[idkwhoiam]

Hey EU, can you please ask BMW to open everything up to its rivals so that I can use Toyota's infotainment system instead of BMW's iDrive. I also want to be able to run PS games on XBox & vice versa without having to buy separate copies.

And lastly, how about you open up your very own market to everyone by lifting protectionist taxes

[ranguna]

That's like saying that the EU is asking apple to allow iPhones to run android apps. That's not what's going on at all.

[AltruisticGapHN]

That's exactly my sentiment. The main issue with this, it's like telling Apple how to do their job. Like , "you guys don't know how to build hardware and software that works really well together"

It's well meaning but ultimately flawed. So long as humanity works "competitively" instead of sharing technology for the greater good - companies like Apple are the good guys, not the bad guys. They are trying to make the best products they can THEIR way because that's how this competitive market works.

So now EU is like "no no no you don't understand how to make good products, in fact you have no identity - you just build hardware and let people do whatever the F they want with it¨

[Kbelicius]

So you are arguing that users should not be able to use hardware they own as they see fit. Are you serious?

[rad_gruchalski]

They bought it while fully aware of those shortcomings. It’s like people buying cheap land next to an airport, building a house, complaining about the aircraft noise.

Do not buy it.

> Are you serious?

I am.

[FieryTransition]

I live in one of the myriad of countries in the eu, so I'm confused about what you mean when you say protectionist taxes and which country you are referring to or just something else?

[Mashimo]

I think he is talking about import tarifs for certain goods that enter the EU. But I would also to know what exactly he means.

[oblio]

> And lastly, how about you open up your very own market to everyone by lifting protectionist taxes

LOL, like China is doing by forcing everyone into 51-49 joint ventures China owns?

Or like the US is subsidizing EV and battery production for stuff made in the US?

Don't be naive, everyone's doing it.

[pembrook]

Whataboutism does not defeat OP's core point.

You either have a set of values, or you do not. The EU claims outwardly to have the values of being pro-privacy and pro-competition for healthy consumer markets.

However, these 2 supposed "values" only seem to come into play when it comes to regulating foreign tech companies that it cannot produce domestic competitors for.

The EU has loads of anti-competitive protectionist legislation, and re: privacy, the EU is in fact strongly considering legislation to ban encryption domestically as we speak. You can bet GDPR would not exist if Silicon Valley was located in the Rhine Valley.

Clearly these are not values. They are simply the amoral moves of opportunistic market participants (politicians), just like the companies being regulated.

This is not bad, this is just reality. But any claims of moral high-ground should be rightly shot down for what they are (BS).

[oblio]

The EU claims to be pro-privacy and pro-competition internally :-)

I don't even know where you got that angle wrong, the EU CAP is renowned as a protectionist measure, and it's a core EU component. It's just an example.

> You can bet GDPR would not exist if Silicon Valley was located in the Rhine Valley.

That's your assumption.

[Moldoteck]

That would be really nice, allow ps store on xbox(if they want) and viceversa And for car infotainment that would be a godsend. Classic car companies do a terrible job with their infotainment systems I'm hoping for smartwatch revision too: almost all smartwatches don't allow sideload/alternate stores(well technically you can, but cumberstone) or even firmware replacement

But i guess one step at a time

[etiennebausson]

The "protectionist taxes" are the way the U.E. give a chance to local corps against exported of slave-labor, which two of the world's biggest exporters are quite fond of.

It doesn't matter that they don't call it slave labor locally, label don't change the facts.

Seems more than justified to me.

[throwaway45680]

I hope you're not referring to the US and H1B workers, because if so, wait until you learn how hard it is to immigrate to the EU and how bad the situation of immigrant workers is here. These people would love to have something like H1B available here in EU. As an EU citizen, I feel very bad about the stuff we do to immigrants, and I hate how there's a class of unequal not-citizens among us, doing the dirtiest jobs the high EU society doesn't like to do.

It starts with access to healthcare insurance, for example. Try to get it as a non-permanent resident (who's not attending a school)! You have to have a job, there's no option to pay for yourself - unlike the US, where it's expensive but possible.

[etiennebausson]

I'm talking about 1% of the adult population being in prison, I'm talking about the 13th amendment and slavery, and I'm talking about 'for profit' prisons.

Any country that has incentives (here they are economics and race related) toward increasing prison population is one a citizen should be very wary of.

Depriving someone of their liberties should ALWAYS be a significant cost for the government doing it.

I'd recommend a stop around here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_Stat...

[zapdrive]

Terrible terrible analogy. It would be correct if EU was asking apple to make their phones be able to use Intel processors.

A correct analogy would be if BMW was taking a 30% cut from anyone selling seat covers for for BMW cars and EU telling them to not do that.

[rad_gruchalski]

Right? I'd also like to have an alternative to the EU parliament. And an alternative to my local tax office. Let's stop the monopoly on the government services. Open it all up.

[leidenfrost]

> And lastly, how about you open up your very own market to everyone by lifting protectionist taxes

I'm sure that this is the only thing preventing cheap chinese and indian labor to stomp over all the overpriced EU market.