I doubt it. Besides Apple, none has even complained very loudly, and even Apple just did it in order to garner some sympathy points from the fans. That is, for marketing reasons. The fact is that none of this legislative stuff, this basic level of consumer protection in the EU is in any way a dealbreaker or a significant hindrance to big tech, merely a cost of doing business.
Why do you think they will leave? They will make noise, complain but if the choice is between following rules or give up profits, they will fall in line. Money trumps everything else.
They will however keep lobbying, support candidates favorable to them etc.
EU (and other governments) should be vigilant all the time. The moment they take it easy a bit, big tech will be back to their usual shenanigans
> Europe had taxis, private for hire limousines, taxi apps and delivery services long before Uber arrived.
All the "Uber" rip-offs in Norway are worse than Uber was last time I used it. Not that anyone can afford to use a taxi here anyway unless the government covers the bill, which they do and which is the only thing that keeps taxis employed, I think.
At least here in non-EU Switzerland, Uber often provides superior service over regular taxis. They‘re cheaper and you can’t get ripped off by a driver choosing a more circuitous route.
My first instinct would say if someone pulls out I hope that would finally spur some competition. You don't need to apply anti-trust to companies that don't operate in your market. Maybe a competing video platform or phone operating system would get a chance at organic growth.
Maybe a pipe dream though. I haven't given it serious thought.
> building alternatives takes time and resources. the EU has neither.
The EU does not have the motivation, mostly. They are not rivals of the US in the way China is. So money goes elsewhere. Europe is still a continent with a whole bunch of people and quite a lot of money. The path of least resistance is to just use American solutions in some areas and to develop others locally. This might change and if there is a vacuum, it will be filled quickly.
Uber is a poor example of dominant American companies. They don’t really have a moat and they don’t really provide a better service than the alternatives in Europe. I don’t think people would miss them much if they left.
The famous companies with a moat are Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon(AWS) since they're vertically integrated so no start-up stands a chance of competing or like Reddit and you hold a large userbase knowledge repository.
Food delivery companies, ride sharing companies, flight & boarding booking companies are all expendable. If one goes down, another one will spring up tomorrow.
Yes, and I don’t see them moving away any time soon. It’s too much on their balance sheets (Europe is a bigger market than China for Apple, and the other two are deeply embedded with the local administrations and companies). All of them are following the legislative frameworks and adapting.
>building alternatives takes time and resources. the EU has neither.
This is kind of a FUD fueled false dichotomy, when the truth is we can't know if the EU doesn't have time or resources if it never tries.
What the US has that EU doesn't is the infinte money to throw in the bonfire at moonshot projects knowing that 99% will fail and the 1% will be hugely successful, but now the market is mature with less untapped opportunities, and the EU doesn't have to spend like the US did to achieve the same results, since we now know what works and what doesn't and how to make an Uber that's compliant with local regulations while using less money.
> but now the market is mature with less untapped opportunities
at a macro level i don’t think things stand still waiting for the europeans to catch up. i think things are moving extremely fast and you either adapt or “stagnate”.
What's "moving" right now besides overhyped and unprofitable generative AI and AI chat bots, most of which are trained on copyrighted content and can be regulated away with a piece of paper when copyright holders lobby enough?
> building alternatives takes time and resources. the EU has neither.
This is a smartphone app that buys a local service that already exists, it's not hard... In fact alternatives already exist.. I mean of course they do cmon.
On the flip side do you realise the lithographic tech used to build your Intel fabs come from EU? (ASML) building an alternative to that will take serious time and resources. EU is not some third world country.
I'm not sure if it will actually happen. But the theoretical "problem" with these "X% of worldwide revenue" fines is that they change the calculus of launching an existing product in Europe. It makes it so that if a company enters the EU they risk it being a net negative to revenue.
The intended effect is that they follow the law, it's really not that complicated. Why do people assume that US-based companies have this inalienable right to break any law they want in every country around the world and that we all have to cheer for them when they do it?
Not necessarily, but it should "change the calculus of launching an existing product in Europe", factoring in privacy laws. Either don't launch, or make sure that your product complies.
That's not a EU problem. If the US puts laws in place that prevents their company from expending overseas, that's a problem that Americans need to fix.
Yeah. But even if you act in good faith there's still a chance you'll make mistakes and run afoul of the law. And now the cost of a mistake is not "we'll end up losing money in this new market" it's "our business might fail worldwide".
Too big a market. That's the power of the EU I guess. If they can adapt to abide, they will. If they can't, quite likely due to GDPR for many US companies.
