I think its quite clear gdpr has indeed lead to lower investment and delayed or cancelled products in Europe

Speed isn’t always ideal. My favorite example that getting dated in hotel WiFi.

Early adopters signed contracts with companies that provided shitty WiFi at high prices for a long time. A $500 hotel would have $30/night connections that were slow, while the Courtyard Marriott had it for free.

Yet better privacy protections than we in the States enjoy.

The EU in a nutshell:

You can't have nice things, but on the bright side Google/Apple/Facebook won't know what you had for dinner.

Now give us your whole financial transaction and travel history, so we can share it with the US, a hostile country, citizen!

Can we get some sources that back the narrative for that last sentence?

EU bending backwards to meet US demands to access non-US-related traveller records: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/eu-us-agr...

Yes, it only affects airlines that have connections to the US. But if I book Lufthansa from Frankfurt to Tokyo, the PNR will still be sent to the US, for Lufthansa has connections to the US.

Yes, there are 'safeguards' in there, to shackle the DHS to be responsible with the data - but who seriously thinks the data, once in US hands, is used responsibly and only for the matters outlined in the treaty? The US has been less of a reliable partner for decades now.

Oh, right. They won't do that for financial transactions, right? Right?

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/agreement...

> Yes, it only affects airlines that have connections to the US. But if I book Lufthansa from Frankfurt to Tokyo, the PNR will still be sent to the US, for Lufthansa has connections to the US.

Any proof of that claim? The agreement specifically mentions flights between the EU and the US, so any departure from that (like the scenario you describe) is unlawful, according to my own understanding.

Where do you read this only affects flights between the EU and the US?

Article 2.1 clearly states it is applicable to all EU airlines *operating* flights to or from the US. That does not mean they ONLY have to provide PNR FOR those flights

Article 3 speaks about "Data in their (the airlines) reservation systems". There's no limitation to only US-related flights.

The specific mention of flights to and from the US you are likely refer to is in the preamble, referencing a law the US set up prior.

The financial transactions are also shared by the both sides, EU can also request data from US, as clearly stated in the document.

Both document clearly define the uses cases that are applicable for the data sharing, and the second document linked by you also explicitly states that US has to put same effort to provide same capabilities to EU as well.

The USA in a nutshell:

We elected a President who tried to lead an armed insurrection but we'll never press criminal charges because we elected him President again.

Sorry, but anything the EU has ever done pales in comparison with that.

As an European, respectfully, I am not too interested in comparing the stability of my system of government with that of another country. I try to compare my circumstances to a better ideal, not a worse.

You're right, no competition. Let's face it, your President is a loser who can't even manage a simple insurrection; no proper planning I guess. Fortunately not much bloodshed though the defending side did manage to shoot dead one unarmed female ‘warrior’.

Of course. No EU president could lead an insurrection! The working group in Brussels charged with formalizing the insurrection guidelines to produce the right forms for the insurrectionists to apply for their mob permit...is currently stuck hammering out definitions between the Italian and Czech delegations.

They hope the paperwork will be complete by 2053, which will allow an EU president to, hopefully, attempt some kind of coup (if everything is filled out correctly) sometime before 2060.

Genuinely curious: What are those nice things Europe cannot have?

For starters, I am still waiting for Apple Intelligence to arrive on my phone. Reason given is "EU legislative concerns".

Then there's the nontrivial number of especially local US news sources which now give me a cheerful "451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons" error code.

Then there's the outright stupid stuff - like lightbulbs that do not cost 15 euros a piece (to save 'energy'), or drinking straws that do not dissolve in my coke within the first minute (to avoid 'disposable plastics'). There are hundreds of examples like that.

The EU is a regulation juggernaut, and is making the world an actively worse place for everyone globally. See "Cookie Banners".

> For starters, I am still waiting for Apple Intelligence to arrive on my phone. Reason given is "EU legislative concerns".

So the EU should not control where your data is processed? You can't claim in one comment to be bummed about data exchanges between the EU and the US (which you do), and then not understand why there are regulations in place that are slowing down the roll-out of things like Apple Intelligence, for your benefit.

There is a qualitative difference between

1. I am giving my data freely and because of my own decision to an organization I trust and

2. The state is taking my data by force of law to share it with an inherently untrustworthy organization.

What are you talking about? Leaving aside your other random complaints that I don’t recognise, but can’t immediately link to, a basic lightbulb is less than €3 for a two-pack: https://www.ikea.com/de/en/p/solhetta-led-bulb-e14-250-lumen...

That's an LED though.

I understood he was referring to incandescent light bulbs, which have been largely regulated out of the market. So you now need to get an "Edison light bulb" which circumvenes regulation but costs significantly more.

I'm confused. The US also banned incandescent lamps?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_ligh...

> A ban covering most general service incandescent lamps took effect in the United States in 2023

So you can't even buy them in the US anymore, either. And cheap LEDs are available everywhere, with many color temperatures to choose from.

I wasn't aware of that, interesting, thanks.

Light temperature is one thing, but the spectrum is very different (which is essentially how it saves energy, almost all radiation emitted is a narrow band of visible light whereas an incandescent lamp produces a blackbody spectrum with a lot of radiation emitted in the infrared).

Also I notice a lot of color banding (not sure if that's the right term) with many cheap LEDs. I observe the same or at least a very similar phenomenon when watching DLP cinema projections.

Good, that's the point. Price out the products that are bad for the environment. They are still there if you want to contribute to the degradation of the environment

"Bad for the environment" is relative.

The problem here is that they tell you: - We're building renewables which deliver super clean and cheap energy - CO2 is the root of all evil

Then, they force you to use an LED which uses less energy (which is clean and cheap, no?) but contains a lot more chemicals and rare earths, so in a number of ways seems less "environmentally friendly". This seems contradictory and half-assed.

Those are corporations causing the problems, not the eu.

Well, most things, considering the absolutely pathetic average salary, the rising cost of living, and the ever-increasing tax burden.

Most things? Like vacation days? Like healthcare? Like the safety of not being murdered by a maniac with a gun? I'll take my lower salary thank you very much.

Nevermind the fact that you obviously come from a previliged position if you think that money is all that's important. You're blinded.

The US average is absolutely distorted. You should definitely compare the median. In terms of cost of living I very much doubt US is less expensive, especially when including health care in the equation. Additionally, there is a huge difference depending which european countries you are comparing to.

GDPR is one of the best pieces of legislation to come out of the EU this century.

It is the utter bane if "move fast and break things", and I'm so glad to have it.

I will never understand the submissive disposition of Americans to billionaires who sell them out. They are all about being rugged Cow Boys while smashing systems that foster their own well-being. It's like their pathology to be independent makes them shoot at their own feet. Utterly baffling.

It is because they want to be those oppressors. And they think this type of legislation might prevent them from being such. They want to be rich and exploit other people as much as possible with little as possible consequences.

You can still move fast and break things, just treat PII like explosive radioactive waste while you're doing it.

By which data is that clear? If anything, GDPR has lead to greater investment in areas that actually matter. Zero knowledge proofs, pseudonymization techniques, user friendly open-source SaaS products such as NextCloud.

Can you share any data?

It's also quite clear that places without strong privacy protections like the US are developing into dystopian hellscapes.