Europe has a fairly blase attitude towards compliance costs in general.

For example, the official EC report on the cost impact of the EU AI Act finds that, for businesses who already have a Quality Management System (QMS), "An enterprise employing 50 persons would pay roughly EUR 159,000-EUR 202,000 for upgrading and maintaining the QMS, and bringing one AI product to market." (Notably, that estimate excludes costs of legal review.)

Around 200000 EUR for one product making use of AI would be seen as a heavy burden on startups and small enterprises in much of the world, but as far as I can tell, it's considered not particularly noteworthy by the EC.

Apple's cost structure announced today probably needs to be assessed in that context. Tech companies doing business in Europe are already used to various additional compliance-related costs of doing business.

Apple chooses this level of control for the iOS store. Being told your previous version was illegal doesn't entitle you to recoup the costs of compliance.

The previous version was never illegal, and Apple isn’t being punished. The EU created a new set of rules and Apple is complying.

The use of language here, such as the word "illegal", is a psychological trick. It's an intentional conflation with past behavior/the status quo with being "immoral" (as illegal implies immoral).

Agreed. Ironically I’d say the use of manipulative language like that is much more of a moral problem that society is contending with.

Apple is never gonna financially recover from these impossible demands.

Come on now, that is utter nonsense. Apple has simply found a way to make even more money out of what seemed like a bad deal for them. They are not recuperating anything, they are increasing revenue.

> Apple is never gonna financially recover from these impossible demands.

That's not at all what I said. These regulations are increasing the cost of business in the EU. I'd much rather have those costs paid by those who democratically (?) decided these regulations that those in other countries who decided otherwise.

Apple isn’t forced to do business here, I much rather have large corporations that engage in rent seeking behaviour paying the costs.

Many of the companies I work with have completely given up on operating in the EU because of this.

edit: Why downvote me for stating a matter of fact?

This is good. An app that can't survive without stealing your private data isn't worthy to be on the European market.

You’re happy with only large tech giants existing then. Because lots of regulations are just barriers to entry and allow the existing players to keep playing

Careful, if you keep making sense, they might get their pitchforks and revolt.

The problem is the same argument also works in reverse: few regulations just make it easier for larger players to block smaller players from operating via dishonest business practices.

Ultimately existing players always have the advantage.

As a side note: the startup world is thriving in Europe. So EU regulations can’t be that high of a barrier ;)

Personally, I don't think this works in real life. Consumers catch on to dishonest business practices and want choose new market options if/when they becomes available, and do not need a nanny state to pick winners and losers. If anything, excessive regulation and legal hurdles impede and prevent this market force from working as it should. Internet providers in the US are a perfect example of this in action: why would these virtual monopolies want to provide a better product if it's so hard for competition to materialize? They are incentivized to offer a less than ideal product while also lobbying for increased or maintained regulation to ensure the status quo. This isn't capitalism, but cronyism.

Also, which startups are thriving in Europe with global appeal? Genuinely, un-sarcastically, curious.

> Consumers catch on to dishonest business practices and want choose new market options if/when they becomes available,

That almost never happens

> Internet providers in the US are a perfect example of this in action: why would these virtual monopolies want to provide a better product if it's so hard for competition to materialize?

Infrastructure costs is why you don’t see hundreds of competitors. New companies either need the capital to build new infrastructure, in which case they are usually more expensive due to economies of scale, or they have to resell someone else’s infrastructure. In which case they can only be as good as the monopolies.

The ironic thing is in the UK there aren’t any monopolies in ISP. There is lots of healthy competition. So your example regarding deregulation proves the opposite of your point.

> That almost never happens

I beg to differ.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/08/28/undercharged-ipho... https://www.reddit.com/r/Spectrum/comments/ln0id2/spectrum_l... https://www.thisoldhouse.com/home-finances/reviews/worst-hom... https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/13/23637401/samsung-fake-moo... https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2018/02/01/bad...

They just prove my point.

Take the last link, for example, United Airlines scores low in customer satisfaction yet people still fly with them. Facebook might be hated yet people still use it.

Most people either too lazy or too cheap to boycott businesses they don’t like. And that’s assuming they even have a choice, because often there really isn’t much of an alternative to choose from.

People don’t have to fly United.

People don’t have to use Facebook.

That’s exactly my point. They don’t have to, yet they do.

Hence why you’re wrong in claiming that people are principled enough to boycott businesses at a scale that makes any difference to that business.

You claim that badly behaved businesses would just lose the custom and yet all the evidence out there proves that just doesn’t happen. Or at least not to the extent that amounts to anything more than a rounding error on their books.

> they don’t have to, yet they do

I had said that, “Consumers catch on to dishonest business practices and want [to] choose new market options if/when they become available”.

So you agree then?

And ya know what, I think that’s BS: you definitely have a choice and if you think you can’t follow through you’re weak. You definitely don’t need to use facebook for anything and you don’t need to fly either. It’s a choice, mate, and if you don’t think you have a choice you’re weak.

> So you agree then?

No, we are arguing the exact opposite.

> And ya know what, I think that’s BS: you definitely have a choice and if you think you can’t follow through you’re weak.

It’s not bullshit. Different people just have different priorities to yourself.

Do you think the average person gives a shit about ethical software? Or even has enough time and/or money to boycott businesses that they don’t like?

No they don’t. Businesses are just services and once they’ve finished using a product they move on with their lives.

You calling people names because they care about different concerns to you is the real issue here.

Agree to disagree, but you're entitled to your (incorrect) opinion. I'm done here.

Normally I’d be fine to agree to disagree, but you only have to look at the last 100 years of consumer habits to see exactly what I’m talking about. This isn’t something that’s nuanced. It’s clear as plain as day.

It's not like these companies are trying to steal your private data. They just don't see working through legal compliance as worth the squeeze — especially when they are young and don't have the resources to comply properly.

edit: > worthy of the European market.

Also, what an entitled, elitist thing to say. Maybe the US would be better off pulling out of Nato and letting Europe alone after all.

It’s okay, I forgive you.

I think you responded to the wrong comment by accident, because nowhere did the parent user say that the companies they worked with were trying to take users' data, or had trouble with privacy-related EU law.

Don't forget to double-check to make sure you're responding to the right comment!

Yup. I got asked to block anyone from the EU from using a specific university software. Hope you’re not an exchange student on holiday!

Fortunately, they aren’t in business anymore. (For unrelated reasons.)

If you're company cannot subsist without stealing user data then it does not deserve to survive at all.

That's not what I said. Some of these companies are non-profits that have nothing to do with the EU or ads at all, but are blocking EU users.

How is the EU blocking non-profits from operating there?

This is from a US small non-profit, and small for-profit operating with way less than $1M in funding, and not necessarily intending to deal with people in the EU context: Not every company has money to pay for the hours to ensure they are GDPR compliant, so they opt out of serving EU clients altogether. It's not always a problem forever, but it's definitely a blocker sometimes.

How is it any different than an EU company complying with Russian/US/whatever laws? International laws have always been crazy expensive, if anything, being able to (mostly) target quite a big market by only making it EU-aware is more of a plus, than a negative.

Not to mention that California essentially has had GDPR rules for the past five years now. Are these non-profits also not operating there?

Contrary to popular belief, there are other states in our nation with people whose business has nothing to do with California or it's residents.

And one would assume, those businesses don't care nor need to operate in the EU, either.

That would also assume they don’t ever have domestic users traveling abroad and don’t know how to use a VPN

And if those domestic users are from California?

NYS

What does your app or website do that its having trouble complying with GDPR?

That’s the thing: when I come onto a project they might not even know, nor have the hours to allocate to figure it out, and I ain’t working for free to figure it out.

What was your app trying to do? Be clear.

If for example its just an information website with static content and its putting cookies on the users device, its a you problem, not a EU problem.

Let me make this clearer: I'm not trying to do anything but work a job. These aren't my apps, and it's not a "me problem", but a them problem. I'm just the third party messenger relaying anecdotes.

Cookie disclosure/consent can be an issue, and again, sometimes companies would rather just not serve EU clients altogether than build a simple disclosure and not set any cookies. Not saying that's good or bad, but that's just what it is.

If you don't want to share what these apps are doing yet insist EU laws are troublesome, you won't be surprised for people to interpret them as doing something unneeded or anti user instead of just some "legal complexity barrier".

The apps could be perfectly fine, its just that people will speculate.

I don't care what they think one way or the other. I'm just relaying my experience. Do with it what you will.

Those are just basic things which should have been implemented 10 years ago though. The fact the EU had to push laws for that is a bit shameful.