Apple was founded before that. Since when does that matter? Ugh so over Americans bashing anything that isn’t American.
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Apple's App Store, Safari, and iOS Officially Designated 'Gatekeepers' in EU
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Nether fact has anything to do with what I said. Google is not an EU company. And understanding competition laws doesn't exempt you from gatekeeper status.
No but understanding the laws makes you less likely to build your business model in such a way that you could be classed as a gatekeeper
No, it doesn't. That's ridiculous. A company can be perfectly compliant with every EU regulation and still be a gatekeeper simply as a result of its size.
Has Apple been classed as a gatekeeper purely because of its size? Or the fact it is preventing access to its platform for free competition?
Nor should they require developers to release apps in Apple's App Store. In that case, what' the point of opening up access to the platform?
If a developer chooses to move to a different app store, he or she risks losing customers. If the developer makes the move, customers will have to decide if Apple's walled garden is important enough to stop using the app (and find an alternative in the App Store). That's freedom (for the consumer, not the corporation). That's how things work on every other computing platform.
I'm not against Apple making money from the App Store. My objection to the App Store monopoly has nothing to do with what Apple charges, percentages, etc. I object to a platform gatekeeper who, at the flick of a switch, can disable an app and silence people, cut them off from services, etc. For me it's not about Apple, but the obvious, inherent dangers of such a system and allowing such a model to become accepted (and replicated in other industries). That's a sure fire path to the dystopian future we see depicted all too often these days.
On the one hand, Apple fans sing Apple's praises when it comes to security and privacy, yet they think so little of Apple that they believe the entire iOS platform will become a wasteland of malware if third party app stores are allowed. How can both be true? And why isn't the Mac a wasteland of malware?
Most of the discussion here has degenerated into some garbage-tier "EU vs. the evil US" tirades or the usual "Apple is evil" that's 90% of this forum.
Putting all considerations of what or who is better aside, it simply isn't feasible for any company to risk 10 or 20 percent (or effectively all) of its international revenue (not just gain) on the hostile legislation of the EU or anyone.
If these vague laws are ever applied in this way, companies would simply retreat from the EU and people there could turn to Linux on the desktop (ha) or some SAP or Siemens Energy or whatever OSs. That'll show those evil companies.
Let's hope for the very export-dependent economies of the EU that nobody ever comes up with similar rules that would be applied to them.
Putting all considerations of what or who is better aside, it simply isn't feasible for any company to risk 10 or 20 percent (or effectively all) of its international revenue (not just gain) on the hostile legislation of the EU or anyone.
If these vague laws are ever applied in this way, companies would simply retreat from the EU and people there could turn to Linux on the desktop (ha) or some SAP or Siemens Energy or whatever OSs. That'll show those evil companies.
Let's hope for the very export-dependent economies of the EU that nobody ever comes up with similar rules that would be applied to them.
Isn't it number of users, hence they contest iMessage being in there as it does not reach 45 million users in the EU. The size of the company is irrelevant in that aspect.
Houses are a bad analogy because they're too easy to build. There's a specific reason why there are a wide variety of companies successfully manufacturing smartphones and literally thousands of companies successfully producing apps while only two companies have been successful at creating a commercially viable mobile OS: creating the OS is significantly more difficult. So difficult, in fact, that the company that created the dominant OS on desktop was not able to create a commercially viable mobile OS.
It's 90% "evil EU how dare they do this to an American company, don't they know they suck and have never contributed anything to the world".
No. My comments are NOT about “money” or “winning”. Its about penalizing companies simply because they are successful. By buruecrats that know nothing about technology, and about a EU government that is incapable of helping its workforce compete
I typically favor a light touch from government. Since the dawn of time all governments start off chaste, at best, then turn into power whores. In the last 10-15 years the tech industry and business in general has turned into increasingly larger corporations which buy up the best examples of small business to further decrease competition.
I can’t say I’m surprised by the ruling, although I’m surprised that the EU dared to run the investigation. Even as an outspoken capitalist, I wouldn’t be heartbroken to see certain tech companies and all of the wireless carriers get run through the shredder. (At least in the U.S., it was a shameless buying spree in the consumer wireless industry until only 3 companies who actually hold RF licenses remained).
I can’t say I’m surprised by the ruling, although I’m surprised that the EU dared to run the investigation. Even as an outspoken capitalist, I wouldn’t be heartbroken to see certain tech companies and all of the wireless carriers get run through the shredder. (At least in the U.S., it was a shameless buying spree in the consumer wireless industry until only 3 companies who actually hold RF licenses remained).
I know, it wasn’t my analogy originally to be fair It came from a US user that said forcing Apple to open its platform wss like asking your house builder to pay for your electricity for life
And the ancient Athenians invented democracy (literally ‘people power’ - demos + kratos) in the 5th century BCE.
Putting aside that women didn’t have the vote and that they were a slave owning society (many of our societies only solved these issues comparatively recently), their version of democracy was more radical than anything we have now in the western world.
Also : major contributions in philosophy and in science and in inventing the empirical method. Oh and in drama, sculpture and poetry.
It’s no understatement to say that much of western culture sits on the foundation stone of the achievements of the ancient Greeks (I’m not Greek btw).
This is absolutely true, it’s also amazing how few Americans seem to know anything about their own country, or how things work. That’s why you get all the political buzzwords/slogans as “evidence”, they actually don’t know anything else.
It works great for the wealthy, which is why they’ve funneled money away from education for decades, and into their own coffers.
The EU will still have Windows because Microsoft were grown up about it and stayed in the market
I don't think we should be looking at this from the perspective of what's harder or easier to do. While I get your point, the issue, whether it's houses, OSes, cars, or anything else, is whether we should allow a gatekeeper model to flourish (and ultimately spread to other industries).
Yes. That is one of the requirements. There are others (business users). When I said size, I was not referring to the company as a whole. But just their size in the applicable market.
Than why aren't you aware of them? You don't have to be breaking any regulations to be declared a gatekeeper.
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The entire situation is actually more like antitrust laws regulating dominant companies who (potentially) engage in anticompetitive behavior which...surprise surprise...is what antitrust laws are supposed to do.
This sounds like a slippery-slope argument. You can make those kinds of arguments about everything that exists in society so they're not particularly convincing.
Personally, I think the EU is making a mistake by treating the desktop OS/app environment like it's a developer/consumer nirvana. If it was, how did the current mobile OS/app environment get so popular with developers/consumers?
Yet the Europeans are happier and have a better quality of life than Americans, so I'd say whatever they're doing, they're doing just fine.
No one is penalizing anyone for being successful. Europe is wisely rejecting the gatekeeper model, a model that is anti-freedom and only enriches the gatekeeper at the citizen's expense.
I’m calling it a day on here. I just don’t understand how our American friends, the home of “freedom” are so strongly defending a corporation’s right to limit their freedoms as consumers.
I wish you all a good and productive evening
I wish you all a good and productive evening