[kaba0]

> Very likely many more EU citizens have “voted” on this issue in a more direct fashion by buying Apple products.

Can you honestly tell what exactly they voted on? I voted for the good hardware and privacy-aligned actions, which did overcome their closed, proprietary-only software’s problems. By your logic, my vote should count towards the latter as a goal.

[aljungberg]

I can’t tell what the buyers of Apple products voted for exactly, but neither can you tell me what EU voters voted for when choosing their rep.

I mean here we have a law proposed by an unelected body (the European Commission), now being ratified by the European Parliament. The EP is elected (with ~50% turnout) but decides numerous issues (thousands? Tens of thousands?) in an election cycle. When voters elected their representatives how much thought did they spare to walled garden app stores?

Although both are indirect expressions of opinion, buying an Apple product seems to be a clearer endorsement for their model than voting in EU elections by a long shot.

[kaba0]

Not sure if it is comparable. If the EU would ban Apple products than sure, but regulating the platform should not be only an Apple-issue. These private companies are so big that they have considerable impact on the public, so I think it is only fair that the public gets a say as well (in the form of indirect democracy, as we don’t have better).