I’m really asking this out of curiosity, not questioning. I live in the US. I definitely trust Apple more than the government. What kinds of protections are you happy to have? Again, no argument intended.
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Apple Will Delay Bringing New Features to Users in the EU
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I think, ^this is the main problem in the US. A government is there to protect and serve the people and is elected therefore, Apple is there to serve themselves (the shareholders) and are in no way responsible to or for the people.
If you really trust a for profit company more than your own elected government, then you have real problems with the election process or politics in general.
I like what you call "nannying" of our government. If they want to do something, that's not in common sense or is not good for the people, they will feel strong headwinds from the people, the opposition or the Federal Constitutional Court. I also like, that our government (local our European) stands for the people they represent. Because they don't care for the interests of foreign big players (like Apple f. e.) they are often accused to just go for the money. It's not, they go all in for the people that voted for them - simple as that.
That’s the nature of business in general.
Not what posters on Macrumors are saying. They trust government only when doubling down on Apple, but the remainder of the time…
It’s a good description.
Nonsense. It just doesn’t work that way. Trump must be doing great because the market is up and employment figures look good. So they are doing good for the people.
At the expense of excessive penalties to US tech.
Because as the wsj noted innovation is at an all time low in the EU.
You absolutely didn't got my message and just keep missionizing your other (here completely irrelevant) points of view over and over again - boring and completely uninteresting - at least to me.
The people running government get there by way of appealing to constituencies within the people and often run things to suit themselves, their vision and their constituencies, not everyone. For that matter, varied factions without a people often have opposed views and agendas.
Many of the people in government agencies are appointed or hired, not elected. People often vote for a politician not because they like or agree with him/her, but because the alternative is seen as worse. People speak of 'holding their nose and voting for...'
Businesses like Apple are subject to free market forces where customers 'vote with their dollars' and competition counter-balances exploitative self-interest to some extent. Look at the pushback Apple gets over unpopular design decisions, people threatening to 'jump ship' over to Windows or Android, etc...
Government and businesses are staffed with the same species; human beings. Everything someone doesn't like about 'politicians' or 'CEOs' can be found in some form in both. Both entities are held accountable, one to the electorate and one to free markets, neither of which is perfect.
The people they represent aren't the whole citizenry. Brexit is one example. A rightward shift in response to dissatisfaction with government is another. The word that's trickled in over here is that some governments seemed considerably more in favor of enabling large scale immigration (to the point it became disruptive) than many of the citizenry.
People in power often think they know better than much of their constituency. Sometimes they're right, but my point is they often stand for what they personally believe in and think they can get away with without paying too high a political price.
This is an interesting statement that deserves a harder look. In the U.S., we are having to grapple with the 'inconvenient truth' that for varied reasons bringing large scale manufacturing back to the United States, rather than relying on China, Vietnam, India, etc..., is at best daunting and likely not feasible. No matter how much one loves America, believes in what they think it stands for, etc..., the 'American Way' as it functions in the context of our modern, mostly post-scarcity, diverse and relatively prosperous society, doesn't lend itself to competing well on the world stage in terms of blue collar manual factory work, and the related technical expertise needed (I'm told Tim Cook said China offered a significant advantage in manufacturing due to a highly skilled workforce and advanced tooling capabilities, including a large number of skilled machinists).
Love America all you want, we're not the best positioned for doing everything.
Maybe the E.U.'s 'culture,' business culture, tightly regulated State or whatever isn't as conducive the kind of tech. sector business innovation the produces a Microsoft, Apple, Google or Meta/Facebook that lasts? I say 'lasts,' because the E.U. and perhaps like-minded nations do produce some big names - RIM (Blackberry; Canada) and Nokia (Finland) come to mind, but they don't seem to diversify and last.
I don't want to over-state the issue; our computers, operating systems and a lot of big niche software (e.g.: Microsoft Office, word processors, web browsers) are largely from American companies (with hardware made in China). China has been progressively producing alternatives to U.S. software/platforms, but has the E.U.?
Open question in neutral language - what is the major contribution (aside from some market dollars) of the E.U. to personal computing and related platforms these days?
And so I don't come off as too U.S.-centric, those of you in the E.U., are your main software products (e.g.: word processor/spreadsheet/office suit, web browser, e-mail client) mainly E.U.-based company-branded alternatives, or are you mainly using products from U.S. companies for those?
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I don’t agree with your message. But yet here we are in a thread about Apple delaying some functionality in the EU.
Disagreeing is absolutely ok for me, but i was only trying to answer fatTribbles question.
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@drrich2 Regarding Brexit:
Ask the Brits again, if they like the consequences of their experiment or if they would like to come back to the union.
A democracy is sometimes easily seduced by false propaganda. That's why it is important to teach and to protect democracy.
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And I think most Americans who 'threatened' to leave the country if Trump was elected (either term) didn't (although Rosie O'Donnell left for Ireland).
That said, it is clear the leadership of America doesn't 'stand for' a large segment of America, and this was true under Obama much as it is under Trump.
I'm not inclined to write off an electorate voting in a way others dislike as a product of seduction by false propaganda. I'm not denying it exists; quite the contrary, I say it exists on both sides. In American politics, it's too common for people to assume those on the opposite side of the political aisle are either stupid, ignorant, evil or duped. It's a sobering reality that someone can be intelligent, informed, reasoning and still somehow disagree!
Whichever way Brexit had gone, it revealed intense dissatisfaction with the E.U. by many. My point isn't pro- or anti-Brexit, it's that government leadership ideology and practice are often at odds with the values and desires of a substantial portion of the populace. Therefore to assert that the government 'stands for the people'...rates getting filed under 'it's complicated.'
It's funny how the Left and Right mirror each other. Big business and big government are both staffed by flawed, sometimes corrupt humans. The Left trusts in government to serve the citizen and be accountable to the electorate, and the Right trusts in business to serve the consumer and be accountable to free market competition, but each distrusts the trustworthiness of the other and its accountability system.
Don't get it twisted fella. If something is limited it affect at the absolute minimum my choice to accomplish/do what I want.
There is no 'except'.
This is the world we live in now. Some countries use hammers (tariffs), other countries use a scalpels (DMA), to shape international trade. We will see which approach will give the best outcomes.
The USA uses the dollar to manipulate markets the world over. Just remember that.
This is one of the reasons President Imbecile wants to see if he can take a lead in crypto as he's scared of other payment currencies and systems gaining ground or prominence.
Some countries pick on specific companies also.
All the same China intentionally keeps their currency value artificially low to undercut the rest of the world’s business. Talk about manipulation.
You will find a large number of Brits are still in agreement with Brexit because the reasons behind Brexit are very very sound. The problem is the rest of the EU wanted to teach the UK a lesson by refusing to work with them/deal with them because if they made it extremely difficult for the UK it would put off others wanting to do the same.
Therefore Brexit would have worked perfectly for the UK but the rest of the EU had other idea's and screwed over the UK completely. If the EU had been decent and accepted that the people of the UK wanted out of the EU then the UK would not be having the problems it does. To my knowledge there was 4 other countries looking to leave the EU and none of them has uttered a word about leaving because they are too scared that they will get screwed up badly just like the UK did.
How does other people here formulate it: You can't have your cake and eat it at the same time!
The UK wanted to leave the EU - fine, but then they can't have the benefits of the members of the EU anymore - simple as that. Also the UK had loads of special rights and exceptions, that the other members didn't get at that time. But this still wasn't enough, so the UK left the EU. Now they won't get the same special exceptions back, they had before, because now they are treated like any other country, that wants to join or trade with the EU. Now going to whine big tears because of that seems a bit hyperbole, cause it was clear from the beginning of the separation from the EU. The UK is even offered the same better trade conditions like the Scandinavian countries have, that are not members of the EU, but are close affiliates of the EU. Even this isn't enough and they are still whining big tears. This is all self inflicted and they should swallow their own bad behavior - sorry!
The UK wanted to leave the EU - fine, but then they can't have the benefits of the members of the EU anymore - simple as that. Also the UK had loads of special rights and exceptions, that the other members didn't get at that time. But this still wasn't enough, so the UK left the EU. Now they won't get the same special exceptions back, they had before, because now they are treated like any other country, that wants to join or trade with the EU. Now going to whine big tears because of that seems a bit hyperbole, cause it was clear from the beginning of the separation from the EU. The UK is even offered the same better trade conditions like the Scandinavian countries have, that are not members of the EU, but are close affiliates of the EU. Even this isn't enough and they are still whining big tears. This is all self inflicted and they should swallow their own bad behavior - sorry!
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Also: I dislike Apple's nanny rules.
This nails it. And some seem to project their own distrust of politicians and the democratic process onto other jurisdictions, baselessly claiming politicians are just doing it for money, career advancement etc.
"The European Commission has fined Apple over €1.8 billion for abusing its dominant position on the market for the distribution of music streaming apps to iPhone and iPad users (‘iOS users') through its App Store. In particular, the Commission found that Apple applied restrictions on app developers preventing them from informing iOS users about alternative and cheaper music subscription services available outside of the app (‘anti-steering provisions'). This is illegal under EU antitrust rules."
Well that tells us not everybody wishes to be a member of the EU; it's not just a UK thing. Which makes the point while it's presumably right for some, it's not for all.
That's not the worst case scenario. A zealous, charismatic visionary driven by an ideology can be way more dangerous, depending on the ideology in question.
What underlies that distrust of politicians and the 'democratic process' is a distrust in human nature and social dynamics in groups.
You've got that completely wrong. The UK has very good well established standards and quality, good quality of manufacturing, engineering, education, housing and the EU kept interfering by constantly requiring the UK to lower it standards and quality to that of lesser quality and standards used by many countries in Europe. The UK was also suffering from free movement of EU citizens basically those from poorer EU countries who saw the UK as a means to make money and give them a better life which is why many Eastern Europeans especially from Albania and Romania moved to the UK, got jobs and sent the money back to their families so they could live like Kings and Queens due to the differences in wages in the UK and the poorer EU countries.
The UK had had enough of this EU meddling and finally wanted out of Europe because Europe was not helping the UK but hurting it, flooding it with citizens from poorer EU countries looking for a better life and allowing UK companies to easily move out of the UK into other EU countries that would offer them cheaper taxes and cheap labour.
You talk to Polish people because Poland was the next country considered to be on the verge of following the UK and leave the EU but Poland whilst they have a very strong desire to leave the EU they saw what the EU did to the UK and now Poland has backed off because they do not want to suffer the same fate as the UK.
Not in the same ball park.
China can only manipulate their own currency and markets, (and maybe a few countries), they can't withhold money and trade in the same way the US did, does and will do for the foreseeable.
Also I dislike the EU targeting Apple.
Totally true for some.
The US calls it anti-steering. Can’t list a finding of antitrust unless the finding is relabeled.
Housing? I consider the quality of the UK's housing stock rather average in quality at best (this article about sums it up: much of it is old, cramped, inefficient, often dilapidated and bad value for money). IMO on par with the better among the post-socialist countries/regions in mainland Europe. Nothing where the EU could "drag down" the UK (or really did, for that matter). If anything, they could have followed the lead more advanced EU countries.
And the same for its education system - once you look beyond the (undeniable) quality and output of its leading universities.
Where the EU dragged down the UK, if anything, may have been the flexibility and leeways of its legal system(s), miring it in red tape and bureaucracy. And yes, the other factor of course was mandating free movement of people in a common (labour) market with huge disparities in income and wealth between EU countries. With the UK bearing the brunt of said immigration (probably due to ease of moving and the language).
Which is an important part of antitrust law and its jurisprudence, yes. ("Antitrust" law is not confined to merger control and the like).