A common mistake is to think that the EU is limited to a few large economies (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Holland), but this is not the case.
Ensuring that a Croatian SME can win contracts with the French or Germans is one of the EU's priority objectives. This is how the EU has lifted millions of people out of poverty. This is a very tangible reality. It worked with East Germany, Spain, Poland, the Baltic States and now the Balkans.
The European Commission is litteraly there to ensure that a water heater designed by an Italian, made by a Romanian from Polish steel, inspected by an Italian and put on the market by a Frenchman guarantees high quality standards.
They take this mission very seriously because it's not just about protectionism or trade competition. It's a political project of peace and improvement of the living standards for Europeans.
You'd have to know very little about the European Union to believe that it was prepared to negotiate or grant a free pass to Apple.
When Bulgarian truckers started outcompeting French truckers the EU came up with new rules to shut that down. Requiring that the truck has to go back to the country the company is from every 2 months is ridiculous. Not the driver, the vehicle.
The practical implication of this is also that it is a huge market. You can ignore that at your own peril. And another thing is that the EU is inspiring other countries to also change their regulations. In the end what companies need to decide is if they can afford losing and alienating major markets across the globe.
E.g. Apple sells lots of iphones and other hardware in the EU. That should be more valuable than giving themselves preferential treatment in their own store, banning competitors from using their browser on IOS, and other anti competitive things that they are doing. And that's just Apple. Arguably, Google, Amazon, Meta, etc. each have their own issues with regulations in the EU.
Go and explain that to a Romanian or a Latvian. Not so long ago, their citizens were prepared to give up everything to leave these countries. That is no longer the case. You're deluding yourself.
What amazes and perplexes me is that Apple thinks it can effectively play politics against the EU and that somehow their customers will back them in the face of the "consequences" Apple applies, which are pretty transparent and really quite amateurish (eg no more web apps for you!).
As the article states, the first mistake Apple makes is thinking the EU is somehow like the US, but I can't see how any large proportion of Apple's customers will back Apple's actions against their own government. EU citizens haven't been brainwashed into thinking that their government is their enemy, at least not to the same extent as the US.
It does seem they've mistaken the general sentiment towards government regulation in europe, which is typically, "more, better".
Since we have so many consumer protections, much of how we end up engaging with the law around business practices is to our benefit. We're always aware we can raise bad business practices with an ombudsman (etc.).
So our lived experience of government regulation is, in large part, positive.
The fringe american "all regulation is bad" is hyped up for certain media causes, but very alien to most in practice. It's essentially unimaginable to the ordinary european that large corporations would have a better social conscience than government.
>It does seem they've mistaken the general sentiment towards government regulation in europe, which is typically, "more, better".
The notion of regulation as being on a sliding scale where "more is worse" was a manufactured American meme created by the Kochs in the 1980s. It emerged from some of their epic fights with the environmental protection agency and their subsequent lobbying and public relations outreach efforts that followed. They set up and funded number of institutions dedicated to telling this story (and others, including that one about hairdresser licensing). The Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Cato Institute to name a few.
If you think about it for a few seconds, dumbing down a complex system like laws or regulation to "more vs less" is quite stupid. It's like saying that some programmers believe in "more lines of code" and some believe in "fewer". Do you want more laws or fewer laws? The question doesn't make sense. You want the right kind of laws, right? Ones that are as simple as possible and no simpler. The same for code.
I think it's important to put this type of thing in a historical context though. These ideas and stories don't emerge out of nowhere - there is usually money behind them. In this case, it was money from an oil and chemicals company that had a singular goal - to fight the EPA - so it could destroy the natural environment in America with absolute impunity.
> So our lived experience of government regulation is, in large part, positive.
I think I'd nuance it a bit. We see it as necessary. Necessary because otherwise powerful companies take advantage I think most can point to bad places in life for government regulations, but when the opposition is more powerful than most governments you need to fight with the most powerful thing you have.
> the general sentiment towards government regulation in europe, which is typically, "more, better".
I'd need to be convinced that's true. More regulation was a huge part of the successful campaign to get the UK out of the EU. It seems to get effusive praise in places like this, but in daily business, I generally hear the term GDPR spat. Is anyone expecting the incoming car regulation around beeps and bongs every time you approach the speed limit to be received well by ordinary people? The USBC stuff that this article heaps praise on is a great example, techies love it, everyone else in everyday life I've only heard complain about it. Maybe it improves things long-term, but I can't remember hearing anyone say "more, better" about any of these things.
I would say the overall sentiment I've heard is that there is a general suspicion that the reason European business lags so far behind the US is that we're held back. I don't think the handful of people that will be able to play Fortnite on their iPhones will change this. It certainly wont if they end up needing multiple app stores for their daily apps.
Despite the rise of far right populist parties, Europe tends to lean more on the left side of the political spectrum compared to America, and corporate worship is a relatively new thing over here. People tend to have more faith in governments and treat companies with more distrust, compared to the US which seems to be the other way around.
While you are right, I think the better formulation is that the US is just super to the right of the normal political spectrum. In Europe you have a pretty good spread across the whole spectrum across the many countries, but in the US the left really doesn't exist as a party. Even the Democrats would be a conservative party in most other countries.
I don't think Americans worship corporations. They mistrust them too.
But your threat model is messed up if you're more scared of Microsoft or your ISP abusing you than your government abusing you. The latter has way more potential for harm, and it's exacting that harm with your tax dollars to boot.
The interesting thing about the article is that all this EU regulatory control over corporations is in fact deeply capitalistic and the very reason for its existence, and in the corporations interest. Which is not what most EU citizens would consider being on the left of the political spectrum.
The idea is: we need regulation to shape the market where businesses can compete freely to the advantage of both businesses and consumers. If we don't regulate, monopolistic corporation would threaten the single EU market.
Or even more simplified: we need rules to have a free market. The US version (or one of the versions) of capitalism is more of a free-for-all, where the most important thing is to reduce regulation, not increase it. It seems to trust the judicial system more than the government.
Distrust of government, and the limiting of its powers, is an American founding principle. It has resulted in federalism, separation of powers, a Constitution that protects property rights, and a Bill of Rights. This skepticism of government stemmed from the lived experience of the founders.
That this founding principle still permeates American thinking and American life is something I would call culture, or an ethos. But it is not, in my experience, brainwashing.
It's suprising that the US still holds itself as the champion of the free market where it's more a corporate Oligarchy. It's clear Apple is trying to be as monopolistic as possible, understable from their perspective, but it's the EU job to regulate it, just a shame of the US fell so deep.
> EU citizens haven't been brainwashed into thinking that their government is their enemy
I don't think that EU is so homogeneous in this regard. Ask that question to people from Italy and Finland and you will get quite different answers, and rightly so, because Italian and Finnish government, and in general state are quite different.
> What amazes and perplexes me is that Apple thinks it can effectively play politics against the EU and that somehow their customers will back them in the face of the "consequences" Apple applies,
Given the general attitude of many ardent Apple fans, I don't find this so surprising. Especially as while the feature is attractive it is not yet used by a large proportion of the customer base (partly because it is not yet widely used by apps, though it is steadily becoming more so).
I think what tipped it over the balance, so what they judged wrong, is the fact the braking of existing features was only going to happen in Europe. This made it hard for even the most cultish follower of the brand to paint the “well, it isn't a good feature anyway” picture because if that was the case the drop would have been universal. Counter intuitively: maybe if they had made the change globally, making it less obviously the result of a childish hissy-fit, they would have had more support from the core customer base.
Yes. Also, Apple's market share in Europe is much lower than in the US. Many if not most Europeans wouldn't care if Apple ceased to exist today (or ceased to be able to sell its products in Europe). I certainly wouldn't. We have lots of options.
On paper, digital cash is superior to both physical cash and digital bank money in almost all aspects, but many Americans oppose it anyway because they see their government as their enemy.
I suspect US-ians in general have a hard time realizing that the US is not the only planet in the universe. It is part of the culture to assume that the US way of doing things is universal.
>somehow their customers will back them in the face of the "consequences" Apple applies
Could you elaborate on this point? I'm not sure what their customers would even be able to do in apple's favour? Discussions on tax and anticompetitive activity is largely niche, and even here the facts don't get in the way of the court of public opinion:
Take each of these major tax/anticompetitive headline grabbers from the last few years:
Apple Owes $14.5 Billion in Back Taxes to Ireland, E.U. Says - New York Times.
Apple hit with record €1.1bn fine in France - BBC
Italian antitrust watchdog fines Apple, Amazon more than $225m - Al Jazeera.
And it's about there where most readers stop, but what actually happened after this point?
1. The latest ruling in the 14BN irish tax saga was in Apple's favour, and since then it's taken around 3 years for the EU to file their appeal. So that is still on-going with the EU on the back foot.
2. The record French 1.1Bn antitrust fine, reduced to a third, and the appeals process is still incomplete.
3. The 225M fine from the Italian antitrust authority was struck down entirely.
These are judgements from the EU's own courts, which lends credibility to the people who make cynical statements about the various EU agencies application of these fines.
For this reason I scoff when I read an editorial which describes the USA as protectionist in comparison to the EU. The evidence is to the contrary.
I think there needs to be a word like "Paris syndrome" for when Americans meet actual Europeans and find out their politics.
I've not met anyone who doesn't work in Brussels who thinks the EU isn't a dysfunctional pile of shit. The most spirited defense I've heard of it is "Well at least it keeps the Germans from invading again.".
> The EU, it's better than genocide, by a bit - probably.
Great term. Sometimes, I think I must live on a different continent.
It comes down to interest I think, for someone with a bunch of devices and online all the time it sounds great when the EU forces USBC through for example. Even though they don't generally have a good view of how ordinary people interpret it either.
But at the far end something like the damage the common agricultural policy has for ordinary europeans is completely lost on them. There would never be any interest in how it impacts people.
I feel the complete opposite. I think the EU is the most efficient and enlightened bureaucracy there is, and it is going to save our ass, and maybe the ass of the rest of the world too. I have more trust in the EU techno-bureaucrats than in the government of my own country. The more EU the better as far as I am concerned. The EU is awesome.
Careful, there are some Apple fanboys defending Apple for their beautiful UX that does things only to simplify and make life better, not to monetize - that's just a small side effect.
PS: I own several Apple devices, but I can still recognize mafia methods.
> EU citizens haven't been brainwashed into thinking that their government is their enemy, at least not to the same extent as the US.
US citizens haven't been brainwashed into thinking that their government is their friend, at least not to the same extent as the EU.
Honestly, if you talk to real people within the EU, you'll find that maybe half of them are mostly against the EU. Real life is not the same as HN, because most citizens are not part of the "elite" that benefits the most from EU programs and systems. Like all governments there are very good things about the EU and very bad things. And somebody has to pay for their maintenance.
You should be concerned if your thought patterns are healthy if you dismiss everybody with a different opinion as yours as "brainwashed". It doesn't help you in the long run.
> US citizens haven't been brainwashed into thinking that their government is their friend, at least not to the same extent as the EU.
> Honestly, if you talk to real people within the EU, you'll find that maybe half of them are mostly against the EU.
Are you sure these two claims aren't contradictory? Go on, give it a few minutes of thought.
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Let us be perfectly clear here. People in the EU love to grumble about the EU, like every single human being everywhere loves to grumble about their government. Like all systems made of humans, the EU has big flaws, which everybody acknowledges, although they might not completely agree on what exact set of traits counts as flaws.
That does not mean the large majority of EU citizens seriously thinks the EU should be replaced with something else. Even less so now that the UK went and made itself a cautionary tale of what may happen when you try too hard to use said grumbling as a political tool to pursue your own selfish interests.
I quite like the article as far as it goes; but this begs the follow up question - is the strategy working? Because for all their standards and harmonisation, the manufacturing is happening in China and the decisions are being made in North America. This should be an article about how Nokia or equivalent is approaching the US all wrong and not understanding the realities on the ground.
I'd put energy in a similar frame. Energy matters a lot, and for all the optimistic noise around the Energiewende, the solar industry ended up in China. Wind power Europe has managed a company in the top ten, so that is pretty good [0]. Given the growing energy crisis in Europe, this seems to be an area of failure that needs more focus in how the common market is performing.
The EU's successes seem a bit mild. I remain sceptical that harmonizing charging cables is an important enough dot point to appear on these lists, it looks like there is just a lack of success stories out of the EU. The failures are catastrophic; last I heard the farmers had just started rioting too [1] which is a bad omen.
Even within the EU it is clear that low income countries have worse life than high income countries, just like everywhere in the world. And Europe's real median income is decreasing in most of the countries. Surely, it will have effect in few decades.
Maybe I'm about to display my ignorance, but until 1990 wasn't Poland under the USSR's umbrella? And the US was all but occupying Germany until ... it is almost possible to make that claim up to today. There are 50k US troops in Germany and 60k in the German army. That and the Southwestern Europeans being broken like twigs after WWII.
I don't think it is the EU that is keeping the peace; I reakoon it is the Haber process + the US more than anything else. Although if it was it is failing IMO, there is a land war in Europe right now that is at risk of fighting WWIII. And everyone is arming up again because of it.
China can regulate more effectively than the EU. They have actual concentration camps. Look at Jack Ma. The EU has cookie banners. That’s not regulation, it’s a speed bump.
Consider that the US cannot manufacture things because our environmental and labor regulations are so strict as to make it impossible. The idea that America doesn’t have regulations is not accurate. We have regulated the regulation, so it appears less regulatory but it is not.
As someone living in the EU, I'm well aware of the EU's failings, but also of the successes, and I think we don't celebrate them enough.
Some things I really like:
* I can travel in a wide area with just my ID card (and practically even without it), no visa or passports required
* sending packages by mail is really easy and cheap compared to non-EU countries
* free mobile data roaming. Not such a big deal for me (but very convenient), but I have friends that travel a lot or are at home in more than one country, for them it's huge
* no need to exchange currencies when visiting lots of places (though not all EU countries)
* my health insurance mostly works in the other EU countries as well
* pretty strong consumer protection laws
* We've been living in peace for quite a few decades now, awesome! (And that's not how it used to be in central Europe, historically)
Note that national politicians often take credit for things mandated by EU, and put all the blame on the EU, so that kinda skews the public discords more negative than it should be.
Just one more data point: only one country has left the EU so far, and it seems they've come to regret it, mostly. Lots of countries have joined the EU since its formation, with more in the pipeline. Would that be the case if negatives outweighed the positives?
I find it ironic that at the time of writing the comment before yours is the one that complains about "simping for big business" (ie, overfocusing on the benifits to the wealthy) and then your comment is mainly lauding the benefits to the people who can afford international travel.
This is another point that I think Americans miss sometimes - "good for the businesses" is seen as the end goal, and it is assumed that people will benefit in some trickle-down way from that.
The goal for all of this is for people to have good lives. Supporting businesses may or may not be the right way of doing that, but we shouldn't lose sight of the end goal.
Simping for big business is a favorite American pastime. Somehow, so many Americans have been convinced that they're actually business owners, just having a set-back and temporarily working for $20/hr stocking shelves or selling cars. But in their hearts they are actually tycoons, and anything that hurts business surely hurts themselves!
Two companies in the wind power top 10: Siemens of Germany, and Vestas of Denmark. As someone who worked for a while in Canadian wind power industry, the only other turbines I've seen deployed at scale here are the GE ones.
The goal of Energiewende was to crush the price of renewable generation, and it looks like that’s happened. It just turns out that the fastest way to accomplish this was for manufacturing to occur in China, where it’s consistently cheaper year after year. If you set up an optimization problem on one metric, you can’t be surprised when it doesn’t optimize for a different one.
If we had comparable energy prices to the USA then we would also have more manufacturing. It's almost the sole driver behind the current economic crisis.
Europe is sadly not energy independent like the USA is.
It's not economically feasible to operate a large factory in central europe any more, it's barely possible to operate a restaurant (they are closing in droves) -- energy prices are too high.
> but this begs the follow up question - is the strategy working? Because for all their standards and harmonisation, the manufacturing is happening in China and the decisions are being made in North America.
But at least some of the decisions that happen in North America are happening because of EU regulation. For example the push to get all phone manufacturers to standardise on USB chargers
A lot of manufacturing actually does happen in EU - it's just somehow concentrated in manufacturing parts necessary to make factories in general or producing other things.
So less in big name end user products, a lot in terms of "drive around EU and you can purchase everything to build any kind of factory"
I understand where the author is coming from and It is important to have a realist perspective on what is driving European strategy or else we will be in denial.
I think it's also important to recognize that the west are interconnected in many real ways beyond economic. The first and most clearly top of mind recently is the US defense umbrella which allows the EU to invest on other things instead of defense. Another less talked about is how the US subsidizes most of global R&D for healthcare by virtue of the obscene amount Americans pay and hence make profitable that industry to the benefit of all of humanity.
For American companies to contemplate selling into or building offices and having employees in Europe is to contemplate a set of trade-offs.. there's a reason why European employees are typically paid far less, it has to do with the fact that there's far less flexibility if they are a bad hire coupled with the fact that they have much better benefits provided by their governments and hence their money goes a lot further. That is of course related to the fact that they are not generally paying much for defense.
Everyone is self interested and when we see the Europeans talk about human rights on the one hand but then do big wine and dine trips in China to sell their luxury goods on the other hand you see clear evidence of that fact.
As much as many Europeans may loathe the united states, in the grand scheme of things we are far more interwoven with each other and ultimately entering a new cold war with China and decisions will need to be made over time around where to place bets around self-reliance. I'm sure Europeans love to sell to China but they will not love the glut of Chinese Imports that will decimate their protectionist economies at a level far more aggressive than they've ever experienced across the Atlantic
> Everyone is self interested and when we see the Europeans talk about human rights on the one hand but then do big wine and dine trips in China to sell their luxury goods on the other hand you see clear evidence of that fact.
I think you're falling into another typical mistake, which is to think "Europeans" are one person.
In fact, it's very likely that the Europeans who talk about human rights don't travel to China and those who do "wine and dine trips in China" are different people who aren't very interested in human rights.
Given how the Brussels controls trade with China for all the member-states, the statement is accurate.The same Commission who waves human rights flags will do all kinds of energy deals with saudi& Azerbaijan for example
Table 3 here [0] provides a breakdown of drug discovery by country and by expenditure. In terms of number of drugs discovered, the US leads with 66%, followed by Canada, the UK, Germany, and Belgium in that order.
> Another less talked about is how the US subsidizes most of global R&D for healthcare by virtue of the obscene amount Americans pay and hence make profitable that industry to the benefit of all of humanity.
As an American who pays for healthcare insurance, I must say that this is a bug and not a feature!
> there's a reason why European employees are typically paid far less
American companies also want to pay American employees less who switch from working in the office to working remotely.
> As much as many Europeans may loathe the united states
First to get it out of the way, I don't think many Europeans loathe the USA. Some might disagree with some of the major influences from the US, but that comes from a position of respect, something like agree to disagree.
With regards to the health R&D, well. My view is that to call what happens in the US subsidizing others sounds surprisingly charitable when it is all but that. The US health industry is a surprisingly economically unregulated cut-throat market. What the private companies that make up the majority of the American health industry do is what they are supposed to do, maximize profits. No surprise there. What is surprising is that some people expect that maximizing profits leads to good and value for money healthcare for individual people.
What happens is that the US health system/regulations/laws lead to high prices for patients and huge profits for companies. So if the US intention is to have good health care they shot themself in the foot. But I don't know that.
> Another less talked about is how the US subsidizes most of global R&D for healthcare by virtue of the obscene amount Americans pay and hence make profitable that industry to the benefit of all of humanity.
I don't think any of your links substantiate the claim that US healthcare expenditure subsidises global R&D on healthcare, only that healthcare is more expensive in the US (which I personally think is more due to an extremely ineffective system with an unhealthy amount of middlemen that inflate prices).
As a European I always have mixed feelings when this comes up. First things first, the European NATO members signed a contract to use 2% of GDP for defense and some are not doing that. Not right, they have to honor their agreements.
But then why is the US spending so much more than the 2% ? I feel that by and large that Europe and mostly the EU tries to have international influence via commerce. (Trade agreement/or not, customs, economic pressure, regulation, that sort of thing).
When you look at the US then in some instance you can't help but thinking that the military is another arm to execute international influence in the world. For that it might make sense to have a large military budget. If that's not your way of making politics, and let's be honest no European country could even do that if they wanted, then it is also less interesting to have a large army in excess of what has been agreed (the 2%)
All of that also with the view that probably most people are shocked that it is actually possible to have an actual war in Europe again. This was unexpected and most people thought, we have enough weapons to deter any attacker. let's leave it there. And in fairness that still holds. The 2% seem to be about right to have a useful deterrent for an attack.
So in Europe (despite how it looks now with the Ukraine war) a big army was seen less useful and when the Americans say they have to hold a defense umbrella then they are probably right with regards to nuclear defense.
But for the rest the Americans seem to have their own motives to have a large army that goes beyond defense and then it feels a bit strange to hear that America has to pay for a big Army because the Europeans don't do it (except the Europeans really should stick to 2%). As the Europeans have less incentive/possibility to use their military for anything else but defense whereas the Americans do.
> The first and most clearly top of mind recently is the US defense umbrella which allows the EU to invest on other things instead of defense.
In the past 30-40 years the US has been the direct or indirect cause of most of the world's conflicts and wars. "US defense umbrella" has cost the EU more than its claimed benefit.
> the fact that they have much better benefits provided by their governments and hence their money goes a lot further. That is of course related to the fact that they are not generally paying much for defense.
Ah yes. Europeans have benefits because US spends so much on military. I find no fault in this logic.
> The first and most clearly top of mind recently is the US defense umbrella which allows the EU to invest on other things instead of defense.
And also to have the US stay in control, that was the deal post WW2. This is changing though, looking at how much EU countries spend in terms of GDP they are slowly closing in on the US. Some countries are even outspending the US on this metric. There is a real urgency to become independent of the US for our security of course. Thanks to both Trump and Putin.
> Another less talked about is how the US subsidizes most of global R&D for healthcare by virtue of the obscene amount Americans pay and hence make profitable that industry to the benefit of all of humanity.
This puzzles me most, Americans clearly do not benefit from the arrangement. They spend vast amounts on healthcare, way more than almost any other country, and the health outcomes are quite mediocre. This is not in the interest of the average American, its a broken model.
> For American companies to contemplate selling into or building offices and having employees in Europe is to contemplate a set of trade-offs.. there's a reason why European employees are typically paid far less, it has to do with the fact that there's far less flexibility if they are a bad hire coupled with the fact that they have much better benefits provided by their governments and hence their money goes a lot further. That is of course related to the fact that they are not generally paying much for defense.
I don't think this is the case. America is spending way more on defense, but in terms of GDP its still just 3.5% or so whereas the mean EU country spends just slightly under 2%. I think its rather the sheer size of the US economy and the VC money going into it to stay competitive. When you look at lower paid jobs vs cost of living instead of the privileged, the story is quite different. There is a lot of poverty in America. If you have no education, in most EU countries you don't need 3 jobs just to make ends meet, even with heavy taxes.
> As much as many Europeans may loathe the united states, in the grand scheme of things we are far more interwoven with each other and ultimately entering a new cold war with China and decisions will need to be made over time around where to place bets around self-reliance. I'm sure Europeans love to sell to China but they will not love the glut of Chinese Imports that will decimate their protectionist economies at a level far more aggressive than they've ever experienced across the Atlantic
Absolutely, the EU is no saint. As a general rule, its easier to loathe those that are most like us but just not us. The United States are almost as interwoven with China and in love with its cheap labour and resources as the EU though. And very dependent on it. And I think both the US and EU are now realizing this has a security risk.
However, as the article points out, there is a strong conviction in the EU that economic interdependence prevents war. To the point of ideology I might add, because a lot of Europeans were sure that economic interdependence with Russia would prevent Putin going to war, to the point of blindness. After Ukraine, this doctrine has been challenged to say the least.
> And also to have the US stay in control, that was the deal post WW2. This is changing though, looking at how much EU countries spend in terms of GDP they are slowly closing in on the US
a quick search said the EU spent 240B euro on defense in 2022, that number is likely higher now. That isn't a small amount. If you bundled the EU as a country, that would be 3rd on the list, and puts their military spending in the same class as china. The EU isn't piggy backing off the US for defense, the US is just spending an obscene amount on defense, because how else do you make the shareholders of the military industrial complex obscenely rich?
See, and therw I was worried we'd have a discussion HN involcing the EU without anyone sharing all those meme and myths about the EU, labour laws, salaries... Thank you for holding up the flag!
At least in the case of Apple, it’s not at all specific the the EU. That company is run by children.
Everybody who works with Apple, be it developers or suppliers complains about how shitty they are to work with. They maintain relationships by the strength of their market power alone. Bridge burning is ingrained into the company culture.
Apple is treating the EU like they do everyone else: they are being dicks. Unfortunately they seem to have missed that the EU is not able to be bullied or pushed around.
Rather, Apple is ran by people who are used to the ~20 years of free corporate reign granted to them by the complete defanging of groups like the FTC in the US while Europe was still trying to fruitlessly coax them into being cooperative.
It's not just Apple who is struggling to work in an environment where regulators have teeth; Amazon tried to treat the EU the same way and got banned from lobbying the EU parliament for not taking them seriously.
Basically the only GAFAM company that took regulators seriously for a while was Microsoft (due to the IE lawsuits) but even they are starting to act out again as of late.
The meteoric rise of MS Azure in Europe is best explained by how they have already had their war with the EU and learned how to work with the EU instead of against it.
Apple saw what happened when Google was nice to developers and got shitty camera views in apps and adobe flash.
Apple has rightfully concluded that developers do not deserve to have any freedom on their platform because they immediately abuse it for their benefit and to the detriment of the user. Devs got so bad meta lost billions in value when Apple set up a privacy transparency feature in the App Store, say what you want about their repair practices but no other tech company takes this much care in managing their platform.
Any platform operator needs policies to protect users against spam and abuse. But does Apple do a good job at this? No. Many of the popular app store apps are low quality games that exploit addiction with loot-box mechanics. But those scam apps make money for Apple so it's fine.
Apple does not keep spam and other crap from the App store, but it does police high quality apps that offer their own subscription services. Because Apple feels entitled to their cut.
Expected some meme-worthy content about bad EU-regulations and such. Was surprised to read a well thought out piece about how good managers have to accept and work with facts and reality.
It's rare to find someone with a very different starting point of view, and still don't feel any antagonism at all during the reasoning.
As an European for example I would attribute most of his general criticism of EU to the US but after much entrenching on "Apple vs EU" this felt like a reasonable third view.
In fact I’m really amazed that Apple is trying to play games trying to circumvent a brand new regulation (the DMA), while totally ignoring the fact that they are amongst he primary targets of those regulations. It’s like they don’t understand that any circumvent will just sharpen the 1.01 version of the regulation.
They are only gaining some time until the next iteration but it just shows that they are afraid they can’t function anymore by just providing greater products than competitors. DMA isn’t banning the App Store, it still can be the number one store and it still can be a money printer. Except that it will have to be better than competitors.
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Ensuring that a Croatian SME can win contracts with the French or Germans is one of the EU's priority objectives. This is how the EU has lifted millions of people out of poverty. This is a very tangible reality. It worked with East Germany, Spain, Poland, the Baltic States and now the Balkans.
The European Commission is litteraly there to ensure that a water heater designed by an Italian, made by a Romanian from Polish steel, inspected by an Italian and put on the market by a Frenchman guarantees high quality standards. They take this mission very seriously because it's not just about protectionism or trade competition. It's a political project of peace and improvement of the living standards for Europeans.
You'd have to know very little about the European Union to believe that it was prepared to negotiate or grant a free pass to Apple.
E.g. Apple sells lots of iphones and other hardware in the EU. That should be more valuable than giving themselves preferential treatment in their own store, banning competitors from using their browser on IOS, and other anti competitive things that they are doing. And that's just Apple. Arguably, Google, Amazon, Meta, etc. each have their own issues with regulations in the EU.
Eu gdp 2013: 11,516.141 billion euro
Eu gdp 2023: 15,907.189 billion euro
39.58% increase
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_European_Union
- ireland is probably the only western europe country that was a net beneficiary,
- but also the whole eastern bloc : poland, romania, slovenia, croatia, hungary, czech, estonia, latvia, lithuania
As the article states, the first mistake Apple makes is thinking the EU is somehow like the US, but I can't see how any large proportion of Apple's customers will back Apple's actions against their own government. EU citizens haven't been brainwashed into thinking that their government is their enemy, at least not to the same extent as the US.
Since we have so many consumer protections, much of how we end up engaging with the law around business practices is to our benefit. We're always aware we can raise bad business practices with an ombudsman (etc.).
So our lived experience of government regulation is, in large part, positive.
The fringe american "all regulation is bad" is hyped up for certain media causes, but very alien to most in practice. It's essentially unimaginable to the ordinary european that large corporations would have a better social conscience than government.
The notion of regulation as being on a sliding scale where "more is worse" was a manufactured American meme created by the Kochs in the 1980s. It emerged from some of their epic fights with the environmental protection agency and their subsequent lobbying and public relations outreach efforts that followed. They set up and funded number of institutions dedicated to telling this story (and others, including that one about hairdresser licensing). The Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Cato Institute to name a few.
If you think about it for a few seconds, dumbing down a complex system like laws or regulation to "more vs less" is quite stupid. It's like saying that some programmers believe in "more lines of code" and some believe in "fewer". Do you want more laws or fewer laws? The question doesn't make sense. You want the right kind of laws, right? Ones that are as simple as possible and no simpler. The same for code.
I think it's important to put this type of thing in a historical context though. These ideas and stories don't emerge out of nowhere - there is usually money behind them. In this case, it was money from an oil and chemicals company that had a singular goal - to fight the EPA - so it could destroy the natural environment in America with absolute impunity.
I think I'd nuance it a bit. We see it as necessary. Necessary because otherwise powerful companies take advantage I think most can point to bad places in life for government regulations, but when the opposition is more powerful than most governments you need to fight with the most powerful thing you have.
The correct sentiment is both "more good ones, better" and "less bad ones, better"
I'd need to be convinced that's true. More regulation was a huge part of the successful campaign to get the UK out of the EU. It seems to get effusive praise in places like this, but in daily business, I generally hear the term GDPR spat. Is anyone expecting the incoming car regulation around beeps and bongs every time you approach the speed limit to be received well by ordinary people? The USBC stuff that this article heaps praise on is a great example, techies love it, everyone else in everyday life I've only heard complain about it. Maybe it improves things long-term, but I can't remember hearing anyone say "more, better" about any of these things.
I would say the overall sentiment I've heard is that there is a general suspicion that the reason European business lags so far behind the US is that we're held back. I don't think the handful of people that will be able to play Fortnite on their iPhones will change this. It certainly wont if they end up needing multiple app stores for their daily apps.
But your threat model is messed up if you're more scared of Microsoft or your ISP abusing you than your government abusing you. The latter has way more potential for harm, and it's exacting that harm with your tax dollars to boot.
The interesting thing about the article is that all this EU regulatory control over corporations is in fact deeply capitalistic and the very reason for its existence, and in the corporations interest. Which is not what most EU citizens would consider being on the left of the political spectrum.
The idea is: we need regulation to shape the market where businesses can compete freely to the advantage of both businesses and consumers. If we don't regulate, monopolistic corporation would threaten the single EU market.
Or even more simplified: we need rules to have a free market. The US version (or one of the versions) of capitalism is more of a free-for-all, where the most important thing is to reduce regulation, not increase it. It seems to trust the judicial system more than the government.
Dead Comment
Distrust of government, and the limiting of its powers, is an American founding principle. It has resulted in federalism, separation of powers, a Constitution that protects property rights, and a Bill of Rights. This skepticism of government stemmed from the lived experience of the founders.
That this founding principle still permeates American thinking and American life is something I would call culture, or an ethos. But it is not, in my experience, brainwashing.
These things exist in the EU. Are you sure you are not brainwashed?
The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal (both American), have been publishing the Index of Economic Freedom since 1995 and don't put the USA in 25th position: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom#Rank...
In some areas the US is clearly the leader in championing the free market, such as the US Freedom of Navitation Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_navigation#United_S...
I don't think that EU is so homogeneous in this regard. Ask that question to people from Italy and Finland and you will get quite different answers, and rightly so, because Italian and Finnish government, and in general state are quite different.
However, ask an Italian or a Finn about an attitude towards consumers rights, and you're likely to end up with a similar answer.
Given the general attitude of many ardent Apple fans, I don't find this so surprising. Especially as while the feature is attractive it is not yet used by a large proportion of the customer base (partly because it is not yet widely used by apps, though it is steadily becoming more so).
I think what tipped it over the balance, so what they judged wrong, is the fact the braking of existing features was only going to happen in Europe. This made it hard for even the most cultish follower of the brand to paint the “well, it isn't a good feature anyway” picture because if that was the case the drop would have been universal. Counter intuitively: maybe if they had made the change globally, making it less obviously the result of a childish hissy-fit, they would have had more support from the core customer base.
The time for Apple to get their point across isn't now but a decade ago.
The same phenomenon can be seen in other areas, such as digital cash:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Dpu6G_UlSdM
On paper, digital cash is superior to both physical cash and digital bank money in almost all aspects, but many Americans oppose it anyway because they see their government as their enemy.
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It will be interesting to exactly what the EU does regarding Apple's malicious compliance with regard to allowing third party apps stores.
I hope the EU comes down hard.
I suspect US-ians in general have a hard time realizing that the US is not the only planet in the universe. It is part of the culture to assume that the US way of doing things is universal.
Could you elaborate on this point? I'm not sure what their customers would even be able to do in apple's favour? Discussions on tax and anticompetitive activity is largely niche, and even here the facts don't get in the way of the court of public opinion:
Take each of these major tax/anticompetitive headline grabbers from the last few years:
Apple Owes $14.5 Billion in Back Taxes to Ireland, E.U. Says - New York Times.
Apple hit with record €1.1bn fine in France - BBC
Italian antitrust watchdog fines Apple, Amazon more than $225m - Al Jazeera.
And it's about there where most readers stop, but what actually happened after this point?
1. The latest ruling in the 14BN irish tax saga was in Apple's favour, and since then it's taken around 3 years for the EU to file their appeal. So that is still on-going with the EU on the back foot.
2. The record French 1.1Bn antitrust fine, reduced to a third, and the appeals process is still incomplete.
3. The 225M fine from the Italian antitrust authority was struck down entirely.
These are judgements from the EU's own courts, which lends credibility to the people who make cynical statements about the various EU agencies application of these fines.
For this reason I scoff when I read an editorial which describes the USA as protectionist in comparison to the EU. The evidence is to the contrary.
The government is the most powerful entity in society. If brainwashing is to happen, it's almost certain to be done by the state and its allies.
The last 80 years is a history of growing government power and public agreement with the narrative that expansive government control is good:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/social-spending-oecd-long...
I've not met anyone who doesn't work in Brussels who thinks the EU isn't a dysfunctional pile of shit. The most spirited defense I've heard of it is "Well at least it keeps the Germans from invading again.".
> The EU, it's better than genocide, by a bit - probably.
-- Enthusiastic EU supporter, 2024.
It comes down to interest I think, for someone with a bunch of devices and online all the time it sounds great when the EU forces USBC through for example. Even though they don't generally have a good view of how ordinary people interpret it either.
But at the far end something like the damage the common agricultural policy has for ordinary europeans is completely lost on them. There would never be any interest in how it impacts people.
Then you live in a very biased bubble.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/10/24/people-br...
Brexit voting towns that were shocked to find various programs shuttered once they got what they'd voted for are a great example of this.
- an Italian-living-in-UK that is a somewhat enthusiastic EU supporter
And notice it isn't exactly about how people do think they are good, but it's about how people are open to the idea that it can do good here or there.
Or, in other words, it's a much more nuanced point than the one you are replying to.
Dead Comment
PS: I own several Apple devices, but I can still recognize mafia methods.
US citizens haven't been brainwashed into thinking that their government is their friend, at least not to the same extent as the EU.
Honestly, if you talk to real people within the EU, you'll find that maybe half of them are mostly against the EU. Real life is not the same as HN, because most citizens are not part of the "elite" that benefits the most from EU programs and systems. Like all governments there are very good things about the EU and very bad things. And somebody has to pay for their maintenance.
You should be concerned if your thought patterns are healthy if you dismiss everybody with a different opinion as yours as "brainwashed". It doesn't help you in the long run.
There is exactly one country where that is true: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/10/24/people-br...
Across the EU, it's one third (i.e. a two-to-one majority sees the EU positively)
The polling seems to be proving you wrong. Even in the UK the attitude towards the EU seems to be net positive.
> Honestly, if you talk to real people within the EU, you'll find that maybe half of them are mostly against the EU.
Are you sure these two claims aren't contradictory? Go on, give it a few minutes of thought.
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Let us be perfectly clear here. People in the EU love to grumble about the EU, like every single human being everywhere loves to grumble about their government. Like all systems made of humans, the EU has big flaws, which everybody acknowledges, although they might not completely agree on what exact set of traits counts as flaws.
That does not mean the large majority of EU citizens seriously thinks the EU should be replaced with something else. Even less so now that the UK went and made itself a cautionary tale of what may happen when you try too hard to use said grumbling as a political tool to pursue your own selfish interests.
I'd put energy in a similar frame. Energy matters a lot, and for all the optimistic noise around the Energiewende, the solar industry ended up in China. Wind power Europe has managed a company in the top ten, so that is pretty good [0]. Given the growing energy crisis in Europe, this seems to be an area of failure that needs more focus in how the common market is performing.
The EU's successes seem a bit mild. I remain sceptical that harmonizing charging cables is an important enough dot point to appear on these lists, it looks like there is just a lack of success stories out of the EU. The failures are catastrophic; last I heard the farmers had just started rioting too [1] which is a bad omen.
[0] https://www.zippia.com/advice/largest-wind-power-companies/
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/26/farmers-...
It's the longest period in our thousand years history that we Poles have not had to fight Germans.
We have lost maybe even 1/3 of population in wars with Sweden, 1/5 of population in war with Germany.
Poland didn't exist or 123 years under Russian, Prussian and Austrian occupation.
Given that as a baseline, I'm really grateful for the EU.
[1]: https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/08/21/real-wages-are-down...
I don't think it is the EU that is keeping the peace; I reakoon it is the Haber process + the US more than anything else. Although if it was it is failing IMO, there is a land war in Europe right now that is at risk of fighting WWIII. And everyone is arming up again because of it.
Seems like this holds true more generally.
The manufacturing is happening in China, the decisions are being made in North America, and the regulation in the EU.
Its like direct (US), produce (China), react (EU)
Some things I really like:
* I can travel in a wide area with just my ID card (and practically even without it), no visa or passports required
* sending packages by mail is really easy and cheap compared to non-EU countries
* free mobile data roaming. Not such a big deal for me (but very convenient), but I have friends that travel a lot or are at home in more than one country, for them it's huge
* no need to exchange currencies when visiting lots of places (though not all EU countries)
* my health insurance mostly works in the other EU countries as well
* pretty strong consumer protection laws
* We've been living in peace for quite a few decades now, awesome! (And that's not how it used to be in central Europe, historically)
Note that national politicians often take credit for things mandated by EU, and put all the blame on the EU, so that kinda skews the public discords more negative than it should be.
Just one more data point: only one country has left the EU so far, and it seems they've come to regret it, mostly. Lots of countries have joined the EU since its formation, with more in the pipeline. Would that be the case if negatives outweighed the positives?
Community discussions are odd beasts.
This is another point that I think Americans miss sometimes - "good for the businesses" is seen as the end goal, and it is assumed that people will benefit in some trickle-down way from that.
The goal for all of this is for people to have good lives. Supporting businesses may or may not be the right way of doing that, but we shouldn't lose sight of the end goal.
Definitely. Americans are very quick to prioritise the needs of businesses over those of people.
In Europe, the people come first.
Europe is sadly not energy independent like the USA is.
It's not economically feasible to operate a large factory in central europe any more, it's barely possible to operate a restaurant (they are closing in droves) -- energy prices are too high.
- energy independence
- lower energy prices (after the short term)
- addresses global warming
With a huge bonus:
- crushes the evil and collusive petro states
But at least some of the decisions that happen in North America are happening because of EU regulation. For example the push to get all phone manufacturers to standardise on USB chargers
So less in big name end user products, a lot in terms of "drive around EU and you can purchase everything to build any kind of factory"
I think it's also important to recognize that the west are interconnected in many real ways beyond economic. The first and most clearly top of mind recently is the US defense umbrella which allows the EU to invest on other things instead of defense. Another less talked about is how the US subsidizes most of global R&D for healthcare by virtue of the obscene amount Americans pay and hence make profitable that industry to the benefit of all of humanity.
For American companies to contemplate selling into or building offices and having employees in Europe is to contemplate a set of trade-offs.. there's a reason why European employees are typically paid far less, it has to do with the fact that there's far less flexibility if they are a bad hire coupled with the fact that they have much better benefits provided by their governments and hence their money goes a lot further. That is of course related to the fact that they are not generally paying much for defense.
Everyone is self interested and when we see the Europeans talk about human rights on the one hand but then do big wine and dine trips in China to sell their luxury goods on the other hand you see clear evidence of that fact.
As much as many Europeans may loathe the united states, in the grand scheme of things we are far more interwoven with each other and ultimately entering a new cold war with China and decisions will need to be made over time around where to place bets around self-reliance. I'm sure Europeans love to sell to China but they will not love the glut of Chinese Imports that will decimate their protectionist economies at a level far more aggressive than they've ever experienced across the Atlantic
I think you're falling into another typical mistake, which is to think "Europeans" are one person.
In fact, it's very likely that the Europeans who talk about human rights don't travel to China and those who do "wine and dine trips in China" are different people who aren't very interested in human rights.
Do you have any numbers to back this claim up?
> there's far less flexibility if they are a bad hire
In most European countries any new employee will be on probation for an initial period [1] during which they can be let go easily.
[1] https://www.eurodev.com/blog/probationary-periods-in-europe
[0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10134693/pdf/10...
As an American who pays for healthcare insurance, I must say that this is a bug and not a feature!
> there's a reason why European employees are typically paid far less
American companies also want to pay American employees less who switch from working in the office to working remotely.
With regards to the health R&D, well. My view is that to call what happens in the US subsidizing others sounds surprisingly charitable when it is all but that. The US health industry is a surprisingly economically unregulated cut-throat market. What the private companies that make up the majority of the American health industry do is what they are supposed to do, maximize profits. No surprise there. What is surprising is that some people expect that maximizing profits leads to good and value for money healthcare for individual people.
What happens is that the US health system/regulations/laws lead to high prices for patients and huge profits for companies. So if the US intention is to have good health care they shot themself in the foot. But I don't know that.
Health Disadvantage in US Adults Aged 50 to 74 Years: A Comparison of the Health of Rich and Poor Americans With That of Europeans - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2661456/#:~:tex....
Differences in Health between Americans and Western Europeans: Effects on Longevity and Public Finance https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3383030/
US spends more than twice as much on health as similar countries for worse outcomes, finds report https://www.bmj.com/content/383/bmj.p2340
Defense has to be believable, a 50/50 bet that treaties will be honored in the future isn't. All that debt fueled spending doesn't mean a lot.
But then why is the US spending so much more than the 2% ? I feel that by and large that Europe and mostly the EU tries to have international influence via commerce. (Trade agreement/or not, customs, economic pressure, regulation, that sort of thing).
When you look at the US then in some instance you can't help but thinking that the military is another arm to execute international influence in the world. For that it might make sense to have a large military budget. If that's not your way of making politics, and let's be honest no European country could even do that if they wanted, then it is also less interesting to have a large army in excess of what has been agreed (the 2%)
All of that also with the view that probably most people are shocked that it is actually possible to have an actual war in Europe again. This was unexpected and most people thought, we have enough weapons to deter any attacker. let's leave it there. And in fairness that still holds. The 2% seem to be about right to have a useful deterrent for an attack.
So in Europe (despite how it looks now with the Ukraine war) a big army was seen less useful and when the Americans say they have to hold a defense umbrella then they are probably right with regards to nuclear defense.
But for the rest the Americans seem to have their own motives to have a large army that goes beyond defense and then it feels a bit strange to hear that America has to pay for a big Army because the Europeans don't do it (except the Europeans really should stick to 2%). As the Europeans have less incentive/possibility to use their military for anything else but defense whereas the Americans do.
Those are not the same people.
In the past 30-40 years the US has been the direct or indirect cause of most of the world's conflicts and wars. "US defense umbrella" has cost the EU more than its claimed benefit.
> the fact that they have much better benefits provided by their governments and hence their money goes a lot further. That is of course related to the fact that they are not generally paying much for defense.
Ah yes. Europeans have benefits because US spends so much on military. I find no fault in this logic.
And also to have the US stay in control, that was the deal post WW2. This is changing though, looking at how much EU countries spend in terms of GDP they are slowly closing in on the US. Some countries are even outspending the US on this metric. There is a real urgency to become independent of the US for our security of course. Thanks to both Trump and Putin.
> Another less talked about is how the US subsidizes most of global R&D for healthcare by virtue of the obscene amount Americans pay and hence make profitable that industry to the benefit of all of humanity.
This puzzles me most, Americans clearly do not benefit from the arrangement. They spend vast amounts on healthcare, way more than almost any other country, and the health outcomes are quite mediocre. This is not in the interest of the average American, its a broken model.
> For American companies to contemplate selling into or building offices and having employees in Europe is to contemplate a set of trade-offs.. there's a reason why European employees are typically paid far less, it has to do with the fact that there's far less flexibility if they are a bad hire coupled with the fact that they have much better benefits provided by their governments and hence their money goes a lot further. That is of course related to the fact that they are not generally paying much for defense.
I don't think this is the case. America is spending way more on defense, but in terms of GDP its still just 3.5% or so whereas the mean EU country spends just slightly under 2%. I think its rather the sheer size of the US economy and the VC money going into it to stay competitive. When you look at lower paid jobs vs cost of living instead of the privileged, the story is quite different. There is a lot of poverty in America. If you have no education, in most EU countries you don't need 3 jobs just to make ends meet, even with heavy taxes.
> As much as many Europeans may loathe the united states, in the grand scheme of things we are far more interwoven with each other and ultimately entering a new cold war with China and decisions will need to be made over time around where to place bets around self-reliance. I'm sure Europeans love to sell to China but they will not love the glut of Chinese Imports that will decimate their protectionist economies at a level far more aggressive than they've ever experienced across the Atlantic
Absolutely, the EU is no saint. As a general rule, its easier to loathe those that are most like us but just not us. The United States are almost as interwoven with China and in love with its cheap labour and resources as the EU though. And very dependent on it. And I think both the US and EU are now realizing this has a security risk.
However, as the article points out, there is a strong conviction in the EU that economic interdependence prevents war. To the point of ideology I might add, because a lot of Europeans were sure that economic interdependence with Russia would prevent Putin going to war, to the point of blindness. After Ukraine, this doctrine has been challenged to say the least.
Europe is changing now. And so is the US.
a quick search said the EU spent 240B euro on defense in 2022, that number is likely higher now. That isn't a small amount. If you bundled the EU as a country, that would be 3rd on the list, and puts their military spending in the same class as china. The EU isn't piggy backing off the US for defense, the US is just spending an obscene amount on defense, because how else do you make the shareholders of the military industrial complex obscenely rich?
Everybody who works with Apple, be it developers or suppliers complains about how shitty they are to work with. They maintain relationships by the strength of their market power alone. Bridge burning is ingrained into the company culture.
Apple is treating the EU like they do everyone else: they are being dicks. Unfortunately they seem to have missed that the EU is not able to be bullied or pushed around.
Rather, Apple is ran by people who are used to the ~20 years of free corporate reign granted to them by the complete defanging of groups like the FTC in the US while Europe was still trying to fruitlessly coax them into being cooperative.
It's not just Apple who is struggling to work in an environment where regulators have teeth; Amazon tried to treat the EU the same way and got banned from lobbying the EU parliament for not taking them seriously.
Basically the only GAFAM company that took regulators seriously for a while was Microsoft (due to the IE lawsuits) but even they are starting to act out again as of late.
Apple has rightfully concluded that developers do not deserve to have any freedom on their platform because they immediately abuse it for their benefit and to the detriment of the user. Devs got so bad meta lost billions in value when Apple set up a privacy transparency feature in the App Store, say what you want about their repair practices but no other tech company takes this much care in managing their platform.
Apple does not keep spam and other crap from the App store, but it does police high quality apps that offer their own subscription services. Because Apple feels entitled to their cut.
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Take my upvote!
As an European for example I would attribute most of his general criticism of EU to the US but after much entrenching on "Apple vs EU" this felt like a reasonable third view.
Kudos to the author
They are only gaining some time until the next iteration but it just shows that they are afraid they can’t function anymore by just providing greater products than competitors. DMA isn’t banning the App Store, it still can be the number one store and it still can be a money printer. Except that it will have to be better than competitors.
Any judge will just look and say "hey, that's clearly what the legislators meant from the beginning".