Y Combinator urges the White House to support Europe's Digital Markets Act

https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/13/y-combinator-urges-the-white-house-to-support-europes-digital-markets-act/

by mrkramer • 1 year ago

504 333 1 year ago

92834092325• 1 year ago

I don't see this happening although I would have a beer belly laugh if all of these tech oligarchs got on their knees just for Trump to piss on their heads.

yapyap• 1 year ago

That would be pretty sweet

drivingmenuts• 1 year ago

Supposedly, he's not into watersports. Given his temperament, his attitude toward SiliValley CEOs could change in the next 5 minutes, then go another direction 5 minutes later.

We are not dealing with a stable individual here. The only predictable trait he has is vindictiveness.

callc2• 1 year ago

The DMA designates six tech companies as “gatekeepers” to the internet — Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, and Microsoft — and limits these technology kingpins from engaging in anticompetitive tactics on their platforms, in favor of interoperability.

DMA seems like a no-brainer for those that support users’ freedom. Since DMA came into effect almost two years ago, can anyone comment on its effectiveness?

Side note, I’m glad the EU takes normal people’s rights seriously. Wish the US was a leader on this too.

nodoll• 1 year ago

I don't like they are designated as "gatekeepers".

walterbell2• 1 year ago

  Do you ________ take this immortal corporation ________ to be your lawful internet Gatekeeper?

s1artibartfast• 1 year ago

Why? the designation comes with obligations, but Im not aware that it confers any benefits.

margalabargala• 1 year ago

As far as I can tell, it's a descriptor used negatively, not a crowning designation.

riffraff• 1 year ago

The key is to imagine them as Zuul the Gatekeeper from Ghostbusters.

14• 1 year ago

I have honestly slowly over the years lost my love for the iPhone. Back in the early days they were exciting and you could jailbreak and do lots of fun things not typically possible on a non jailbroken phone. Some of those fun things eventually became features of the stock iPhones but in the end the phone is very locked down and can only do a very small portion of the things it actually could do if not so locked down.

arlort• 1 year ago

They are the ones who allow getting into a walled garden. Short of calling them "gates" gatekeeper seems pretty apt

Nextgrid2• 1 year ago

It's about as effective as the GDPR - which means very strong regulation and penalties on paper, but no actual enforcement of said penalties once you breach it - all bark and no bite.

(please, don't reply with that "enforcement tracker" link - a billion is nothing for Facebook and especially not when it's in exchange of 7 years of continuous and blatant breach of the regulation)

bad_user2• 1 year ago

That the GDPR is “all bark and no bite” is factually untrue.

As an example of a service that was forced to change to get in line with GDPR: Facebook.

For user profiling, they first tried to use their Terms of Service, then they tried claiming a legitimate interest, then they tried offering paid subscriptions, and now they are at the point where they somewhat degrade the experience of those refusing to be profiled. I'm not talking about the fines, I'm talking about EU citizens being able to use Facebook while refusing to give their consent for profiling. I'm also talking about the ability to download your data or to delete your data from their servers, which was also the outcome of GDPR.

Facebook has also received multiple GDPR-related fines, maybe it's not enough, but it's only going to get worse, as EU regulators are also eyeing them for the spread of election misinformation. Actually, Zuckerberg has been kissing Trump's ring because he's hoping for some protectionism from the US. He said so in his now infamous Joe Rogan podcast episode.

And for the DMA — well, Apple now allows alternative browser engines within the EU, as just one example.

So I just don't understand why people make this claim. The DPAs may be slow, but that's not a good argument. Law enforcement in general is slow. And the fact is that the GDPR is changing the Internet, which is undeniable.

kristiandupont• 1 year ago

I have no data on enforcement but since it went into effect, every place I've worked has taken it very seriously so it has definitely had consequences, very positive ones in my opinion.

anvuong• 1 year ago

What do you mean not effective? I worked in a digital marketing/advertising company and we needed to re-architect our whole system to comply with GDPR, it was a pain in the ass for both backend team and analytics team.

campl3r• 1 year ago

GDPR has allowed me access to my data from multiple companies, where before I would have had no way or a long and expensive way of getting my data. More than a dozen other countries have implemented some versions of it.

Could enforcement be better? Sure Could some of the rules be better? Sure Is it being updated to be better? Yes, it has happened and will continue to happen.

To read on the current state I recommend https://commission.europa.eu/publications/reports-applicatio...

Tomte• 1 year ago

As a direct consequence I have two alternative app stores on my iPhone. Something Americans cannot have.

OccamsMirror• 1 year ago

or Australians :(

AceJohnny22• 1 year ago

What are the worthwhile apps apps on the alternative stores?

jen20• 1 year ago

Americans absolutely can, if they live in the EU where this law applies.

Europeans living in the US (such as myself) cannot.

I’m not commenting on whether this is good or not, merely that the last statement in your comment is incorrect.

gunian3• 1 year ago

just other corporations trynna make money no one ever does anything to be good but to make money :)

yupyupyups• 1 year ago

Apple still indirectly controls what is distributed and charges developers outside their app store money[1]. So it hasn't been effective enough to actually open up the platform for arbitrary apps to be installed.

[1] https://developer.apple.com/support/core-technology-fee/

niemandhier• 1 year ago

That is under investigation, and believed to be non compliant with the act:

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_...

whazor• 1 year ago

I now have a torrent client on my iPhone.

Cupprum2• 1 year ago

I might be wrong, but are you talking about the qBitControl from Altstore Pal?

If so, that is not a torrent client, but only an app to control torrents on a different computer. Or did i not understand the app correctly?

erlend_sh• 1 year ago

https://www.techpolicy.press/assessing-europes-digital-marke...

oersted• 1 year ago

Good. They keep making laws intended to control some of the negative impacts of these companies, but they usually have the resources to mostly get around these laws, and they end-up affecting smaller companies in ways that the government didn't intend or consider.

fundatus2• 1 year ago

Apple has been really against this one, but you can now have p*rn apps on your iPhone in the EU. Which I think is great, because why should I be restricted in the use of my own device by the moral code of an American corporation?

probably_wrong• 1 year ago

why should I be restricted in the use of my own device by the moral code of an American corporation?

I would argue that, while it's true that some of your rights are restricted by corporations, others are just there waiting for you to exercise them.

Use your freedom, take chances, write the word "porn" in HN without fear. Otherwise there's no point in demanding freedoms that we're too afraid to use.

IshKebab• 1 year ago

It's ok, you can say porn on the internet.

camillomiller• 1 year ago

I can indirectly say that, as someone that understands the opposition to sideloading, we are one year in since the DMA took effect and I've seen no incredible massive threat has imperiled the digital lives of iPhone users like Apple claimed it would. Apple would probably say that's because of the measures they've take in implementing the sideloading mandate, but I would rather assume that there are generally less risks that they say there are. Macs are pretty popular with a lot of non-tech-savvy people nowadays, and despite being able to install all you want, there is absolutely no major incredible threat coming from it. I believe it's time for Apple to stop the madness and re-unify iOS globally under a system that works more like macOS.

filleokus• 1 year ago

My "fear" has always been that Meta/Alphabet would slowly but surely migrate their apps over to their own third-party App Store to get past the pesky IDFA limitations[0] and other tracking hurdles.

So far nothing seems to indicate that it's happening. The question is if it's due to Apple's "measures" or just because it is not worthwhile for Meta/Alphabet. I think it's a combination of. But if it was as easy to "side-load" an app on iOS as on macOS - per your suggestion, I'm confident Meta would have done the switch in a heartbeat.

Just imagine if Apple provided nice API's for auto-updating, essentially no limitations on what binaries can be attested, API's/mechanisms for easy migration between AppStore apps and side loaded ones, no scary screens etc. Essentially implementing the DMA to the fullest extent, really honouring the intent of the law. Why wouldn't all the mega apps just move over? And what consequences would it have?

I think it would be awesome to e.g lift the JIT blocking and allow more strange niche things in alternative app stores. But getting all regular people on a wild-west third party app stores for the (ad financed) apps the use every day is just begging for a huge _actual_ loss in privacy.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identifier_for_Advertisers#App...

DownrightNifty7• 1 year ago

Since DMA came into effect almost two years ago, can anyone comment on its effectiveness?

I'm so glad you asked, because I wrote an entire website about it: https://doesioshavesideloadingyet.com/

Executive summary: Epic Games benefits greatly from the DMA, but powerusers and smaller developers don't get much benefit. This is due to Apple's lackluster compliance measures that are currently being investigated and may be deemed illegal.

We might hear another update from the EU rather soon though: https://9to5mac.com/2025/03/10/report-apple-will-be-fined-by...

I really hope that the DMA does not go down in history as a failed experiment, because that will be a huge loss for open platforms as a whole.

ks2048• 1 year ago

iOS has sideloading, if you pay $100/year for a developer account.

coastalpuma• 1 year ago

This is a great site, and thank you for the effort.

One suggestion for an addition to the section on FOSS: Related to the issue of not being able to modify the source of apps we use, we also can't verify that an "open source" app on iOS is built from its claimed source code. We just have to trust the developer. This blocks true auditing of iOS apps for data privacy practices, something we know is needed given that the "privacy labels" are often deceptive https://archive.ph/Ak6qU. As such, this is a data security issue as much as a user freedom issue.

thrance5• 1 year ago

Current US leadership only works for the few guys at the very top.

tonyhart74• 1 year ago

"Wish the US was a leader on this too."

lmao you notice something was up right??? because most of this company are US based companies

you are crazy to think US would do the same because it is would hampering their economy directly, EU doing this because they want EU counterpart gain benefit

callc2• 1 year ago

I am hopeful that governments will do things to benefit the people.

Maybe that’s naive, but I’d rather be hopeful than cynical

econ• 1 year ago

What worries me is the way big tech is forced to build some kind of law book (they call their TOS) some kind of detective apparatus, some kind of kangaroo court and a model for punishing the citizen (user) which is not something anyone should want them to do including them. It is like the old time court where every decision is made though the lens of profit. It gets even more dystopian in a closed ecosystem.

mcny• 1 year ago

This is really our (US) fault. Terms of service is not the law. It should never be the law. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is a terrible piece of legislation that is completely out of touch with reality. It should have been abolished a long time ago and yet we have taken no steps to abolish it here in the US.

This is all our (US) doing. We blazed the trail like this and have done nothing to correct our mistakes.

ProAm• 1 year ago

Y Combinator "Urges the Whitehouse" is nothing but a fiduciary tight rope walking bribe to receive governance in your favor.

personomas• 1 year ago

Yeah, I'm sure Y Combinator is not biased hahahaha (sarcasm of course)

thrance5• 1 year ago

Can't blame them, bribery is the only way to get heard by this administration.

willmadden• 1 year ago

1) that will never happen. 2) that should never happen.

nbzso2• 1 year ago

We all are trapped by TOS into data mining operation. There is no denying this fact. You don't own your computer or smartphone. You don't own your data. Practically speaking, we don't have an accessible and user-friendly tool to protect ourselves.

The humanity collective data output is weaponized, and the surveillance state is transforming itself to an AI governance.

Publicly announced by the WEF. And embraced by the masses, which have nothing to hide.

Moreover, this thing is labeled as inevitable progress and the only option is transhumanism and post human ethos.

Add to this incoming digital dollar/euro plus social scoring systems, and we are cooked.

So, welcome China apparatus. :)

gunian3• 1 year ago

lmao you had me until china you probably believed ministry of information saying free world :)

nbzso2• 1 year ago

Question: Do you believe that Google and Palantir will not develop tech and work for Chinese Government(market)? Or Apple? Or Oracle?

blitzar2• 1 year ago

Remember lesson #1 - China doesn't innovate they copy us from 10-20 years ago.

Lesson #2 - China spys on all its citizens.

hnlurker22• 1 year ago

YC can't even urge it's own startups to do anything

darthrupert• 1 year ago

The current admin is not going to support anything sane or european. But nice sentiment.

blitzar2• 1 year ago

This forum is not going to support anything sane or european. But nice sentiment.

jonhohle3• 1 year ago

I personally don’t care about alternative app stores, but I know many do, especially here.

I really want two things:

* companies cannot engage in any activity a common person would consider “spying”, cannot take the data collected by users of that service and transfer it to another entity, and third parties may not aggregate data collected about persons for any reason. There are a million and one useful reasons to do each of these things, but companies have proven themselves morally bankrupt and should lose that ability. This would go beyond “opt-in”, just make it illegal or the impractical (e.g. it would require a notary, licensed broker, or lawyers on both sides to engage in the practice)

* digital “purchases” are transferrable and have all of the rights and privileges afforded to physical goods. The producer/consumer balance shifted completely in favor of the producer with digital goods. Terms need to be more favorable to the purchaser as well as protections following the dissolution of a digital marketplace.

BrenBarn3• 1 year ago

I'd go further and apply something like the notary/broker approach to the collection of data. Types of data should be defined in law. Some (say, email address) would be "free" to collect, but subject to strict sharing requirements like you describe (e.g., you can ask anyone for their email address, but you can't do anything with it except use it yourself to contact them). Others (mailing address) would be allowed for certain purposes (e.g., you need to mail the person a package). Companies should expect regular audits and stiff financial penalties if they collect such data but cannot objectively demonstrate that they actually need it to perform a service they are providing to the person who provides it. (This means you can't collect someone's mailing address unless you actually need it to do a specific thing for that person; simply using it as input to your internal analytics isn't good enough.) Others (e.g., location tracking) would require an approval process akin to being licensed to transport hazardous waste or something, so that it would be straight-up illegal to collect such data without prior approval. That approval process would involve full public disclosure of all intended uses of the data. You can't collect sensitive data without telling everyone exactly what you're going to do with it.

A large portion of the data that is illegally shared should never have been collected in the first place.

lodovic2• 1 year ago

Some of this is already achieved by the EU's GDPR, not the DMA

exac• 1 year ago

To play devil's advocate, the common person accepts credit scores, and has no idea how they work. Should credit bureaus also be illegal? Or some medium whereby the credit companies _can_ collect the information, but can't sell it, or share analytics or even anonymized data?

MegaButts2• 1 year ago

Should credit bureaus also be illegal?

I didn't realize there were many people defending credit scores. I mean yeah, I would just assume they should be illegal. At least in their current opaque form where it's impossible to contest or even get someone to explain your score to you.

eptcyka• 1 year ago

And? The common person accepted cigarettes as part of their daily life, and leaded fuel, and many other things which should’ve been changed and ended up being changed. Do you think hackers like to leave the world as is?

noirscape2• 1 year ago

I mean, yes? Credit scores are forbidden in many countries because of how opaque they are and because of the data collection aspect.

In a lot of countries, the only external thing the bank is allowed to use when you apply for a loan is whether or not you have existing loans (which is just to prevent you from borrowing money to pay off other borrowed money), the amount of money you make annually and what you currently have saved up.

bloppe5• 1 year ago

I personally don’t care about alternative app stores

That's because it's difficult to imagine how alternative app stores would force first party app stores to be better, or risk losing business. For a start, everything would become much cheaper for you. They would also have a real incentive to provide new features and innovations. You don't have to switch to a third party app store to realize the benefits that follow from allowing them to exist.

Someone2• 1 year ago

For a start, everything would become much cheaper for you

That, I doubt. Most stuff already is dirt-cheap on the App Store (and riddled with ads). It’s not like, for example, getting into Apple’s App Store is so expensive that it adds dollars to the price of apps.

dylan6042• 1 year ago

For a start, everything would become much cheaper for you.

That's such a fallacy that pro alt-app store people like to trot out. What evidence do you have that will happen? Are you basing it one the assumption that if devs no longer pay Apple a cut that the devs would lower their prices? Why do you think that would happen and the devs wouldn't just leave prices where they are and keep this cut no longer going to Apple? Why would devs leave that money on the table? Why do you think the alt-store would also not take the same cut or only slightly lower? Why would they leave money on the table?

At the end of the day, the biggest alt-store push is by devs wanting more money in their pockets, not the end users.

Nursie4• 1 year ago

For a start, everything would become much cheaper for you.

People say this, but of all the apps I have on my phone, I'm not sure I actually paid for any. Browser, smart-device controllers, a few games, streaming services (that I pay for direct), messengers of various sorts, banking, transport, ticketing, government apps.

I know people must pay for apps as Apple make a lot of money off it, but it's not really something I do.

swat535• 1 year ago

For those advocating for multiple app stores, I have a 2 questions.

EU users might be best suited to respond, as they are currently experiencing this change (though I believe the impact will be different once it's rolled out globally).

1. How do you think having multiple app stores will affect user experience and app discoverability? It seems likely that not all apps will be available in every store, meaning users may have to search across multiple platforms to find what they need.

We’ve seen similar issues in the gaming industry, where each company has its own launcher, or in the movie industry, where content is locked behind different providers, making it difficult to figure out where to access it. This is why platforms like Netflix and Steam initially succeeded.

Meanwhile, the Windows/PC model has shown that an open ecosystem can be a security and privacy nightmare for the average user.

2. On that note, how do you envision ensuring privacy and security in these alternative app stores? Risks could range from major tech companies like Google or Facebook running their own stores and collecting even more user data, to scammers creating fake stores that steal credit card information.

rawbot• 1 year ago

I also don't really care about alternative app stores, I just want to be able to develop apps without paying a license or abusing a testing system (Apple, Testflight), and be able to install them without "jailbreaking" my device.

That's the reason why even with its warts, I have been a very happy Android user. It's my device, and I can modify it to become whatever I want it to be (with some constrains that don't really affect me atm).

josephg• 1 year ago

Yeah I’m an Apple user and this is one reason I’d consider switching. I don’t mind consoles like the switch or PS2 being sold at a loss, and making it up via expensive games. But Apple double dips here. They make a profit on my phone. Then they charge a crazy marketplace fee for the App Store. Then they have the gall to charge 3rd party companies for access to the NFC chips in our devices. It’s outrageous.

Is it my device or not, Apple?

DownrightNifty7• 1 year ago

I personally don’t care about alternative app stores

I've seen this sentiment a couple of times here and I think it's the wrong framing on what the EU is trying to do. Third party app stores aren't the point; they're just a vehicle enabling users to choose which software they want to use without interference from Apple. The indie devs using AltStore PAL don't all necessarily want to use it, but they're forced to because of the way Apple chose to implement DMA compliance.

In fact, the DMA doesn't even explicitly require that gatekeepers allow third party app stores; they can only allow direct distribution (e.g. via web sites) instead, if they want (this is to the best of my understanding of the text, but IANAL).

When you say you don't care about alternative app stores, what you're really saying is that you don't care about the end user's ability to use apps that aren't approved by Apple. That is certainly an opinion that many folks have, but I'd prefer that they refrain from hiding behind the shield of "third party app stores are weird and who even cares", whether deliberately or not.

alwayslikethis5• 1 year ago

In fact, the DMA doesn't even explicitly require that gatekeepers allow third party app stores; they can only allow direct distribution (e.g. via web sites) instead, if they want.

Is Apple actually complying with the DMA then? They are still requiring notarization, which means apps still have to be approved by them.

jonhohle3• 1 year ago

Having grown up through ad-bars, Windows malware, email worms and everything else that could go wrong for most people during the late 90s on and not wanting to do IT for my entire extended family, I don’t mind having a popular platform with guardrails. Unfortunately, I think providing non-curated access and opening up platform features that are currently gated by security features to unscrupulous actors will make things worse for more people than it will help. After over 15 years of iPhone use, I’ve never had any of the problems that plague PCs and I attribute a lot of that to a restrictive app distribution model, sandboxing, etc.

End users can (and do!) use apps not approved by Apple on mobile devices every day. They just do it on something that’s not an iPhone (or have the capability to jailbreak their iPhone and know what they’re getting themselves into). Corps and devs can also run custom software without Apple approval. I’m personally fine with that delineation and I’d much rather have stronger GDPR-like and property laws.

alwayslikethis5• 1 year ago

digital “purchases” are transferrable and have all of the rights and privileges afforded to physical goods.

I concur. We need to establish a "secondary markets act", which would allow individuals to transact accounts and digital items worth under a certain amount (let's say $10k, as a non-waivable right, so it wouldn't apply to larger B2B contracts). Essentially, these things should be viewed as property of the consumer and be freely sold. Without the freedom to transact, there can't be a free market.

madsbuch• 1 year ago

Why shouldn't it apply to larger contracts?

There is a very easy way to get around such a requirement from legislation: Just call it licensing instead of a purchase.

The need for such a legislation is corporations reckless use of the words "purchase" and "buy" for goods that have been licensed.

oneplane• 1 year ago

That secondary markets thing has been an earlier subject (but not really covering app stores etc at that time), there were issues where larger companies didn't want you selling CD Keys or Windows license keys you weren't using, and they didn't want the ones that were bought in one market to be used in another (i.e. grey market import etc). I think they (the EU) ended up telling the corporations to suck it up since whoever owns the thing is free to sell it when they don't want it anymore.

This is of course also a factor in the move to subscriptions since you'd no longer own a persistent license or product and as such there's nothing to sell. Ironically this should also mean the 'product' (subscription) has far less value than the actual product, even if it's technically the same system/software. Yet subscriptions are more costly than a one-off you repeat every couple of years. Sigh.

ethbr14• 1 year ago

The problem with enforcing resellability on digital goods is the technical ability to copy them.

If I have full ownership of a digital good, then I have the ability to copy it.

Any limitation of my ability to copy requiring removing some control from the owner and escrowing it with another party (e.g. DRM).

As much as I hate to say it, allowing digital good resale is a good use for a blockchain: uniquely identifying an instance and then keeping a decentralized ledger of who owns it at any time.

However, there would still need to be a carrot to make this system attractive.

If there isn't, then why wouldn't people just create infinite copies off-ledger and ignore it?

And without any viable digital goods ownership system, who wouldn't companies default to the current model of only offering licenses / subscriptions?

areyourllySorry• 1 year ago

the issue with transferrable digital goods is that they are also much more easier to steal. see robux, giftcards, bitcoins…

ryandrake3• 1 year ago

We could probably implement your first thing but just extending HIPAA to cover all entities, not just health care providers. HIPAA's privacy, security, data selling, and breach notification rules are exactly what we need and could effectively apply to any business.

marhee• 1 year ago

* Digital “purchases” are transferable…

Digital purchases are often subscription based which for physical goods (eg newspapers) is also non transferable (as it does not make much sense). In contrast, “one-of” licences are already transferable mostly. Either because the licence keys is a bearer token or companies support transfer (if you’ve registeted). So you dont accomplish much here, I think, but still I agree it’s a good idea to get the details right and fixed in law.

BrenBarn3• 1 year ago

Couching your stance towards a policy in terms of its effect on "innovation" is a surefire way to lose me.

92834092325• 1 year ago

This is phrasing targeted at the current administration. Using words like "ethics" has no effect on them.

giraffe_lady• 1 year ago

I would not change my language to that preferred by the segregationist political movement that has seized power but then I was born with a spine and not everyone is so lucky.

seydor• 1 year ago

The outcome of the dma is better served by breaking up the companies so that google cannot share data with YouTube or facebook with Whatsapp.

The EU regulations so far did not achieve much (other than eradicating EU ads market) , and the YC knows that.

They want to distract the government away from breaking up bigtech and towards an anodyne (but annoying) regulation.

raverbashing• 1 year ago

So, when was the last time a company was split by the SEC or such? I can only think of older examples (Boeing, AT&T, etc)

What I think regulators are seeing is that they split, wait a bit then merge all over again, negating that effect

And I agree about the GDPR, though the DMA seems to have had bigger effects (including preventing EU from getting the wet dud known as Apple Intelligence - I guess we can recognize this was a cop-out from Apple for a poor product instead of an actual hurdle)

patrickmcnamara• 1 year ago

The DMA does make it so you can unlink your Google account from your YouTube account, or your Facebook account from your Instagram account, and that they can't share data. Or what are you meaning?

ankit2193• 1 year ago

Supporting a policy or a regulation which looks at just competition with zero incentives to care for users because it may help the portfolio is not a good look. People may argue otherwise, but DMA exists to make sure the gatekeepers lose market share to their rivals, even if it comes at the expense of consumers. Eg: Google asked to remove maps from their search page, which means a user has to do extra clicks to get to the info they want. Bad experience yes. And now, they still did not lose market share so EU is asking google to do more.

I am not against the spirit of the act, but their goal is to listen to competition and ask for changes accordingly. If it screws up users, so be it. There would be no winning. Yes, google search is a monopoly, and should not be so big. The act is unbalanced.

A lot of proponents of iMessage example miss out that WhatsApp won outside of USA. By just building a better product and utilizing network effects.

nolist_policy• 1 year ago

And now, they still did not lose market share so EU is asking google to do more.

Can you elaborate on that?

ankit2193• 1 year ago

So, after the first round of compliances, they did a review of the changes and did meetings with the likes of Yelp etc. This led to the next round of changes.[1] I am for the changes, just that I think you should also look at it from user perspective too, especially when what the user wants vs the competitor wants is conflicting.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/tech/google-proposes-further-changes-to-...

owebmaster• 1 year ago

We should not pay more to Google/Apple to do less clicks, they use the same logic to make it difficult to cancel or stop paying for things. You seem to be confused about what screwing up users mean.

Gareth3214• 1 year ago

DMA exists to make sure the gatekeepers lose market share to their rivals, even if it comes at the expense of consumers.

It sounds like you're not very familiar with the DMA. Most of the regulations have direct benefits to both consumers and developers. From the consumer side, it permits me to:

* Install any software I like, including software Apple doesn't like. For the longest time Apple wouldn't let me install Microsoft xCloud. It was only after the DMA that the loosened this restriction. Ditto for emulators. They still forbid many apps focused on gambling, porn, and cryptocurrencies.

* Install any App Store and choose to make it default. I can choose a default browser now. Soon I will be allowed to choose a default navigation software. It's INSANE that this was locked down until the DMA.

* Use third party payment providers and choose to make them default. Why should I be forced to use Apple Pay?

* Use any voice assistant and choose to make it default. Siri is the worst of all personal assistants. Why can't I use another one?

* User any browser and browser engine and choose to make it default. The fact that Apple forces everyone to use WebKit in 2025 is nothing other than a farce.

* Use any messaging app and choose to make it default. I am currently forced to use Apple's SMS app.

* Make core messaging functionality interoperable. They lay out concrete examples like file transfer.

* Use existing hardware and software features without competitive prejudice. E.g. NFC. A focus area for the Commission is cloud backup. Apple currently doesn't permit the use of competing cloud backup provides, or one's own, for that matter. iOS can only be backed up to Apple servers, and other apps on a per-app basis.

* Not preference their services. This includes CTAs in settings to encourage users to subscribe to Gatekeeper services, and ranking their own services above others in selection and advertising portals

* Much, much, more.

This is before we have explored the various ways the DMA improves the competitive landscape. Apple is clearly abusing their dominant market position to block competition. This is always bad for everyone except the one company in the dominant position.

ankit2193• 1 year ago

I did not mention apple in my comment. And what you wrote does not contradict what i wrote.

If they truly started with customers, perhaps we can agree that having to click another site to get to a simple one line answer is wrong. Thats why people prefer LLMs, they get the answer without having to click to multiple sites. But it's good for competition. In cases where customers and competition is at odds, ideally the law should favor customers. Except in EU, it favors competition. Customers dont have a seat at the table, competition does.

cropcirclbureau• 1 year ago

Strange to use WhatsApp and "utilizing network effects" as part of your rhetoric. Haven't they been commonly used to harm users?

And to address your general argument, I don't think bad UX can be put in the same category of harm as monopolistic market manipulation. Of course you can have the most integrated, slickest, most clairvoyant apps if you're Google. They have the money, data and access for it. And you could justify walled gardens for this but not abuse of monopoly. It's unbelievably shortsighted to do so.

h1fra• 1 year ago

Next time your startup is saying "no politics allowed in our company" remember this kind of announcement.

gdedhitchhiker• 1 year ago

Worker 17 needs to get access to their app to complete their work!

aurelien• 1 year ago

Well, the American credit scrore is made of ketamine ... EU do not need, nor have to respect any deal with a country under addictive substance.

DaSHacka• 1 year ago

Well, the American credit scrore is made of ketamine

Source?

malthaus2• 1 year ago

i can't believe the elon musk anti-hype train turned ketamine (which is pretty non-addictive as far as drugs go) into the posterchild drug, impressive

Cupprum2• 1 year ago

Sex workers in Bangkok pay around 10% of their salaries to the bars where people can find the workers.

Apple and other companies take around 30% as a fee for using their marketplace.

I don't see a reason why big tech should get a higher cut.

thrance5• 1 year ago

I don't see why they should get any cut, do you pay Dell whenever you install a game on your laptop?

92834092325• 1 year ago

This is a silly argument and I'm sure you know it.

tanjtanjtanj2• 1 year ago

Did I download the game from Dell’s servers? Was the game made using tools authored by Dell? Did the game go through a quality assurance process run by Dell? I know at one point they ran a digital distribution platform and I’d be highly surprised if they weren’t charging some sort of fee.

permo-w• 1 year ago

did you misread "should" as "shouldn't"? I know I did on first read

c16• 1 year ago

I think where this will fall on deaf ears is due to its branding.

~Europe's~ America's Digital Markets Act might work better with this administration, irrespective of how good or bad the content contained within it is.

In terms of what to focus your efforts on, this can be re-evaluated in a few years time when staff will actually dig in, beyond the optics.

s_dev3• 1 year ago

This is absolutely not what I would have expected.

I love Paul Graham but he's always criticised the EU for having too much of a heavy hand regulating things and 'stifling innovation' while there is plenty of room for nuance here -- the EU can be doing both. I think this suggests many in YCombinator are not as 'Libertarian' as they originally thought and there small mindset change happening.

lblume• 1 year ago

By this point, it should be fairly clear that unregulated markets lead to monopolies. If modern libertarianism still entails "the freer the markets, the freer the people" I would consider this to be empirically disproven[1].

[1] Except for minimal states which have not succeeded in reality because some type of strong organization's force will likely always exceed the market's implicit one.

s_dev3• 1 year ago

I'm hoping YCs next 'big' move for growth is to open an accelerator in either the UK or the EU. The US is moving in the wrong direction and the EU needs institutions like YC. Plenty have tried and failed to replicate YCs success both in the US and the EU but I think YC could make it happen.

malthaus2• 1 year ago

you have to judge people for their actions, not their philosophical essays.

ycombinator (which, nota bene, also spawned sam) is nothing but distilled capitalism with a fig leaf to appeal to a subset of nerd culture and you all ate it up

FinnKuhn• 1 year ago

If you are against heavy handed regulations I think supporting the DMA is only logically as those regulations are now coming from gatekeepers such as Apple or Google so limiting them in what they are allowed to do is fully compatible with this mindest I believe.

s_dev3• 1 year ago

The Libertarian philosophy is concerned with limiting the powers of government not companies.

I think people are seeing that companies can wield as much power and influence as governments can and yet have no democratic mandate or similar accountability mechanisms that we impose on governments.

paxys• 1 year ago

It's hard to believe that so many Americans, including prominent industry leaders like YC, are so delusional about the political situation in America today. You are not getting such regulation. You aren't getting any regulation. If rules do pass it will be because of politics and corruption, not the public good.

boxed• 1 year ago

Self fulfilling prophecy.

shadowgovt• 1 year ago

Does the law define criteria by which gatekeeper companies are identified, or does it explicitly call out six companies for scrutiny?

In the US, in general, that kind of targeted law is highly frowned upon (bills of attainder were a tool the King used to target political opponents and the Constitution wrote them out as a result).

hsuduebc2• 1 year ago

Breaking up monopolies used to be one of America's greatest strengths—Standard Oil, AT&T, even Microsoft faced real antitrust action. That willingness to enforce competition fueled economic growth and innovation.

But under Trump, there’s little chance of that happening. Big Tech has only grown more entrenched, and instead of being challenged, it’s likely to gain even more influence. The era of real trust-busting is over for now, and these companies aren’t going anywhere. I hope for the best in future.

I'm interested how it would be with Musk. He has enormous influence over the markets but he is not an "company" but an individual. I wonder how this would be resolved. I guess just let him choose what he can keep? That's sounds fishy to me.

yatopifo• 1 year ago

I take it the legislative branch is completely irrelevant in the US at this point… how quickly you gave adapted to living under a dictatorship!

VagabundoP• 1 year ago

Big tech has always driven me mad with how they leverage their monoplies once they reach a certain size.

Why can't I swap cloud backends on the mobile platforms?

I shouldnt need a gmail/icloud account to setup an android/ios device. Open those api's and let me use another hosted service or host my own.

After a device becomes unsupported release the unlock codes or whatever. At that point it becomes a security hazard anyway. I should be able to create custom roms/software to keep using it if I want.

enriquec2• 1 year ago

"unlock codes or whatever"

As an engineer, I can tell you it's not even easy to keep things working internally - let alone support every possible integration. Just because it's easy to say, doesn't mean it's feasible to do.

But if you're convinced its what people want, there's nothing preventing you from making it your life - like other people have done with their strategies.

refulgentis• 1 year ago

I appreciate the engineering perspective, and you're right that supporting every integration isn't trivial.

Is there a difference between providing an "unlock code" upon deprecation, and requiring "support for every possible integration"(?)?

Setting that aside, it seems it not every possible combination needs official support, but rather that providing an open or documented way for motivated users or communities to build upon or repurpose devices would be beneficial. Many projects exist precisely because tech companies allowed or at least tolerated community-driven solutions.

It's less about expecting everything to be effortless for the original manufacturer, and more about avoiding deliberate restrictions that prevent the community from extending a device's useful lifespan.

Teever• 1 year ago

Do the tech companies that make the devices that we now require for daily life because they decided to make the world that way release all of the resources necessary for independent people to do what you're suggesting?

If not that's something that we need to regulate.

graemep• 1 year ago

No one is asking for support for every possible integration.

What people are asking for is not actively preventing other integrations. That means through business means and deals as well as technological measures.

jcoleh• 1 year ago

Could we apply a progressive tax to large corporations (like big tech monopolies) to force them to figure out what aspects of their own business should be split up and spun out to keep the size of companies roughly equal to "one layer of the stack".

Seems like a progressive corporation tax would be an easy way to allow "the market" to naturally limit the size of corporations and find the correct separation points for separate businesses.

ragebol2• 1 year ago

Really random thought: the tax you pay on profit is proportional (or even 1:1) to your market share. Become a monopoly? 100% of your profit is now taxed.

Nicer to stay at eg. 25% and have competition. Maybe ramp it exponentially

(yes, I know there are loopholes in this pie-in-the-sky)

keyringlight• 1 year ago

Depending on what you want to use it for, the device and the ROM is one aspect, but secondary to that is the online services and apps accepting your device. I think android ROMs are a dead-end now because of aspects like safetynet/play integrity, unless you put the work into countering/spoofing them a lot of the tasks people use phones for now such as online/accounts/payments require the device to appear untampered/modified for security purposes. I have my old 2018 phone on android 14 via an unofficial lineage build because there was the freedom to do that, but I expect a bunch of apps will also make use of their freedom to deny me entry.

If you're only using it for on-device tasks then you're probably fine, although at that point the benefits of updating a ROM are probably marginal

Zak3• 1 year ago

I haven't had to put much effort into keeping my Play Integrity bypass working. I might touch it once a year. I do fear the day Google starts actively fighting it.

pbmonster• 1 year ago

I'm on grapheneOS on my daily driver, and that ROM officially passes basicIntegrity compliance without spoofing, but it lacks SafetyNet compliance (and fundamentally won't ever be able to get it officially) and the project refuses to fake/spoof it.

This is enough for absolutely everything except Google Wallet/Pay.

I'm fine with that.

tonyhart74• 1 year ago

- "Why can't I swap cloud backends on the mobile platforms?" why would I make such system exist in the first place????

no one can stopping you to create such system tbh, but expecting others to follow your ideologies is insane

developing android and ios is come with a cost and they need to figure it out earn some of their money back and this is the "moat" that they have

mrguyorama5• 1 year ago

Right, which is why we should abolish the FDA, because forcing someone to follow my ideology of "stuff sold as medicine shouldn't kill me (99% of the time) if I follow the directions" is immoral.

We should also abolish copyrights, because forcing companies to respect my IP is an ideological stance.

Trademarks are gone too, because you can't force a company to not trample my trademark and abuse my brand position without forcing an ideology on them.

Kon-Peki• 1 year ago

Big tech has always driven me mad with how they leverage their monoplies once they reach a certain size.

This book explains everything:

https://store.hbr.org/product/information-rules-a-strategic-...

I’ve never seen it in a library, but you can occasionally find used copies, if you don’t want to buy a brand-new book that is a roadmap to doing things you disagree with.

VHRanger• 1 year ago

Oh wow, those authors.

For those not in the know, Carl Shapiro [1] and Hal Varian [2] are well known economics researchers. Hal Varian ended up working at Google building the AdWords auction after writing this it seems.

For anyone wondering, there's this person called *Anna* that has an *archive* where the book can be found.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Shapiro

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Varian

clown_strike• 1 year ago

It goes to a login page but I was curious enough to pry.

ISBN 087584863X or 9780875848631, "Information Rules" by Carl Shapiro. Available on the prominent alternative procurement network.

echelon2• 1 year ago

The real problem with these giant companies is that they can move into entirely new markets, eg. film production, and afford to lose massive amounts of money. They can effectively lose billions of dollars while gobbling up market share and starving the oxygen out of all the existing players in that market who need profits to sustain themselves.

Amazon and Apple are undercutting Hollywood and losing money. They're subsidizing their Hollywood efforts with funds from unrelated business units (hardware, grocery stores, primary care doctors, etc.) You can get cheap (free) entertainment if you subscribe to Amazon Prime shipping, so why spend money on the competitor's product if entertainment is (at some gross sense and scale) fungible?

The thing that needs to be broken up is the ability of these giants to subsidize moves into healthy existing markets or even nascent markets. They push out the incumbents with their massive cash hoards gained from unrelated business unit activity. They don't even try to profit at first until they've captured the market and suffocated the existing players.

It's unfair that Amazon and Apple can make movies, buy out James Bond, Lord of the Rings, etc. off of their trillion dollar market caps, iPhones, and AWS profits. It's unfair that they can plaster free advertising on the side of their delivery vans or get free ad placement front and center in their App Store. That costs everyone else millions of dollars - a large percentage of the unit economics. Big tech has every advantage and is literally murdering entire markets with these insane, unfair advantages.

These giant companies are like an invasive species. They're like lionfish moving into the Caribbean, killing all the local fauna. No natural predators. Complete decimation of the local ecology.

Their behavior disconnects innovation, healthy and rational market monetization, and the actual rewards that should go to the investment and labor capital pioneering those areas. Institutional giants are snuffing out anything they see that they can expand into.

Big companies need to be broken up for the sake of healthy markets and innovation. Big companies are gravitational singularities that distort everything.

victorbjorklund• 1 year ago

Why can't I swap cloud backends on the mobile platforms?

Not a mobile dev. Why can't you switch your backend from AWS to Azure or Hetzner?

Sailemi• 1 year ago

They mean cloud backend as in switching one's cloud backup destination from iCloud to a competitor - e.g Onedrive. Not possible on iOS.

cantrecallmypwd• 1 year ago

You maybe tilting at windmills. The problem is greed-oriented corporations will inevitably find the path of least resistance to more money against the interests of its workers, customers, and even the environment. Only worker-/user-owned co-op organizations have a real chance to break this cycle. We must stop feeding billionaires our time, our money, our labor, and our votes because they will never look out for us.

ttoinou2• 1 year ago

Wouldn’t we loose specific features if a common cloud backup standard is developed ?

mrguyorama5• 1 year ago

No? Why would you. "Expandable" open standards are perfectly possible, though they do lead to some market fragmentation, but "market fragmentation" is just another name for "Product differentiation".

Early in the 20th century, the telephone network was NOT an open standard. You had to ask AT&T to come to your home and wire a new telephone into THEIR network, and you weren't allowed to do anything else with that network. Opening that network up allowed us to build good modems (instead of relying on acoustic couplers which had abysmally low data rates due to bad quality coupling), build things like fax machines etc.

Open standards with open networks is a driving force to innovation. The internet is another one. We should be pushing very hard for basic rights to interact with networks and infrastructure.

If the power companies had the kind of control that we've given """Tech"" businesses over their "networks", you wouldn't be allowed to plug anything "unapproved" by a business into the wall. Your local utility could literally extract a tax on any product that needed electricity.

Open standards and laws that explicitly allow working in someone else's system for the purpose of Fair Use and interoperability are a requirement for continuous progress. A patent can encourage someone to make an initial investment into improvement, but the very moment they have any advantage the patent system means nobody else will be able to offer that kind of functionality for 20 years or so. Consider how long none of us were able to "Buy now" on any website other than amazon.com because of a stupid patent.

The entire PC ecosystem only exists because the law says that there was a way you could, legally protected, interact with someone else's intellectual property. It doesn't have to be easy, just possible. Clean Room reverse engineering is an insane endeavor, but without it, IBM would have strangled PCs as a platform in the crib, because that would be more profitable a business than what we have now.

If we want technological advancement and the ability to buy what you want, use what you want, do what you want with what you buy, then we need to forcefully wrest control away from these big companies who would really prefer to maintain tyrannical control over their "platforms" because it's just more profitable.

Stuff like the Digital Markets Act does that.

wilg• 1 year ago

Why can't I swap cloud backends on the mobile platforms?

The real answer is because this is a ton of work for very little customer benefit and creates tons of headaches to solve a mostly theoretical problem. It's not worth it to anyone involved.

hbn• 1 year ago

Exactly, Apple will put in all the work to implement cloud features in a way where you can swap out the backend just so Hacker News Guy, as the "techie" guy in the family, can set up his whole family with his own hacked together cloud backend for their phones which will regularly fail and cause people to like their iPhone less, and/or support calls to Apple that will be 100x harder to troubleshoot.

6d6b73• 1 year ago

Folks, let me tell you, our Big Tech is going to be absolutely massive—bigger and better than anybody's ever seen. We don’t need Europe, okay? Their tech companies? Total losers. We’re going to keep on winning—so much winning you’re gonna say, “Please, Mr. President, enough with the winning!” But we won’t stop. If we don't win the first time, we'll slap tariffs on them so fast their heads will spin. And if tariffs don’t work, guess what? We’ll just buy them out—it’ll be huge. And if that doesn’t do the trick… well, let’s just say you really don’t want to know what comes next. We’re gonna win bigly, folks. Tremendous.

lxe• 1 year ago

At this point we should not be supporting ANY legislation related to technology that's coming from the EU.

notorandit• 1 year ago

Good luck. I fear it will be a waste of time and resources.

zoobab• 1 year ago

DMA is cementing a duopoly in mobile OSes.

Trop break that duopoly, we need rules for hardware manufacturers to store complete spécifications in a trusted public registry, with fines if the doc is incomplete, misleading, etc...

pizzly• 1 year ago

This is also about being a monopoly, when there's a monopoly there's no competition. It would be similar to a dictatorship. Developers and customers should've more freedom to buy or sell without being controlled by a dictator. Briefly, there should be more choices from different competitors. This will be healthy for developers and customers.

musicale2• 1 year ago

Why not enforce anti-trust law?

musicale2• 1 year ago

Specifically, YC in its letter points to Apple reportedly delaying its LLM-powered version of Siri until 2027, years after competitors brought generative AI voice assistants to market

Apple reportedly delayed its iPhone until 2007, years after competitors brought smartphones to market.

Y Combinator urges the White House to support Europe's Digital Markets Act

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