Whoops, sorry for hijacking the thread …
The EU certainly has its deficiencies and inefficiencies, we all see that. It is however a democratic institution and we are not governed by an autocrat. I recommend that everyone educates themselves about the EU’s history, why and how the EU and its predecessors came to be.
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Steve
I join you in your dissatisfaction with either of the choices given us by our party overlords. This is indeed an example of my thesis (the idea that the people get the government they deserve is not new to me). We have been putting up with these two lame private clubs (Republicans and Democrats) handing us their two choices for hundreds of years, and yet we still call this system “Democracy”. Of course these choices are going to be awful for the peasantry. When rich bankers and industrialists choose political candidates among their own, the winners of elections are obviously going to be representing the interests of rich bankers and industrialists. One can complain about this, but expressing incredulity at this outcome is nothing short of stupid. Yet it doesn’t appear that we’ve figured this out yet. A citizenry that spends so little time on critical thinking deserves what it gets. I am not happy about this conclusion, but it is so.
I’m voting for Bobby Kennedy. Like him or not, both parties hate him and that means he’s the preferred candidate for me. The defense contractors and Big Pharma are spending millions to take him down. Government bureaucrats fear for their jobs. As the Sanskrit saying goes: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
Torsten_B
I’m sorry friend, but I must join with SteveW in expressing incredulity and mirth at your postulation that the EU is a democratic government body that represents the people of its member countries. Keeping our discussion focused on the Digital Markets Act that is now being employed against Apple by the European Commission, I can assure you that no one on that Commission was elected by the European peasantry any more than the American FDA or CDC or NSA are elected by the American peasantry. I will also invite you to take a look at their membership list. European aristocracy, banking interests and politically connected landed gentry populate that body like grains of sand on Miami Beach (not that the situation is any different in the US).
If there really are Russian trolls somewhere on the internet (I’m assuming you weren’t speaking of this forum in particular), they must be having an awfully hard time finding these “democratic institutions” you speak of. If they do discover one, I hope they are kind enough to share this discovery with the rest of us. Because I myself have no idea which “institutions” you’re referring to.
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I assure you have no Idea? The parlament decided that. The comission can’t decide without the parlament. The people there are all elected at the “Europawahl”. SO THE PEOPLE SITTING THERE ARE NOT LIKE YOU WANT TO MAKE US BELIEVE. SO MAY BE YOU BELIEVE BUT IT ISN’T SO. I don’t like discussions like that where people think they are in knowledge and having no Idea.
And asking me: yes, apple needs to be pressed in the right edge. Market leaders using their power to process the market to their best Idea position. AT&T and Bell are good examples for this. Not existing in their form anymore while gouvernment of the US was doing a pulverisation. EU does nothing like that. EU says: when and if you are a market leader and the biggest gatekeeper you have to follow rules. And that is good. For the market and for small companies.
In fact: america is not the middle of the world.
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Sam
Every one of your points are entirely valid (with the addendum that Microsoft has plenty of ways it uses to stifle competition and can’t leverage its market dominance in the phone space to make its own store exclusive). My point is not that Apple isn’t artificially restricting access to products to favor its own outlets (thus ensuring their commission and artifically inflating the strategic value of their store), but that calling in a foreign regulator you know nothing about, whose agenda is unknown, may not be the wisest course of action in disputing Apple’s clearly anticompetitive and unfair policies.
The science fiction writer Robert Heinlein once drew an analogy which explains this situation. Summarized it was something like this:
A man was always having trouble with a wolf attacking his livestock so he went to a nearby horse and proposed that, since the wolf was an enemy of both parties, they should employ the horse’s superior speed and the man’s reasoning abilities to capture and eliminate their common foe. Agreeing, the horse submitted to a saddle and bridle and off they went. Soon, the wolf found itself to be easy prey for the team of horse and man and the threat was gone.
So, the horse said, “Okay, that’s over with! Now get this saddle and bridle off me and I’ll be on my way.”
However, the man had different ideas. “I think not!,” the man said, and applied the spurs. “Giddyup, horsie!”
In using the heavy-handed foreign EU bureaucracy to interfere in the business of an American company (like them or not), we are setting a precedent, and certainly inviting future heavy-handedness on the part of foreign bureaucracies, of which there is no shortage. You will notice much interest among the UN and the WHO big-shots in American law and custom in recent years. Unless you’re a big fan of lockdowns, wild inflation and going-out-of-business sales from coast to coast imposed by United Nations delegates from Iran and Nigeria, we might try to find some local remedies when Tim Cook gets out of line.
Very well, sir. We are clearly living in different segments of the universe where laws, customs and perceptions differ greatly. Let us then agree to disagree and let time–the great democrat–judge which one of us–if either–is the wiser.
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You can of course negate every institution we have. This leads us nowhere. With all its flaws and imperfections (which must be fixed) the EU has a raison d’être that can be found in Europe’s history.
I agree with your observation that the democratic process is corrupted by powerful interest groups. The conclusion is that this abuse must end, not that the EU lacks legitimacy.
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Maybe in america where Trump is possible. Please. And stop this overrating of your self. Nobody needs people acting like you. Nobody.
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But he is a vaccine denying crackpot…
Of the people who have a real chance of winning IMO the only rational choice is Biden and every one who votes for someone else or stays home is effectively voting for Trump who would be a catastrophe for the country and the entire west. He now knows better how to wield the power of the presidency than he did in his first term.
-Karen
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You are the “always right” but he is the overrated. lol
And you really believe what you said? That I am right in question of java programming should be so otherwise I would not deservce to call my self a Java programmer. That Xojo has no chance to reach any target Java reaches is nothing you really want to try out or? That I am thinking before writing: it is so. Sorry. And that I am not accepting things only while you think you are right when you are not: not my problem Mr. Ivan. That’s it.
Yes, you are allways right 
Karen
As I am also a vaccine-denying crackpot, Kennedy is the perfect candidate for me.
That is the beauty of the democratic process.
I elect to overrate myself. It is therapeutic for me.
I know you don’t care for it. That is why I attempted to terminate our fruitless discussion. Please excuse the interruption of your previous discussion and forget I was ever here.
10 posts were split to a new topic: The EU and its regulatory actions
Duly noted.
- Karen
Apple is being investigated on every single continent, US, EU, Aus, even South Korea is having a go.
The warning signs have been flashing for a long time, but Tim Cook squeezed harder and harder. It is no surprise that in response to Cook’s monster, the EU created their own Kaiju. Now they fight.
I have no love for governments, but in this case Cook practically wrote the DMA himself.
Edit: Lets not forget that everything Apple was accused of in the Epic v.s. Apple trial, was proven true by Apple’s own evidence.
- Treating developers differently, while publicly stating “All developers are treated equally”.
- Prioritizing their own apps in search results.
- Adding weights to the download listings, to promote their own apps there.
- Using review manipulation to promote their own apps, which is a ban-able offense for anyone else.
- Giving their own apps private Entitlements, while denying the competition the same Entitlements.
Simply because the Apple App Store is the ONLY store on iOS.
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Sam
The list of megacorporate monsters misusing their political and market power would crash this server if I dared post it. Going after one monster seems myopic, but if the Europeans dig it over there I have no problem with that. I just don’t want the EU in my face here in my country.
But you do what seems appropriate for your business. In the end, the consumer will choose whether he wants a phone meticulously crafted by a megacorporate monster who knows how to make a phone, or a clueless hodgepodge of faceless Brussels bureaucrats who couldn’t build a paperclip with a committee the size of Davos.
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It is not apple that builds the rules. For Shure not. Even hearing the height of the fine and the epic account is back. Bad to loose a week of revenue even for apple.