Comment by Fischgericht | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Fischgericht | Hacker News Reader

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Wow, this really proves my point. Are you assuming government only exists for the benefit of corporations?

No, the EU is not acting this way because they want an "EU Apple". Nobody over here has the illusion of any such mega corporation ever coming out of the EU. The IT industry we once had was killed mostly by price dumping from China in the late 2000ies.

Those mega-corporations are solely coming from non-free regions. If there is someone right now starting to massively take away market share from US mega corporations, then it's Chinese mega corporations.

The EU are doing this because they wish to protect the basic rights of their citizens. Well, and they are not purely doing this out of their own - a small number of hacker activist for the last couple of years have sued pretty much all EU institutions to make them enforce the laws we have here.

I would recommend you check out the very first three words of the US constitution again. Spoiler Alert: It's not "We the oligarchs" :)

> No, the EU is not acting this way because they want an "EU Apple". Nobody over here has the illusion of any such mega corporation ever coming out of the EU.

i don’t know what case you’re making, but “sore losers” isn’t a winning one.

> Those mega-corporations are solely coming from non-free regions.

all of them come from a place that is a lot more free than any country in the EU: the US.

> The EU are doing this because they wish to protect the basic rights of their citizens.

this is naive.

Ok, then let's assume that the European Court of Human Rights has been corrupted by evil forces from... erm... Mars... that want to ... erm... poison the planet by giving EU citizens control over their hardware and personal data. Or something?

Less naive, I guess.

I'm not playing your "sore losers" game. You are implying that all there is left to fight about is which mega corporations shall be in control of your personal rights.

Fine, if that's what you want.

I want to be in control of my data, and to be in control of the hardware I own.

This doesn't limit your freedom to have Musk, Google, Apple or whoever control your hardware. Give them your private keys. Give them your brain. All your choice and fine for me.

But my hardware stays my hardware, my freedom stays my freedom, and my data stays my data :)

Please try to look at it this way:

Just because I demand to be in control of my hardware and data instead of a corporation or oligarch does not limit YOUR rights to have a corporation or oligarch to be in control of your hardware and data in any way.

So what do you have to lose? What fight are your fighting here? What's wrong with EU people wishing to keep some of their basic human rights and a free market? It does not limit you. Just because Apple is forced to play by the rules in the EU does not limit them to play by the the-winner-takes-it-all concept that now appears to be common in the US now over there.

you somehow assume that i care about any of this stuff. i do not. i simply don’t think the EU knows anything about anything and that it has the best interest of citizens at its core.

i think the EU will continue to split the internet for people like yourself. while the rest of world will continue doing what they do.

i wish you and your data all the best.

I'd like to clarify on "was killed mostly by price dumping" - that was only part of the reason. Huawei selling below production cost killed much of the EU hardware vendors (Siemens, Alcatel Lucent), but there also was a massive lack of investment in education, a terrible failure culture, and a pretty much non-existent VC market to blame.

But anyway: There is nothing left over here that could only remotely catch up with the pace technology is developing in the US and China. We would be 10+ years late to any such game.

So: It's really just about making sure some of our basic human rights, democracy and free markets survive while the US and China are fighting it out on who is going to control us.

> We would be 10+ years late to any such game.

Yep, so `smash 'em`?

> basic human rights

Try again, perhaps revive 'Chatcontrol' again? This time it definitely will help.

You may prefer to say it in a different way than "smash 'em". But yes, if you violate the laws of the region you are operating in, there must be consequences. So, if you prefer: "Fine them. Jail them". Better?

And in regards of the chat control shit: Yes, this has been going on for decades now and pops up again and again. Originally it was pushed into the EU by the US via the UK. The crypto wars in the US appear to be over for now, but some European right-wingers are still dreaming about it.

But just this week the European Court of Human Rights has decided "chat control", aka weakening end-to-end-encryption is a violation of basic human rights.

This doesn't mean that the right wingers in various EU countries won't try again, but it's pretty futile. We, the people, won.

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