When traveling outside the EU, it's still best to buy a local SIM to avoid the ludicrous roaming charges, but there's no need to do that within the EU anymore.
[1] https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/37706/visa-hikes-uk-eu-...
Goddamn 2021 and we're still pretending electrons cost more based on distance.
As a comparison, my operator charges roughly ten times that for roaming in the US (and in 250 MB blocks, expiring in 24 hours).
That being said, it's absolutely lovely to be able to travel for business or holiday and to be able to find your way around, purchase things and get access to public transportation information abroad. Roaming costs before that always tended to be so eye-watering that I never really knew anyone who thought they were worth putting up with. I really dislike going outside of the European Union because of them, myself, too.
I live in Italy which has low prices, so I get 50 GB/mo for 8€ (and 200 GB/mo during the summer). Last summer I travelled to Austria and Czechia, I had 4GB available in both countries, and indeed checking their biggest ISPs' landing pages it looks like 8€ wouldn't have bought me even a gig! So 4GB is probably a mandatory minimum.
I'm not European, but can anyone tell me how does the political system in the EU let (or even motivate) law-makers and governments to support such mandates and laws that are in favor of consumers?
These rules are developed by the commision, but approved by national governments, which are then 'translated' into national laws.
In some areas the rules are very specific and detailed (eg chemicals) but in others the national governments are still in control (like protected titles such as baristers).
In the end is the motivation money. If you think your usb-c chargers are better than other countries, you would like to force apple to move to USB-C chargers. So it's a big economical incentive, and having countries on board like Germany, Scandinavia or the netherlands, makes the EU more suspicious of large companies, it's in their culture ;).
US has a more liberal policy where they make mistakes very costly, if you can succesfully bring a claim to the responsible party. The european mindset just tries to forbid things (Things aren't allowed if they aren't proven safe, instead of only things proven unsafe being forbidden)
The standards don't vary across the region on this issue.
"If you think your usb-c chargers are better than other countries, you would like to force apple to move to USB-C chargers."
This is definitely not it. There is no secret cabal of 'cable margin corporations' pushing for this legislation to tilt the power in the EU.
This is just the EU legislators thinking about what is right in front of their faces and thinking of legislating about it.
There might be some opportunity there, but probably not.
If someone wanted to help, they could figure out how to recycle them properly,
However, there is a tendency of these national governments to introduce laws on that level, and then turn around to their citizens and tell them 'Bruxelles told us to do this'.
There are certainly some stupid laws on that level, especially in the area of tech. But most of the complaints (these laws are conflicting!) are just a meme.
In general is the support for the EU a majority [1] and the UK only succesfully 'won' the referendum to leave, and are now seeing the difference the EU has made in daily life.
The quotes research is a bit older, I am certain the Covid response and the fallout from Brexit has improved the support for the European union.
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/10/14/the-european-u...
To claim their future existence, the EU government really has to prove their usefulness for the EU citizens.
A lot of it has to do with the EU government being the punching bag of local politics. Like the German conservatives would throw up their hands "we can't do anything against this nonsensical EU legislation", completely omitting that they are represented in the EU parliament and could've done something against it there.
And the population buys it because the in general the EU population knows less about EU governance than US governance. A shame.
Not anymore, that was the past!
Bellies are still aching from laughter after Brexit, and EU has got the final approval stamp after 2016.
Also remember, until the day the brexit vote happened, the Brexxit was not possible,not real and not even worth discussing on HN.
Such things might not make waves in the high-tech bubble, but in the real world, such movements might be considerable. Lots of people see globalism as a attack on their life and community by now.
I agree with you on this point. It's worth noting that they are usually the same people who actually push for globalism, every time they choose "cheaper" over "local".
Why do you prefer Lightning over USB-C ?
But in the US, I very much view it as once something is legislated it becomes a permanent fixture of our society.
A solution would be to just require any port used to be freely available and open. Require Apple to open the lightning standard and make IP related to it unenforceable.
"jokes" like that are counter-productive to a good discussion. HN is not a place for such comments.
So, what are they going to do? Fine Apple for a couple of million euros? Give another reason for Apple to increase the prices of their products even more?
This is the kind of thing that really makes me understand Brexit.
These are all valid reasons that make me never want to buy an iOS device. But it is my choice.
Why is there this constant need for individuals to delegate their consumer conscience to an ill-informed and corrupt entity?
Kinda - I am pushing my government to force Apple to provide spare parts, and give us right to repair. Make ownership of digital device mean something again.
US obsession with choice is a red herring. I don't want sadistic 'choice' between getting going backrupt and dying of a treatable disease, I want the problem fixed.
Then just go buy from someone who actually is behind these values, and not someone who just greenwashes their products.
> US obsession
Sorry to spoil your ad hominem, but I am born in Brazil and have been living in Germany for 8 years.
> I want the problem fixed.
The problem is fixed already: I've been having this discussion while typing from a fairphone, which I was free to install /e/ OS without any Google services, and it cost less than an iPhone SE. I can open and replace not only the battery, but also the display and the camera.
I didn't have to wait any bureaucrat in Brussels to do this, and quite frankly I believe that if it were up to them they would find a way to screw this small Dutch company out of existence.
Stop buying Apple products. Stop buying anything from any company that is consumer hostile, even if the "ethical" alternatives are more expensive/less adequate for your needs. I can guarantee you this problem (and others that you don't even care about) will be fixed faster than by waiting for the EU.
Congratulations, you are part of the 0.1%. and yet every day millions of unrepairable phones go to landfill, petrol cars are still being produced, coal is still being burned.
Maybe enough is enough, democracy is more impirtant than 'free market'. I want to nail the invisible hand to the cross to make a point.
Again with the whataboutism? Who are you trying to fool with this lame rhetoric?
You say you want democracy, but what you are preaching is totalitarianism.
I think you are preaching anarchy.
If you need a label, I am "preaching" localism.
That's not such a bad idea. Or at least make the iPhone more repairable by not having to tare it appart just to change the battery.
I am more inclined to believe that they consumers have signaled that removable batteries are not as important as improvements on other constraints like size, durability and material look & feel.
Let me flip the question: if removable batteries and repairability are important to you, why don't you buy a Fairphone?
That is technically not true (Samsung makes their own electronics and their own displays. Flagships from other companies are often based on better specs than Apple's) and completely irrelevant to the point.
> take advantage of that monopolistic position
What monopolistic position?!
> to drop consumer-friendly features like removable batteries
What?! That makes absolutely no sense.
If consumers (as a whole) wanted to have removable batteries, companies would fulfill the demand by producing and marketing those. The fact that the most expensive and premium phones do not have this feature (while a handful of niche companies can offer that at no extra cost) is an indication that the consumer market simply does not care about it.
You are looking at basic supply-and-demand and you are going ass-backwards at it.
It's the entire basis of the argument which I am making. Maybe you are reading past what I am saying if you think it's irrelevant.
> What monopolistic position?!
The position in which they have access to the highest performance hardware.
> If consumers (as a whole) wanted to have removable batteries, companies would fulfill the demand by producing and marketing those.
Customers are more concerned about having the highest performance hardware. That doesn't mean they don't want removable batteries, obviously nobody would be opposed to having a removable battery since it has many advantages and no inherent disadvantages. But the limited selection of vendors which have access to the highest performance hardware don't need to compete with removable batteries because they have something customers want even more, high performance hardware, which cheaper vendors can't compete with due to economics of scale.
If smaller vendors were able to compete in the high performance device space, then perhaps the increased competition would lead to more options for the customer like high performance devices that also have removable batteries. But because of the natural monopoly that exists among the limited number of vendors which can provide high performance devices, they don't have a need to create those options (even though customers would obviously want them).
Look and feel, for example, would be sacrificed to have removable batteries. Have you seen the Fairphone? It looks like a brick from 2010. It is by far the ugliest phone that I ever had. Do I care about it being ugly? No. But believe it or not, people will not want removable batteries if that means an "uglier" phone, or one that can fall on the floor and get disassembled.
Features always come at a trade-off. If Apple or Samsung wanted to have removable batteries, their phones would have to be larger, or use smaller batteries, certainly they would have different waterproofing ratings, etc. To think that they just don't offer it because they are abusing their monopoly (sic) on high performance hardware (sic) is beyond naive.
Literally the most profitable product in history, that 100's of millions of Europeans - including literally probably most of EU government - want so badly they pay a very high price.
'But it's unfriendly!'
No, it's not.
Apple has 100x more credibility than most other parties on what a 'consumer friendly' product might be. Making something work as well as the iPhone is very hard.
One glance at their history of handling product flaws, repair costs and their tendency to bend the truth until they can't deny the problems anymore will show that very clearly.
But that's not just Apple, it's an industry-wide problem. Apple however have proven themselves to be the grand masters of consumer unfriendly practices.
If anything, Apple's Lightning port (and the 30-pin connector before that) are significantly more consumer-friendly than USB. Where consumers are consumers of Apple products, but still.
In the span of time when Apple only had two connectors, USB went through 3 or 4. USB didn't even have a charging standard until 2012 (the year Lightning was introduced).
And even with USB-C it's still a hodge-podge of standards with multiple optional and non-optional parts, and it's not getting better: https://old.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/mjz2pu/usb4_a...
Getting multiple manufacturers to agree on anything is always going to be a challenge and produce some compromises. But it's still better for the market as a whole, which in turn is better for consumers. I look forward to the chance of buying a single, universal charger with great features that will last me decades, from a vendor that may or may not be a phone-manufacturer. Apple would gladly do their worse to stop me from doing that, if they could.
I really highly doubt about the decades part. I also highly doubt about the "single charger with great features" because USB has so many optional parts that many manufacturers are unlikely to implement.
These are all the plugs USB has come up with over the years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware
I still have a bunch of USB cables and devices at home, and I every time I have to use them I struggle to find the right combination.
Standardization is good. But in this case USB is objectively not a better standard than Apple's proprietary one.
Interoperability favors competition, the EU is all about fair markets, not protecting Apple's margins.
If you really believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.
The EU, just like any political entity that has grown beyond the original intended responsibilities, has become the stage for cronies and the elites to play their power games.
If the EU was really for "fair markets", Dieselgate alone would have been enough to wipe the German auto industry off the Earth. That is certainly something that has caused more environmental damage and stopped healthier market competition than a fucking power connector.
And don't even get me started on the subsidies given to French farmers and the market quotas for eastern countries that kill any chance for them to develop their industries.
But, hey, at least the EU is giving Apple fans another way to greenwash their consumer behavior, so that counts for something...
Dieselgate has resulted in criminal prosecution, remind me how many people went to jaill after 2008? 2?
Also, it's the second time that you try to counter an argument by throwing an American Whataboutism. Maybe you should let go of the nationalism and find better arguments?
2 - I am not even an EU national
3 - if one is pointing at dieselgate as a failure of EU, there must be a place where such failure doesn't happen. If such a place does not exist, then it's not much of an argument, every system has it's failures. It's not like i am defending WV
The problem of "big" systems - whether the EU, modern day US where federal govt taking over power from the states or Communist China - is that it fails in spectacularly catastrophic ways.
This is why you get crisis like 2008 and Dieselgate. Both are instances of "too big to fail" industries, protected by the government and that in the end screw with the people that they claim to serve and protect.
So it doesn't matter that you are not defending VW, or that you are against Apple. The point is that by backing this ever-growing centralization of power and influence by one single political entity, you make the whole system more fragile and easier to be manipulated by those elites that you so loudly claim to be against.
> there must be a place where such failure doesn't happen.
Switzerland. Local governments rule over any attempt at centralization. Direct democracy. Individual freedom but without forced globalization and universalization of values. Not involved in any wars. NOT AN EU MEMBER STATE.
If Switzerland is your model, I'm even more confused about how you could be against a liberal economy using protectionist measures against an American company.
They are not encouraging anything. They are just playing a power game to see who can jerk more the other around. In the process, they create costs and bureaucratic obstacles that make it easier for any smaller player to have any chance of entering the market competitively.
> liberal economy using protectionist measures
Because it is a problem with the scale. There is not one economy in the EU states. There are many. By trying to apply a top-level, centralized solution to all member states, it ends up creating sub-optimal solutions for everyone. Or worse, it executes the decisions that benefits the member states with most power: Germany and France.
Systems that are designed bottom-up are more robust, have a more diverse set of tools to solve their problems and fail in more localized, controlled ways. Tell me how many times has Switzerland got into some kind of deep systemic crisis. Now do the same with similarly small countries that are in the EU.
It seems a tad inconsistent to be against restrictions on imports but also for the kind of fallout that resulted from Brexit. That makes your understanding of Brexit seem incomplete.
And if you don't like price increases on Apple products, don't buy them. That's the only language they understand.
> And if you don't like price increases on Apple products, don't buy them.
I don't buy them already, but the type of connector they use is way down on my list of reasons not to use them. Closed source? Hard to repair? Exploitative app store practices? Spyware that scans your data? An unwilling intermediary into developers and consumers? Greenwashed, overpriced hardware that can only be used by the terms dictated from Cupertino?
Those are reasons to not use Apple. Yet, here we are discussing the most irrelevant feature of their devices like it is the only issue that is wrong with them.
What is the point again? To have "discussions" or to effect change?
I wish I could say something like "keep waiting for the EU to being actually effective, I will be over there with the people that can get stuff done", but the main problem is that the more time passes, the more the EU finds a way to fuck with ordinary citizens and the more we have midwits asking to be supervised, afraid to step outside the lines and pointing out at those that fight the absurdity of it all.
EU bureaucrats are so useless and full of themselves, they think they can teach birds how to fly.
This sounds like a very poorly thought out slippery slope argument, specially taking into account that iPhones' manufacturing cost is already a fraction of the huge price they sell it to consumers (i.e., $200 vs $1200)
However I agree that besides that specific circumstance, they were basically already compliant. The 2009 initiative wasn't targeting Apple specifically.
On the other hand, things also become permanent fixtures without law. Like USB-A connectors having been stuck on laptops and desktops for more than 20 years.
once something is legislated on it is a permanent fixture of society that that thing will be legislated, but that does not mean that legislation, in the U.S as well, is not updated.
But I'm not sure the EU even has an executive body that could receive it. So I'm not sure about how this one is done. Anyway, since this is a revision already, it seems to be adapting reasonably fast.
When it comes to technical details, what happens depends on the actual legislation. There are plenty of technical committees in Bruxelles (in fact, some would say there are too many of those...), but for situations where some trickery in application or enforcement is expected, directives stay light on details and national governments will then get a good degree of freedom in adapting the rules. If a government implements a directive badly, it will eventually be challenged in the European Court of Justice, that will decide if the national rules follow the spirit of the directive.
Regulations can be changed, but its not easy.
If this regulation was proposed in 2005, would we even have usb-c? or would the mobile world still be stuck on mini-usb because that is what the EU would have mandated at that time?
I don't want my cell phone designed by an EU committee.
If it was one of the dozen or so variations of little USB with 2% or 3% market share each you'd have a point, but those have mostly gone already.
I don't expect Lightning to be around forever, but then I don't expect USB-C to be around forever either. Some day it will be super-ceded - should be super-ceded.
Apple has shown remarkable consistency and discipline in managing it's connector designs. Far, far more so than any other manufacturer I can think of. They were also at the forefront of adopting USB-C in the first place and spearheaded making it so popular.
They might also get some new customers; I was considering an iPhone rather than Android in my last phone purchasing round, but no USB-C means I need different charging, means I don't want to deal with it. No headphone jack is also something I don't want to deal with, been there, lost the dongle, would rather not go there again.
Maybe in the US, but in the EU Android has like 70% of the market.
An awful lot of kit is already going to landfills due to being rendered useless for depending on non-standard components to work. Personally I had to throw out a couple of phones because their chargers stopped working.
Also, it's not as if lightning-to-USB-C adapters are unheard of.
To top things off, even if we somehow assume that USB-C is unable to meet anyone's needs in a few years, and in the process ignore the fact that USB-A has been meeting all needs for some decades now, why would we jump to the conclusion that whatever port format comes next it will be technically impossible to get it to work with USB-C, or offer it in parallel with USB-C?
The legislation has risk because USBC is ill suited to many things and it's best to let manufactures make that decision.
The EU legislators are a buit lazy on this one: they are legislation what is 'in front of their faces' (i.e. the phones they use) without recognizing the impact might not be what they think.
Now - where there is a non-standard situation (remember A/C adapters?) - then it would actually help for an engineering body to set some kind of standard - but that should probably be a standards body, and not the EU.
As long as manufacturers are using some measure of standardization that would be fine.
A more rational (but difficult) approach would be to figure out a method and system for disposing or recycling the cords.
"Or course not, it's not like legislation is set in stone and will never change."
Government legislation does not keep pace with innovation, it lags it considerably. Not only that, it tends to stagnate. As such it risks becoming a limiting factor and push the dynamism to Asia.
I think requiring the use of standard connectors would be fine, but they mostly already do.
Creating an electronics recycling program would be actually smart, and have positive impact on the environment, but that's hard.
In the particular case of USB-C, it’s a bit puzzling since it’s not actually an interoperable standard. For example, while the charger shape is the same, I can’t charge my laptop with my phone charger. Maybe the legislation accounts for this, but it’s a bit of a disappointing standard to cement.
> “legislation isn’t set in stone”
I suspect it’s an order of magnitude more difficult to change that legislation than it would be for the market to bring another standard. You might say, “if the Americans have some new fangled charger, the Europeans might demand change from their government”, but it’s pretty unlikely that anyone will invest on a new charger that they won’t be able to sell in Europe. For example, most phone manufacturers are unlikely to make a Euro-only variant, but will rather make a USB-C phone for the whole world, much like how Americans have to suffer through GDPR cookie notifications even though GDPR doesn’t apply to us.
Lastly, is interoperability even a problem? I remember the bad old days before USB and interoperability didn’t really exist because every adapter was proprietary and expensive, but I can’t remember the last time I had an issue. Similarly, are these chargers a major source of e-waste? And how much of that is this legislation going to change? Cords will still wear our and be thrown away whether they are USB-C or Thunderbolt.
> it’s an order of magnitude more difficult to change that legislation
The previous attempt is from 2009. A review every 10-15 years or so is not that difficult, when there is widespread political agreement on consumer matters.
> Lastly, is interoperability even a problem?
Before the EU committees stepped in, the market was a jungle of custom adapters. You don't remember the last time you had a problem partially because they forced the market to stop with shenanigans, and most manufacturer complied at least in the most visible sector (phones - stuff like watches is still a jungle, but they are less popular and definitely not as essential as phones). Some convergence was already happening but EU rules accelerated adoption and ensured it would happen across the board. Only Apple insisted in ignoring the spirit of the decision, so this is meant to force their hand somewhat to play ball (while also giving them something, since the unbundled charger was at risk of being challenged as anti-consumer).
> Similarly, are these chargers a major source of e-waste?
Yes.
> And how much of that is this legislation going to change?
More than the alternative of doing nothing.
Are you sure about that?
- Apple managed to get through all the regulation "mandates" without any serious repercussion to their operations, showing the complete lack of effectiveness of said regulations.
- market conditions and the development timeline of the technology (USB-C with power delivery) can alone explain the gradual change in the Apple product line.
Those are the facts. Now let's go to the opinion part and apply Occam's razor here: between the explanation that requires believing that Apple is changing its products out of fear from EU regulatory bodies (despite historical evidence of the contrary) and the explanation that says changes were bound to happen anyway due to being sensible business, which one is simpler? Which one is more likely to be correct?
aren't you forgetting that governments hand out and enforce patents/monopolies/IP?
also it's hard for small groups to compete with giants when those giants have plundered the commons and more and more scientific and technological research is locked up behind their corporate firewalls.
at this point ignoring that plundering is wilful, not due to ignorance. [1]
[1] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-08-03/book-day-corru...
In general, "handing out and enforcing monopolies" is a bug in democratic governments, not a feature. So by way of your own analogy, this legislation would be another bug.
> also it's hard for small groups to compete with giants when those giants have plundered the commons and more and more scientific and technological research is locked up behind their corporate firewalls.
I'm already sold on the idea that corporations have too much power and corporations often abuse it. We probably agree here, but I don't think that has anything to do with this case in particular--all of the mainstream connector/power protocols are already open. We're not talking about smaller tech companies being unable to manufacture and sell Lightning chargers (or whatever the tech is called, I've already forgotten).
How's that going with the EU cookie legislation?
* Stupid webmasters (you don't need that cookie popup for my session cookie)
* Greedy advertisers (that track me) and greedy web publishers that insist on including such privacy-violating scripts and third-parties on their sites
* Sheep user (that have become so accustomed to cookie popups they now just keep pressing the most colorful button)
Long live uBlock origin and its "annoyances" filters.
You mean the twice-amended ePrivacy directive?
I think it's going pretty well, noyb have achieved some fantastic results by pursuing complaints in accordance with the directive: https://noyb.eu/en/noyb-aims-end-cookie-banner-terror-and-is... and https://noyb.eu/en/noyb-files-422-formal-gdpr-complaints-ner...
Go tell that to Moses.
I believe that in general consumer laws should say that companies cannot create interoperability problems for it's own sake and when doing so must have a salient technical reason, whether the reason is so salient is for a court to decide.
But that is a more specific version of my more general view that I believe that any form of crippleware, defined as companies investing time and resources into generating an inferior quality product should be illegal.
Essentially, I believe that companies can only make a worse product from a consumer perspective, if it were cheaper for them to make that product, they must be legally required to not make a product worse except to cut their own production costs.
Researching and producing their own port when an existing port suffices their needs would fall under this.
This all seems within the remit of governments to me.
> I guess I just wonder if in 20 years will every device still have a USB-C port on it in some odd location? No one is using it anymore, but it is still mandatory on everything.
Or course not, it's not like legislation is set in stone and will never change.