DEADMINCE

> The EU could start blocking payments to that porn studio.

Sure, but this is not punishing the company in any way which was the other posters point. If the EU was blocking payments to Apple after Apple withdrew from the EU, they are not punishing Apple or holding them accountable to EU law (specifically in the context of complying with competition guidelines and DMA type stuff).

> Avoiding the block would be money laundering, which is also illegal in California.

Hmmmm. I'm not so sure about that. If the EU barred payments to Apple, that block would be on banks and payment processors, not people. If someone goes to the US and buys an iPhone in this new world, they are not committing a crime unless the EU passes a law prohibiting its citizens to buy iPhones.

> The EU (or it's constituent countries - not sure) also controls imports, and could seize and destroy illegally purchased iPhones at the border. Every one of my international purchases is already stopped and processed by customs to evaluate import taxes. It would be quite easy for them to simply say "you can't import this."

Absolutely, but this has nothing to do with Apple, and it isn't the EU punishing Apple, it's Apple punishing people or organizations.

The other posters point was that if Apple withdraws from the EU, EU law wouldn't apply (in the sense they wouldn't need to allow any 3rd party app store, period), and people could still buy iPhones and Apple products outside of it. It's on the EU to try and deal with that.

> So instead of losing 5% or so of their revenue in the EU they’d rather lose > 80-90% seems like a smart business decision…

Not sure where you're pulling that 5% figure from, but the EU wants to fine companies like Apple a much larger percentage of their global revenue, not just EU revenue.

If the fines the EU wants to impose are greater than Apple's profit in the EU, indeed it would be a smart business decision to pull out.

> In any case (not quite the same but gives a glimpse into their mindset) they have zero issues with kowtowing to authoritarian regimes like those in Russia or China

Well, duh. Apple are not concerned with a government abusing its own people, they are concerned with a government taking 10% of their global revenue.

> Certainly always, in the case of companies like Apple.

No, lol. If Apple pulls out of the EU, they won't have any official presence, period.

> They either lose > 95% of their sales in the EU or comply with their regulations.

Or bypass them by pulling out.

> Is not sold on physical media these days.

Yeah, that was the point. Re-read the comment in context.

It's not people making silly claims so much as you being very attached to your assumptions.

Translate what you like, it doesn't change my point: Free to play is not inherently predatory.

There's a big difference between free to play and using as many dirty tricks as they can to fleece as much info as possible (and/or being pay to win), and a company that genuinely makes a free to play game and makes money off skins, because it made better business sense than charging $50 up front.

I mean, if it's too much, they will just pull out of the EU and sell to Europeans via online only. EU citizens will still be Apple customers, just without any EU protections.

To be fair, the EU is being a bit ridiculous sometimes. Apple decided not to compete in the EU because of the restrictions, and the EU seemingly wanted to penalize that decision also.

It's going to be amazing watching Apple accept that they have to remove their stupid, anti-consumer and limited restrictions, at least in the EU.

None of that matters.

The owner of a game doesn't dictate whether the game is predatory or not, the behavior of the game does.

The free to play model isn't inherently predatory, either, although certain companies certainly are. Call of Duty seems especially predatory.

> It's a problem for those who already bought Apple and didn't know any better or didn't care. Also, not everyone likes the only available other alternative, which is Google, as while they allow sideloading, they're still a privacy nightmare ad-ware company.

If you do care about privacy and having control of your own hardware, Google is the only choice, and that should be very obvious. Not because Android is so much better, but because you have a lot of options, even using a custom rom if you want. No such option with Apple.

Get around it.

Not optimally.

Conversely? Who mentioned there being a performance impact?

I recall that as well. Linux basically filled the need/goal they wanted with Hurd, so it became far less important.

You're not making the point you think you are, or at least not remotely well.

Look at big picture stats to draw a conclusion instead of pointing out a pretty obscure US problem that has no bearing on the claim made.

> However, I was a little put off by the glorification of nVidia's shady practices and lock-in policies as key to their current leading position. While technically true, I dislike "ends justify the means"-style thinking.

Personally, I have no issue with "ends justify the means"-style thinking as a blanket rule, often it's perfectly appropriate.

I would argue it is, in this case, where Nvidia was playing a game by the rules. If there is an issue with how they played, then government should change the rules.

The people in power in the US don't want that though.

Maybe that kind of childish decision-making is why Japan is failing as a country.

> I use Firefox inside eatmydata nowadays, because it spends 10 minutes enumerating the same 2 directories every time it starts up (hundreds of thousands of times).

What have you got like a 10 year old profile or something?

Librewolf starts up instantly for me, and I saw no performance difference using eatmdata.

I'm not aware of any bugs like that. Got any links maybe?

> It’s uncharacteristically un-Apple in terms of UX polish.

Apple's polish has always been more about the surface then the internals.

> I am MacOS's biggest fanboy and Tim Cook's strongest soldier

wow.

Some people can't.

>The Finder has so many bizarre quirks and it's so slow to proliferate updates that it's just embarrassing

Say what you will about Windows, but the Explore file manager has always been pretty rock solid.

With lots of marketing to make people want the change as much as a new iOS version.

Trump supporters and fascists are more likely to destroy themselves before it ever gets to that point. If anything worse than covid comes, given their resistance to vaccines, the problem will sort itself out.

Read the judgement and stop making assumptions.

The example you gave doesn't seem emotional or blatantly false, but factual and appropriate.

Reagan destroyed the US by cutting funding for schools, cutting mental health social services, and removing regulations from companies.

> Especially if the dissent writer is Sotomayor or Alito, frankly.

Weird. Sotomayor is one of the few credible justices we have.

> Or did they listen to and trust someone who told them that? And if so why did they listen to and trust that person?

Who cares? The issue is their gullibility and lac of education and ability to think critically.

> How about the people who have the right, and science backed answers learn how to hear out and build trust with the population, so the population actually wants to listen and trust what they say?

We're past that point. The tribalism is so entrenched that most of those people are never going to give the other side a chance.

You'd have to devote time to sit with each person individually and put in the time to try and educate and better them, and it's impossible since we don't have time or people to do that.

> The population doesn't have to be smart,

They kind of do. Or you end up with people that think Alex Jones is a credible source.

> I'm sorry, but democrats seem to have no interest in even attempting to hear the right out and to work towards building any sort of trust with them.

It's hard to hear out and build trust with a group of willfully ignorant superstitious ultra patriots who all too often behave in ways that could be described as bigoted.

I agree that would be a great help, but I don't see that happening when half the population is just going to be contrarian and obstructionist to something like that. Not least because it would mean they would have significantly less power if people had more options.