Over the years, overregulation will continue to lock the EU out of bleeding-edge technologies. Every feature, every website, every innovation that doesn’t launch in the EU further plunges the bloc into technological irrelevance.
This is definitely a bit off-topic compared to the article, but it's worth noting that those modals are there to obtain consent to store and use your personal data, and aren't specifically related to cookies (anymore), but the GDPR. If the news website didn't store personally identifying information about you (anywhere! not just in cookies), it wouldn't have to obtain consent, and wouldn't need any modals.
I think the most annoying part of the regulation has been its lack of enforcement, because it has led to a weird sort of complacency where there's no clear knowledge of what is and isn't required, and then websites half-ass the banner (for example, they should be making it as easy to click Reject as it is to click Accept, not sending you down a dark pattern of checkboxes and stuff), or throw up a banner just to say they have one, even if they don't need it (I've seen that!).
So we get the worst of both worlds: bad modals that don't even do what they're supposed to, and no enforcement to correct any of it.
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" (Hanlon's razor)
There is no silver lining to this. The EU has to stop strangling its most productive industries with onerous regulations, and allow markets the freedom to innovate and increase productivity.
In the short term, lagging productivity can be masked by debt spending and other measures, but in the long run, the only thing that increases human wealth and material abundance is labor productivity. Everything else is illusionary.
All human societies have sought to increase labor productivity. The first stone tools, agriculture, and nuclear reactors are all productivity-enhancing inventions. Any society that opts out of seeking labor productivity will eventually see their wealth, living standards, and ultimately happiness decline. There is no way out of that trap.
And to be clear, there’s absolutely nothing good about low productivity for workers. All that means is that you’re spending more time working for lower wages, to produce things of lower value.
Due to the demands for constant economic growth increased productivity does not actually result in more free time, just more economic output.
The average American now spends just 10% of their wages on food. That effectively means, just 10% of Americans’s working life dedicated to food cultivation. That’s the result of economic productivity.
If an American is happy existing at a subsistence level, they’re free to slash their working hours to a tiny fraction of the average person. However, humans have unlimited material desires, which tends to keep us working.
> Any society that opts out of seeking labor productivity will eventually see their wealth, living standards, and ultimately happiness decline. There is no way out of that trap.
I'd argue the reverse - any society that privileges productivity over social reproduction and liveable cities will never be able to tame violent crime, achieve real social mobility or provide a safe and enriching environment for a majority of its citizenry.
If the EU thinks that low labor productivity is the path to happiness, going down that path is their prerogative, but long term that path will only lead to ruin. Lagging productivity has never in human history lead to civilizational success. Europe will be outcompeted and eventually dominated by its more productive peers.
In a profit-driven business, the more productive the workers are, the more work you can throw at them. Free time doesn't enter into the equation unless business owners need to manage a compliance issue regarding labor regulations.
Just patently untrue. The more productive you are the more work your boss will send your way, while walking away with fatter margins. If he can. Which is where EU regulation comes in.
Europe’s rules govern the balance between capital owners and labor. It’s far from perfect but it has resulted in fairly stable and happy societies. (At least apart from certain external factors)
Now there is of course nothing wrong with productivity. It is, as you say, very good in many ways. But you cannot look only at a society’s productivity metrics to judge success-and my by success I mean happiness, because that is my goal. Look at happiness in the US vs Europe for example. I know where I’d rather live.
The optimal is not always the best for people.
Right, there are so many countries in the world where increased productivity led to 4-day work week. In fact, I could count these countries on the fingers of one hand.
Source!
> Less productivity means everyone in Europe will get poorer, with declining living standards
We have some of the highest living standards in the world. In caparison to the U.S.A. in particular, it's like a utopia.
> There is no silver lining to this. The EU has to stop strangling its most productive industries with onerous regulations, and allow markets the freedom to innovate and increase productivity.
The silver lining is American cultural imperialism is ended in Europe, and we live how we want to over here. There are different ways of living, with different values.
Give it a few more decades of compounding lagging productivity, and that will no longer be true.
> The silver lining is American cultural imperialism is ended in Europe, and we live how we want to over here. There are different ways of living, with different values.
Productivity has nothing to do with cultural imperialism. China has dramatically increased their productivity, and that story has nothing to do with American imperialism
Maybe less integration will turn out better. Do we need native apps? You can use a website and then cut and paste.
- spyware
- built on copyright theft
- striving to be vendor lock-in
- vc thing with enshittification waiting to happen
silly eu regulating bleeding age technology. so much borrowed money not spend.
Agreed, and; hooray!
Rather than plunging us "into technological irrelevance", it saves us from nonsense nobody asked for, mostly existing to sell more hardware that nobody needs.