than you've given to understand why you don't like it in those ways): this is a sincere comparison, and it's hard to learn from insults.
> they all just up and randomly closed shops in this hypothetical for what reason?
Doesn't matter. The consequences of the hypothetical in all cases are "the only console games you can buy anywhere are now vetted by one corporation".
it may just be that i genuinely don't understand your analogy.
Unfortunately I remain un-illuminated.
To me, an analogy must not be identical to the thing it is compared with: something identical would still be "an example", but an analogy is always specifically in the subset of examples which are different in some substantial way.
I can only think to give further examples of analogies which I think would be apt, and ask which would you accept as an analogy in this case, which would you refuse, and why?
Supermarkets: each brand controls what is sold within itself. This control doesn't matter, because we have multiple brands. It would matter if we didn't have multiple brands.
States within a federal nation: each regional government controls the laws within itself. Moving between them is straightforward, but not zero-cost. People care a bit, but they have to be pushing quite hard on the national Overton Window to get censured from above.
Transport options in specific geographic regions: Let's say you have the option of a car, a bus, walking, or cycling. The bus is mandatory for some people (disabilities, OAPs, school kids), so let's say those groups get free passes. Given everyone else (by construction) doesn't need the bus, in this scenario does it matter what price the tickets are or that the routes are fixed and limited?
I have plenty of issues with the EU, but consumer regulations is one of the areas where its work has produced by far the most benefit for regular people. Sometimes it takes a while to shake out properly (e.g. the nuisance of cookie banners), but overall they seem to be persistently chipping away at issues that have actual negative effects on people's lives, however small they might feel if a given one does not directly affect you.
Apple's total control of all aspects of the iPhone platform is harmful to consumers in a way that is not at all obvious, especially not to the less technologically literate.
An obviously absurd analogy is if a hammer company was somehow able to force you to use their brand of nails and wood and charge you per annum for the use of whatever you built. We did not have previous legislation to handle this situation, because simple physics means that can't happen. But with modern-day complicated tools, it can, and so some regulation of this sector is absolutely needed.
(I don't know the DMA well enough to say if it, specifically, is the right way to handle it, mind, but it's obvious to me that the present situation is untenable.)
Is it though?
To extend your analogy, let's say you can go to the store and buy a hammer. One brand ("Granny Smith"), and only that brand, has these limitations and it's pretty well-known these limitations exist if you buy that hammer. Or, you can buy one of the other dozen or so brands of hammer, and you don't have that limitation.
But because the Granny Smith hammer is pretty and has slick marketing, half the hammer buyers get that brand of hammer, even though the other hammer buyers call them idiots for doing so.
Is this really a place where we need government intervention, when consumers are willingly making this choice?
If it got to the point where you couldn't realistically do any hammering without a Granny Smith hammer, then sure, it's pretty obvious action is needed. But right now, it's only a problem because half the buyers are happily choosing Granny Smith despite all the alternatives (which generally have more features and cost less). Even worse, they say they like these limitations, and don't want them removed!!!
They should absolutely get regulated, there is no good reason for Parkside batteries not to be compatible with Bosch tools, or Makita, or Ryobi or whatever else. They all have their slightly different battery interfaces, that don't have technical reasons to be different.
They only provide vendor lock-in, so that people who already have a Ryobi drill will also buy a Ryobi grass mower and a Ryobi trimmer, regardless of their actual individual merits, unless they want to also buy batteries (and chargers!) for each of their pieces of equipment.
This is bad for consumers, bad for competition and bad for the overall market. I hope this gets regulated in the future in the EU, but who knows.
The Granny Smith tools cost more than the others, and are sold in boutique shops by so-called "master craftsmen" who have never actually worked professionally with power tools. Yet somehow, half of tool buyers happily buy their tools, despite knowing they have to get batteries from the Granny Smith Stores and can't use any other tools' batteries. This is even touted as a feature(!), since it "protects" owners from "unsafe" 3rd-party batteries and chargers.
Is it correct for the government to step and and protect stupid consumers from themselves? If the government did this for everything that consumers buy, we might as well just have government ownership and operation of all companies, and that was tried before with disastrous results. So at what point should government just let people make bad decisions, as long as no actual fraud is being committed? And remember the safety aspect touted by Granny Smith: they claim that it's unsafe to use non-GS batteries in their tools, and that it's a burden on them to deal with warranty claims for GS tools harmed by bad non-GS batteries. (Remember, there are a LOT of users right here on HN who will cite this safety argument for iPhones.)
The problem with that hypothesis is that in reality they just wouldn't do that. Once a fragmented market based on vendor lock-in is established, every manufacturer is afraid to break it because the first that breaks it has the most to lose.
> Is it correct for the government to step and and protect stupid consumers from themselves?
Do consumers have an option for interoperability today? They don't.
> If the government did this for everything that consumers buy, we might as well just have government ownership and operation of all companies
That doesn't follow, plenty of things consumers buy don't have vendor lock-in, and plenty of things that do have vendor lock-in also have available options without lock-in. Other products even have vendor lock-in, without interoperable options, but where lock-in isn't an actual problem (say, blades for electric razors: sure they are not interoperable, but they are a minor expense and have actual technical reasons for not having a standard).
> So at what point should government just let people make bad decisions
At an arbitrary point that is chosen by the regulatory bodies taking into account many of the variables that affect the markets of consumer goods.
Huh? That's literally what the smartphone market is like now, though it got there a different way. There's two OSes: iOS and Android. There's a bunch of phone makers who sell Android-based phones, and they all can run apps from the Google Play store (or other Android app stores, or side-loaded .apk files).
If you want to argue that the power tool market can't get there from its current situation, that's fine, but it's completely irrelevant to the discussion here, which is about smartphones and not power tools. You're the one who brought up power tool batteries as an analogy here, and like all analogies, it's imperfect but can be useful.
>Do consumers have an option for interoperability today? They don't.
They can buy an Android phone of some kind and use any app from the places I mentioned above.
>say, blades for electric razors: sure they are not interoperable, but they are a minor expense and have actual technical reasons for not having a standard
Apple makes the exact same argument for their App Store.
>plenty of things consumers buy don't have vendor lock-in
There are many places where vendors have tried, but got shot down. Auto parts is one big example.
Yes, it affects all of us and positions Granny Smith for even more control over derived areas. For one, Apple are applying American morals to decisions about what kind of content is appropriate in apps.
> when consumers are willingly making this choice?
Are they, though? They're making the choice, but there's lots of factors, and this is hardly the most obvious one. So there's lots of little, day-to-day choices by individual consumers based on what looks cool, what can I afford, what has the best games - and these small chocies just happen to add up to big choice that total control of smartphones should be ceded to Apple.
> But right now, it's only a problem because half the buyers are happily choosing Granny Smith despite all the alternatives (which generally have more features and cost less).
In my country it's actually something like 80% - and it skews in a certain way so that many apps are iOS-only. Not the ones you can't live without, not yet, at least.
> Even worse, they say they like these limitations, and don't want them removed!!!
I know Apple are running a big fearmongering campaign, but to the best of my knowledge, all of the changes that the DMA enforce are opt-in. The only way it affects you if you don't want to opt-in is that it informs that you now have a choice.
EU's attempted total control of all aspects of the tech platforms is harmful to consumers in a way that is not at all obvious, especially not to the less economically literate.
It's funny that Apple is condemned here for applying inside their own platform the exact same strategy the EU is applying inside its tech market.
> This should not come down to "consumer preference" - _especially_ not when the harms aren't obvious at the time of purchase.
"For your own safety" is how authoritarianism raises.
The EU is a regulatory body and a union of democratic sovereign states. There is no comparison to be had whatsoever with a multinational for-profit company.
While multinational companies?! I can actually stop being their customer and vote with my wallet. Much more democratic, IMHO.
I lived both under a communist dictatorship and democracy. My actual vote (well, my parent's, I was too young to vote then) was wasted under both.
But every time I purchase a product I know that I act as natural selection in an ecosystem of companies which cannot exist unless their actions are (partially) aligned with my interests. It works.
i take your points well. and would also offer that you have a personal life experience which is fascinating to me given my upbringing in quintessential USA.
'voting with one's wallet' as a concept has more to do with the (English anyway) word for 'boycott.' a boycott, unlike governmental regulation, is something strictly reserved for private individuals to carry out. governments cannot legally boycott anything, at least that comes to mind. but they do have implicit (sometimes called 'plenary') authority to regulate the private market.
both, boycott (i.e. freedom of speech and to assemble, etc.) and lawful governmental regulation, are but of course myriad components of a healthy, functioning democracy.
nice exchanging ideas with you.
I don't think you realize what it is to have zero control over your government, and to be represented by no one. Your statements are grossly hyperbolic and a misrepresentation of the (real) failings of our democracies.
The whole point of the current discussion is how little power you actually have over Apple and other companies as a consumer. You cannot actually "vote with your wallet" by not buying any smartphone or not mowing your grass, it doesn't work.
I don't know about you, but I've never owned an iPhone. Android phones have worked, and still work, great for me. You don't have to buy an iPhone to have a smartphone.
I have power over Apple by simply not buying their crap, which is exactly what I've done. If other people like you did this instead of expecting someone else to control the company you willingly shovel your money to, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Do you? We both don't have iPhones (actually, I do have one at work because it's required for some of the things we do, but that's another problem) and Apple still exists, and still locks in my less technically aware relatives which becomes my problem.
Using an Android phone isn't a solution to all problems anyway, since many bank or identity apps require a locked, unrooted phone, which basically means they only run on unsecure phones that might report whatever to their actual owners in the US, China or South Korea.
Wrong. You can vote for your local representatives who control the EU executive. You can vote for your EU member who control the EU parliament.
What you have zero of is knowledge of how the EU works, apparently.
And of course I did. None of the politicians I voted for won. Turns out proposing populist measures, like "be tough on those evil multinational corporations" is much more electable than saying uncomfortable truths like "EU is falling behind on tech - we need to lower taxation and reduce regulation if we want to have a fighting chance of catching up".
> What you have zero of is knowledge of how the EU works
Please teach me then. What you said so far ("vote") is not only well known but is also quite ineffective - if you know how EU works actually, not just apparently.
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/home
You could highlight to them how you feel you have zero influence.
You see, here is how it worked in my country: populist parties share the power and easily crush competition. They get elected by promising populist measures: higher pensions, higher minimum income and a tougher stance on the only thing they can attack: foreign corporations, which are made to be the scapegoats - root of all evils.
Then in EU elections their list is filled with the most useless, moronic, deeply corrupted and easily controlled politicians. This is because the EU parliament is seen as a well paid, easy comfy job tailor made for politicians too stupid or too visibly corrupt to prepare the next election cycle at home.
Those are "my MEPs". The only people they listen to are the handlers from back home. The only interests they represent is that of the highest bribe.
Start here: https://elections.europa.eu/en/
Who is economically illiterate here exactly? If I buy an iPhone, who owns it? Me, or Apple? According to you, it's Apple. Because they own the "platform" they get to decide what software you can run on it. No option to opt out.
Apple denying user choice for their own interest, on user owned hardware, is so obviously anti-consumer that only an ideologue would deny it.
> "For your own safety" is how authoritarianism raises.
Do you mean how Apple denys user freedom "for their own safety", literally?
Dictatorship from an unelected, self appointed corporation is actual authoritarianism.
You're entirely missing the point. Tech companies don't get to dictate what we can do with their products. I don't know why that is so hard to understand. You think that going to a competitor is the answer but the competitor is doing the same thing and so would every company over time because it gives the companies so much power and profit, at the cost to user freedom. This is particularly dangerous in a market that is basically an oligopoly.
The "free market" is great but it doesn't solve every problem or abuse. Users and customers have rights that need to be protected. Why you thing giving up your natural rights to corporations is a good idea I'll never know.
You simply switch to a producer with more acceptable terms or one that doesn't dictate at all. Unless the competition was curtailed through excessive regulation, of course.
Why is it so hard to understand how the free market works and so hard to accept that different people can make different choice from you and that is ok because you it doesn't impede on your right to make your choices?
Why this desperation to impose your choices on other people?
You go find a new clothing store.
>You're entirely missing the point. Tech companies don't get to dictate what we can do with their products.
No, I'm not, and yes, sometimes they do, if you agree to it. Lots of enterprise vendors dictate how their customers can use their products.
>You think that going to a competitor is the answer but the competitor is doing the same thing and so would every company over time
No, they aren't doing the same thing. I can use other app stores (or side-loaded apps) on Android right now. Why is this SO hard for you to understand? No, there's no evidence this is going to change. If it does, then you have a very good reason for government to step in and force changes.
This would only be true if Android did not exist.
But the reality is it’s not harmful at all.
Only if you don't care about your privacy at all: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26639261
Same with many other topics - your freedom to own a gun doesn't outweigh other people's freedom from getting shot.
Owning guns is a different story. In the US, it's actually easy to do. Austria and the Czech Republic are the closest to US average, and it's still significantly harder.
Also, most of the US has permitless carry. If you can own the gun, you can carry it, period.
Meanwhile you can easily get a gun in Scandinavia or Switzerland or Czechia.
Not a good example, to be honest.
Easily is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
That's the thing about a framework of freedoms. In anarchy, the strong will subjugate the weak, and thus only the strong are free.
Thus if we want to protect your right to not be shot, we need to prohibit someones right to shoot you, and in some societies that extends to your right to bare arms with actual positive outcomes behind it.
Th'at's not anarchy, that's libertarianism: maximal individual freedom at the expense of others. Coincidentally the system propelled by all big tech moguls, and half of the us political scene.
Anarchy is not the absence of rules, it is the absence of hierarchy. Contrary to what we have been fed since we were born, we don't need a hierarchy to function. Anarchy is the understanding that no human is above any other, and that we cannot live alone so we're just going to live together, agree together on rules, democratically (some say the only true democracy where everyone can express themselves on all topics and decisions are taken based on this) and with the collective wellness and joy as the compass.
> The main "freedom" in America is the ability of wealthy interests to screw over everyone.
Try as I might, I’m failing to picture which shadowy cabal of wealthy elite might be behind the laws preventing day drinking in parks, and how they might be benefiting from it.
> In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.
So when the person I replied to talks about public drinking in parks, in my head I’m picturing the family gatherings my family does each year in the park; and I think about several of my relatives who struggle with alcohol addiction, and my reaction is “well yeah, of course nobody wants to deal with a huge group of drunk people being rowdy in the park.”
What I don’t consider is how those same laws can be used against homeless people to remove them from the same park. In a town of 3000 people, homelessness is not something that really exists here.
Thanks for your comment, it has helped me understand the issue.
>live in freedomland
>"hello sir have you been to sunday's demonstration"
>yes
>fired
>https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/employment-law-compliance/...
>apply for another minumum wage job
>"in order to assure the highest quality of service, we require you to pee in a cup on monthly basis, it is of utmost importance that walmart cashiers don't ever smoke weed on their weekends because reasons"
>apply for a third job
>"wow sir you peed in public 20 years ago, I'm sorry but this is an unforgivable mistake, I can't hire people who have a history of peeing in public"
The methods that the US society uses to force its citizens to comply with social norms are similar to Soviet Russia. Yes, technically speaking law doesn't prevent you from doing things, but if you do them, you'll get fired and won't find another job "because it is the freedom of the corporation to decide not to work with you" and have fun living without a job. I am so happy that EU has, in general, much better protection of worker rights.
This is possible because of the powerful regulatory body that is the EU. Regulation and interventionism give the public more freedom. This might be hard to swallow for a proponent of lessez-faire policy.
So freedom for Apple is more free in USA to screw customers, like those Aplle custoemrs are prevented to be shown some informational text, if users know to much is bad for Apple.
But in some cases, yes, there's an interaction of conflicting freedoms and finding the right balance can be tricky, and consumer protection laws are a good example of that.
But in general, there might exist creative counterexamples. I haven’t found any though.
Except that this is not a good faith or legitimate freedom. Hurting people is not a freedom to anyone but a complete sociopath. The fact that the law forbids me from detonating a bomb in times square is not a restriction on any part of my ability to live life.
It's only when the "freedom to" and the "freedom from" are legitimately at least somewhat evenly stacked in how it affects people that it ought to be an issue given careful consideration.
Whenever I think it out these systems collapses. If it was land that was the key for votes, the society would inevitable converge to a single entity owning all the land and all the voting power - that is not democracy anymore.
In the end all democracies need to strive for equal voting power to all participants.
In the framework freedom can be quantified to be in alignment with what the populous wants. In the US case, "freedom" rights tend to benefit only a few people. This is not a balance, or a zero sum game. This is an absolute reduction of freedom.
If you want to root your phone and install all sorts of weird system-level tools, I have no idea why you'd choose an iPhone in the first place. That kind of thing is virtually the raison d'etre of Android.
With great responsibility should come great authority.
We are so accustomed to the nanny state, we are afraid when we are left to our own devices and our God given brain. How can we possibly survive without our overlord telling us what is good and what is bad?
Isn't it how it works on the iPhone anyways?