[dns_snek]

People on this site repeat this meme every time there's an EU initiative to protect personal freedoms or consumer rights.

It hasn't happened so far, but I'm sure you'll be right one day and we'll all be collectively begging for mega-corporations' forgiveness.

Any entity that doesn't want to abide by these rules would be a good riddance anyway and it would give room for customer-respecting alternatives to flourish. That's a win-win.

[miki123211]

> It hasn't happened so far

It has happened, many, many times.

Apple's newest features (both iPhone mirroring and AI) are a great example, so are Meta's. A lot of accessibility tech (like Meta's new glasses or their feature allowing the blind to identify people in photos) is also impacted.

There are many more examples, most local American newspapers just straight out can't be accessed from the EU for example.

The more laws like these we have, the less attractive the EU is going to be for foreign companies to enter. We're on the way to turn into another South Korea, with their shitty local apps for everything and banks that still required Active X controls and Internet Explorer in the early 2020s.

[dns_snek]

When companies like Apple put blame on EU regulations, it's worth keeping in mind that they're usually lying. See Microsoft's response to the Crowdstrike incident, and Apple's petulant behavior in regards to the DMA over the past year or so. It's safe to assume that this is just their way of pushing their anti-DMA agenda until proven otherwise.

> We're on the way to turn into another South Korea, with their shitty local apps for everything and banks that still required Active X controls and Internet Explorer in the early 2020s.

It's funny that you bring up banking. Today marks the 10th anniversary of the day when SEPA became available in all EU countries. We figured out a universal low/no fee payment system far earlier and better than the US did - I'm not up to date - is it actually figured out yet?

Additionally, the EU is home to numerous fintech startups like N26, Revolut, Monzo, TransferWise, etc. that brought innovative features like even quicker person to person payments (just send money to their phone number in the app), disposable cards for online shopping, and cheap transfers across continents (especially TransferWise). Many of these features are now being implemented by established banks and this is frankly a poor example of EU regulations that supposedly block innovation.

I've read the GDPR, DMA, and the EU AI act and I'm familiar with them at a high level. My position is that any product or service that doesn't comply with the these regulations shouldn't be available in the EU, the spirit of these regulations is sound and ensures that we have keep some semblance of freedom and sovereignty in the future.

I think you're being alarmist and conflating predatory business practices with "innovation". They're orthogonal, and we don't have to accept invasion of privacy, exploitative business models, and unaccountable AI black boxes that decide our fate, in exchange for temporary shiny new toys.

[johnnyanmac]

>Any entity that doesn't want to abide by these rules would be a good riddance anyway

how would that be different from you simply choosing not to play the game as a personal choice? Why get the government involved?

[beretguy]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tUAX0gnZ3Nw

[dns_snek]

Good question.

1. Because at its core, this is about personal property rights that we already (used to) have. When we "bought" something, we owned it and it couldn't legally be taken away from us. With digital media these rights have been eroded and laws have been slow to catch up. We're just asking for existing consumer protection laws and personal property rights to be adapted and/or enforced for digital products.

2. The idea of a free market relies on consumers having perfect information about the product at the time of purchase. If one product page said "Buy", and the other one said "Rent for 3 months or more, at our discretion", then consumers could make an informed decision.

Right now both product pages are allowed to say "Buy", and so the predatory business practices are financially rewarded rather than being treated as fraud.

The only time a digital product (or any other internet-dependent product) should be allowed to use the word "Buy" is when all of its features would remain functional even if the company behind it and all of their servers ceased to exist. For multiplayer games that would mean having the option to self-host a server. For other media that would mean a downloadable, DRM-free copy.

3. Since this practice is profitable, we can expect it to be adopted by an ever-growing number of companies. That's capitalism and we need laws to protect consumers from predatory business practices.

4. At the time of purchase, you don't know whether you're going to get screwed later down the line, so eventually, the only real choices are going to be to avoid the entire sector, or piracy. That's a problem for both sides.