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This is such a short sighted view. What just happened is, EU, a political organization enforcing the use of a technology on a company which operates on free ma

This is such a short sighted view. What just happened is, EU, a political organization enforcing the use of a technology on a company which operates on free market. It's Apples best interest to make technology that the consumers want so that they can sell more units of that. A political organization like EU has no say in this. EU citizens already make this decision for themselves by voting with money and choosing to buy/not buy an iPhone. Today is one of the dark days of EU. In short sight it's a victory. But in long sight it's a hinderence to progress by enforcing a technology on the market instead of letting the free market decide the technology.

tunap 4y ago
>But in long sight it's a hinderence to progress by enforcing a technology on the market instead of letting the free market decide the technology. No, it's not in any way a hindrance to the market, merely one player who desires rent seeking. What it is doing is enforcing standards on manufacturers instead of the other way around.
- zaik 4y ago
  Maybe we can have an internet standard for messaging apps next?
  - triceratops 4y ago
    Yes let's.
  - MayeulC 4y ago
    The EU is working on it... Unless that's what you meant? https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/04/eu-digital-markets-acts-interoperability-rule-addresses-important-need-raises https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/04/eu-digital-markets-act...
  - idle_zealot 4y ago
    Isn't that covered by the recently-passed Digital Services Act? It mandates messaging platform interoperability.
doikor 4y ago
> A political organization like EU has no say in this. EU and most people living within it would disagree with this statement.
- blue_light_man 4y ago
  - remus 4y ago
    You could flip it round and say that's why the US is lagging behind the EU in environmental protection and consumer rights. I suspect the correct answer is somewhere between the two approaches.
    - School-Cotton 4y ago
      The amount by which the EU is better than the US in environmental protection is basically a rounding error relative to what’s actually necessary to stop climate change. You might as well say they’re equal.
      - _abox 4y ago
        Climate change is far from the only environmental problem have. Sure, it's the biggest but also the biggest to solve. And the EU has had a consistent push to solve it, unlike the US, which for instance during the Trump era pulled out of the Paris accord.
        blue_light_man 4y ago
        The solution for climate change would come from technology. Not random politicians virtue signalling and signing useless agreements which doesn't make any meaningful difference.
        p_j_w 4y ago
lelanthran 4y ago
> What just happened is, EU, a political organization enforcing the use of a technology on a company which operates on free market. Where are you living that your free market isn't regulated for the benefit of the consumer?
- smithza 4y ago
  > benefit of the consumer Says who? USB type-XYZ will be even more beneficial to the consumer in 5 years and the EU governing body is going to what... ? update the books with that? Force all consumer electronics companies to switch? Will they be the new guiding light for all things tech deciding what is "good" for the consumer? This is a bad take and others who might find it convenient for Apple to forced to do this are looking at this too short-sightedly.
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    > USB type-XYZ will be even more beneficial to the consumer in 5 years and the EU governing body is going to what... ? update the books with that? Force all consumer electronics companies to switch? Sure! Why not? More practically, it wouldn't be hard to designate a list of standardized form factors. The average smartphone also has plenty of real estate on its edges to ship multiple connectors (especially now that so many phones are dropping 3.5mm jacks), so if some fancy-shmancy USB-D or USB-J or whatever comes out it wouldn't be the end of the world to ship both until the EU updates its legislation to allow the fancy-shmancy one as an acceptable single port. As it stands, the EU's decision represents a strict improvement from the consumer's perspective. That's worth celebrating, even before the longer-term kinks have been ironed out.
  - lelanthran 4y ago
    > Says who? Who cares? Seriously, the OP made a claim that > What just happened is, EU, a political organization enforcing the use of a technology on a company which operates on free market. said claim being almost completely incorrect and devoid of fact. The reality is that in Free Markets, there is still heavy regulations. I want to know, just what sort of Free Market you are living under that doesn't have regulations on consumer devices.
Swenrekcah 4y ago
Respectfully, I would claim it's short-sighted to believe that the individual consumer has any real say in what they want, need or get with respect to offerings by trillion-dollar international conglomerates. There is no such thing as a free and unregulated market. Well, it exists but we call it the law of the jungle. This is not to say that any regulation is sensible, but this kind of standardization to avoid vendor lock-in and waste is one of the prime examples of sensible stuff.
- Arrath 4y ago
  > Respectfully, I would claim it's short-sighted to believe that the individual consumer has any real say in what they want, need or get with respect to offerings by trillion-dollar international conglomerates. Whole heartedly agreed. If I, as a consumer, had my say then my flagship phone would still have a headphone jack, an SD card slot, and a replaceable battery. Yet here we are.
  - kyralis 4y ago
    "Having a say" is not the same as "Your opinion winning out".
    - omniglottal 4y ago
      If there weren't such anticompetitive behavior by monopolistic behemoths, one could "have a say" by choosing to buy or produce the product which offers demanded features. These specific customer demands are common and well-known, yet their effectively "not having a say" has indeed occurred, given the fact these options are not made available anywhere in the behemoth-controlled market.
  - krzyk 4y ago
    > and a replaceable battery And with that EU will help out also, they are already working on a legislation for that.
soulofmischief 4y ago
The market is not free. Apple already enjoys the fruits of lobbying and market consolidation. Users are not free.
germinalphrase 4y ago
You think Apple is dragging its feet on iPhone USB-C adoption because it's in the best interest of consumers to do so?
ddoolin 4y ago
It's a phone charging port. It's not that serious. It's better for consumers if we all have the same one for everything, if possible. Unless you can tell me why not?
- thehappypm 4y ago
  To me this is a really good proposal. USB is already the winner here. Apple is making life harder for consumers. To me the real short-sidedness of this is that wired charging might be completely irrelevant by 2024!
- ruuda 4y ago
  Imagine this happened a few years ago, and the EU had instead demanded micro-USB. Then we would still be flipping plugs twice, and I wouldn't be able to use my laptop charger to charge my phone. It's not clear to me that USB-C is good enough to be the "final" connector, especially with the mess around USB versions, Thunderbolt, Displayport, etc. Unlike e.g. power sockets, where I am pretty confident that the current design can last another 15 years. (But which is not standard across EU countries!)
  - ddoolin 4y ago
    I don't really see how this is any worse than the current "do whatever you want regardless of what everyone else is attempting" that manufacturers currently go by. But as other commenters point out, provisions exist to assist with this.
  - nosianu 4y ago
    > Imagine But it didn't, and it may very well be because those people are not as incompetent as betting on making something a standard prematurely. They id it only now. Be careful with hypotheticals as basis of an argument.
    - blueblisters 4y ago
      In this case the counterfactual is a stronger argument than you saying "they did it only now" with appeal to authority. Unless there's a well reasoned approach to this policy, we are practically stuck with the current standard until the EU bureaucrats decide everyone needs an upgrade.
Fiahil 4y ago
> by voting with money "voting with money" or "voting with your wallet" is a complete non-sense. There is no -absolutely no- way for anyone in the industry to attribute a lost sale to a "missing" feature. I think this also a symptoms on how Americans view the world through means of consumption. Everything HAS TO be consumed one way or another.
- nickpp 4y ago
  There are countless examples of companies that made a product people didn't want and subsequently went out of business.
  - Fiahil 4y ago
    So what ?
    - nickpp 4y ago
      So voting with my wallet not only works, but it is an order of magnitude more powerful than "regular" voting - where I am not even represented on the political spectrum.
      - Fiahil 4y ago
        This is just completely delusional
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  Every time somebody says to "vote with your wallet", there is an implicit command to shut up and stop complaining about the product. The argument goes that the only legitimate way to respond to a product you don't like is to "vote with your wallet" (not buy it), implying that voting against the corporation's practices at the ballot box or on a soap box aren't legitimate. "vote with your wallet" is a fundamentally anti-democratic utterance that attempts to de-legitimize dissenters' participation in government and public discussion.
- 4y ago
joenot443 4y ago
Political organizations like the FCC already control parts of what an iPhone is and isn't allowed to do. Apple's never been in a position where they can offer exactly what the consumer wants without any political regulation, they've always had to follow some rules. I don't think this will go down as an important or sector-changing decision. I remember hearing the same thing online about the 2009 common external power supply law and if anything it feels like the consumer is better off. As others have said much more eloquently than I could, the answer for a happy market probably isn't total unregulated capitalism _or_ full government control, but likely somewhere in the middle. I've been an iPhone user since the 3GS and I'm pleased with this decision.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
sbf501 4y ago
> on a company which operates on free market. You probably shouldn't have based your argument on this statement, which is generally regarded as a myth. It is a myth in the sense that Apple exists in a free market: it is a near monopoly but is savvy enough not to wade into the area other companies did in the 90's and were penalized. Second, governments have the right to enforce environmental protection acts to protect the health and safety of its people. Technology companies are subject to this from day one at many levels (e.g., fabs have limits on how much toxic waste they can pump into the air). The EU is leading the way for cracking down on trillion-dollar companies who choose to treat you as a product rather than a person. I hope the rest of the world follows.
- pazimzadeh 4y ago
  I'm not arguing that the EU shouldn't be able to pass these laws, but which markets does Apple monopolize?
  - tinus_hn 4y ago
    In the market of mobile phones for consumers who actually buy apps. That’s why everyone wants Apple to lose that monopoly. The problem of course is that exactly that monopoly is a large part of the reason why it’s the market for consumers who actually buy apps.
- chroma 4y ago
  How can Apple have a "near monopoly" when Samsung sells 50% more phones than them?
  - jonwinstanley 4y ago
    Apple make billions every quarter and at this point no one can realistically unseat them. They collect pretty much all the profit in the phone market. They don’t technically have a monopoly, but they are in an incredibly strong position which is close to being guaranteed for the short and medium term.
funklute 4y ago
> A political organization like EU has no say in this. This is the short-sighted view. The unguided free market very often makes "decisions" that are detrimental to society as a whole, and it is absolutely necessary for political organisations to correct for this.
- GoldenMonkey 4y ago
  This is a false dichotomy. The government and politicians makes and mandates decisions that are detrimental to society. Often to their own benefit. And they have no competition. It would be too political to list these. But, I am sure both sides of the political spectrum can come up with innumerable examples.
  - xdennis 4y ago
    Firstly, with your government, you get a vote. But just about competition: the competition is that you can move to a different jurisdiction (i.e. country). And there's a lot more competition there than there is with phone makers or phone OSes. If a Frenchman doesn't like French laws he can move to Germany and haul all his stuff there (and his pension, etc). But if you don't like the Apple ecosystem anymore, Apple will make it as difficult as possible to move. The free market isn't the utopia libertarians think it is. You don't get to protest inside Apple, you can't petition for redress of grievances, if Apple terminates your account, you don't get a judge or jury of your Apple peers to rule if it was right or wrong.
    - _abox 4y ago
      > If a Frenchman doesn't like French laws he can move to Germany and haul all his stuff there (and his pension, etc). A bit offtopic but this is still something I find very lacking in the EU. For all the good it's brought us, we still have extremely different social security in each country and if you've lived in many EU countries throughout your life it's a complete PITA to reconcile things like pensions. Some countries have state pensions, others only voluntary corp plans.. I have no idea how this will turn out when I retire. IMO these different systems should at the very least be talking together.
poulpy123 4y ago
Actually the only thing that EU is interesting is for standardizing stuff
Arrath 4y ago
You seem to be placing a lot of doom and gloom onto the proscription of a given physical port. Its not as if the EU mandated flawed encryption, or silicon manufactured only within the bloc.
jlarocco 4y ago
Phone’s already aren’t a free market. Do you, or any consumer, have perfect information about the phone market? No. Does your phone comply with FCC and EU rules? Yes. Does it contain mercury? No. Are there any taxes or tariffs on them? Probably. All of those and more mean we don’t have a free market. Corporations exist because we let them, and they play by the rules we decide.
dainiusse 4y ago
Sorry, but can't agree here. Lightning is USB2. The only thing Apple uses it for, is thei cable business
mort96 4y ago
> It's Apples best interest to make technology that the consumers want so that they can sell more units of that. This is so hilariously wrong. It's in Apple's best interest to do whatever makes them the most money. Sometimes that happens to coincide with what customers want, but it often doesn't, _especially_ in a market with a duopoly with an incredibly high affinity for lock-in.
- nickpp 4y ago
  - mort96 4y ago
    All running either Google's Android or Apple's iOS. Google and Apple is the duopoly I was talking about.
    - nickpp 4y ago
      It's the market standardizing around two platforms. No governmental intervention necessary. Turns out consumers prefer a familiar, predictable platform with plenty of 3rd party offerings. No surprise there. But also no monopolies.
cptskippy 4y ago
> It's Apples best interest to make technology that the consumers want so that they can sell more units of that. And in the absence of a competitive advantage, you create a captive market. Apple was smart in quietly creating a captive market as they built out their ecosystem because they saw this eventuality. One of the ways they created it was by making the ecosystem both expensive to enter and leave. You're heavily invested in proprietary hardware and all of your digital assets are locked to the ecosystem and cannot be utilized outside it. The Lightning port was innovative at the time it was introduced but it has been eclipsed in most ways by USB-C. Now it's just a DRM'd lock-in mechanism. My partner recently switched to an iPhone. I bought a USB-C Charger, and some *certified* Lightning to USB-A cables in various lengths from various manufacturers to enabled the device to be charged all over the home and in the cars. Suddenly after 3 months the iPhone refuses to charge from any of the cables or using the USB-C cable that came with the phone plugged into the USB-C Charger. The cables work however when I use an old iPhone 6 or if I plug the new iPhone into a computer using one of the cables. No errors, no warnings, just nothing; the iPhone just refuses to charge from them. Apple says the DRM exists to protect users from dodgy or counterfeit cables that might pose a risk to the users. Unsurprisingly [this official Apple cable](https://i.imgur.com/icsPxJx.jpg https://i.imgur.com/icsPxJx.jpg) will charge the iPhone just fine at full speed. I for one welcome this regulation though I'm sure Apple will find a way to nerf it.
twen_ty 4y ago
Oh please - Apple had more than a decade to improve on the lightning cable - you somehow infer that progress will be hindered now because of this ruling? You do realise why standards actually exist?
gbanfalvi 4y ago
> It's Apples best interest to make technology that the consumers want so that they can sell more units of that. It's Apple's best interest to do what makes them money, and it often aligns with what customers want. > A political organization like EU has no say in this. Standards bodies in the EU have be defining things like this for decades. > EU citizens already make this decision for themselves by voting with money and choosing to buy/not buy an iPhone. As an Apple customer I might be voting with my money, but not on the connector specifically -- just on whether the product's collective pros outweigh their cons (and whether it's better than the competitor's, ofc). If I could vote, I would've voted for USB-C a long time ago, but I just get to choose between a set of products with varying compromises. Don't know why you try to make it seem like a democratic choice. > Today is one of the dark days of EU. In short sight it's a victory. But in long sight it's a hinderence to progress by enforcing a technology on the market instead of letting the free market decide the technology. If the free market had its say, it'd be choosing profits over the environment, consumer safety and worker rights every time. Or..? Why hasn't the US, with much laxer regulations free-marketed itself to utopia?
xdennis 4y ago
> This is such a short sighted view. It's not. The EU tried to do it the easy way, where companies would agree amongst themselves. This was finally accomplished in 2009[1] by every one except Apple. [1]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2009/06/10-companies-agree-to-standardized-mobile-phone-charger-in-eu/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2009/06/10-companies-agree-t... After 13 years, the EU is finally forcing Apple. > EU citizens already make this decision for themselves by voting with money We're also voting with our votes and most of us agree with that the EU is doing here.
- nickpp 4y ago
  > We're also voting with our votes and most of us agree with that the EU is doing here. Never voted for crap like this or the GDPR. I voted for strong leadership against Russian aggression or not becoming energy dependent of an evil regime, but I guess mandating trivialities is so much easier.
  - xdennis 4y ago
    Yes, we don't have a direct democracy (although you can vote for parties advocating it), but it's a lot more than you get with Apple. You don't get a vote on anything. "Voting with your wallet" isn't a vote at all. You can just choose to leave, but Apple makes it every difficult.
- mcphage 4y ago
  The interesting thing there is, the connector discussed in 2009 was the micro-USB connector. Had the EU forced tech companies in 2009 to use a micro-USB connector, would that mean they would still be on it now, and not using the (far better) USB-C connector? I think I'm for this decision overall, but otoh I'm really glad that the EU didn't force everyone onto micro-USB back in 2009. If they EU hadn't done this now, I wonder how I would feel about the possibility when 2035 rolls around?
  - lordfoom 4y ago
    > Had the EU forced tech companies in 2009 to use a micro-USB connector, would that mean they would still be on it now, and not using the (far better) USB-C connector? They did exactly that, force micro-usb, but in 2010: https://www.engadget.com/2010-12-29-european-standardization-bodies-formalize-micro-usb-cellphone-ch.html https://www.engadget.com/2010-12-29-european-standardization... And now it's upgrading to usb-c, so they do seem to be able to change with technology.
_abox 4y ago
> A political organization like EU has no say in this. EU citizens already make this decision for themselves by voting with money and choosing to buy/not buy an iPhone. I think it's important to point out that most EU countries do not subscribe to the exact same free-market vision that the US does. And the biggest country that did has recently left it. Most of Europe is totally happy with a much more restricted free market than the US would ever allow. This is not something imposed on us people. It's what the majority wants, aka democracy.
mountainriver 4y ago
Yup this is huge government overreach and the EU increasingly looks hostile to tech companies which produce most of the value in modern economies. Don’t like the lightning cable? Buy a different phone, it’s really that simple
- JAlexoid 4y ago
  If we had a true free market, without that IP monopoly crap, I would be able to buy a 100% compatible iPhone clone with USB-C. But since Apple gets the benefit of IP monopoly - I can't.
  - mountainriver 4y ago
    yeah I mean companies have IP which is reasonable, but you can buy a different phone that is USB-C compatible
jhoechtl 4y ago
Out of curiosity: You are from the US, own lots of Aple appliances and hold APPL stock? Which one of my bets is wrong?
- baq 4y ago
  If only Apple appliances all used lighting!
  - valzam 4y ago
    It's hilarious, if you have an iphone, an apple watch and an ipad you need 3! different cables. You can't even get around 2 of them with wireless because the apple watch doesn't support qi charging, so you need 2 different pads for iphone and watch. I will never understand how apple let it come to this...
krzyk 4y ago
If it is a free market, let me install a different app store than the apple one.
remeq 4y ago
EU is not trying to impose regulation or standardization on highly innovative areas of hardware or chipset design or software design or anything of that matter. They are imposing it for something that has largely been understood and comoditized (electric charging of phones via cable and data transfer using open communication protocol) where there is little room for getting any kind of competitive advantage or differentiation or some significant innovation. Speaking about hindrance of progress is largely far fetched and not based on reality. Things like this are really not blocking any meaningful progress but they indeed are largely abused by enterprises to push proprietary things to consumer so that it can be monetized and consumer locked in the vendor ecosystem.
andmarios 4y ago
Then what about EU enforcing more energy efficient buildings and home appliances, electric vehicles and more? EU is not a political organization, it is a political and economical union. If companies are left alone, they will never make a decision that does not benefit themselves. This is why we need EU, to make the decisions that benefit the planet and the people, thus leveling the field, so companies can compete within sane limits.
fsckboy 4y ago
depending on your definition of "free market", if you're looking for the benefits of a free market, apple's monopolistic behavior is also a source of market failure
jackvalentine 4y ago
> A political organization like EU has no say in this. EU citizens already make this decision for themselves by voting with money and choosing to buy/not buy an iPhone. Surely this goes both ways - if you don’t want to play by the rules you can vote with your business and not sell in to that market?
fennecfoxy 4y ago
>It's Apples best interest to make technology that the consumers want so that they can sell more units of that Consumers wants? More like Apple wants to use one of the few proprietary technologies that they can get away with, so they can sell you cables, whilst fostering an almost cult-like adulation of their company & what they do so that any time Apple's decisions are questioned, legions of people defend them for no reason. The lightning connector is outmoded. The cables Apple makes are designed to fail, mostly around the heatshrink area. The digital standards that lightning supports are outdated: 0.480Gbps vs 20-40Gbps for USB C/+TB.
- bzzzt 4y ago
  > any time Apple's decisions are questioned, legions of people defend them for no reason. Maybe because your arguments are very one-sided and border on cult-like anti-Apple beliefs, like > The cables Apple makes are designed to fail All cables will fail with use eventually, there's no question to that. But suggesting somewhere inside Apple is an evil mastermind that's trying to get me to buy stuff that's deliberately engineered to be bad to get me to buy more is an accusation of which I've yet to see convincing proof. I respect your decision not to shop Apple, but I really don't like that fact you're spreading false or unverifiable claims. (n=1, I've had 1 lightning cable break in the last 10 years)
rs999gti 4y ago
> What just happened is, EU, a political organization An unelected political organization
- JAlexoid 4y ago
  European Parliament voted on this. It is quite literally elected.
birksherty 4y ago
I don't care about private companies, if they want to operate with people they must follow a standard and so the news is good. All the time these companies do whatever they want like ditching headphone jack, fixed batteries, even if people don't want it. They force the change and we have to comply. So yeah it's great for long term.

tunap 4y ago

>But in long sight it's a hinderence to progress by enforcing a technology on the market instead of letting the free market decide the technology. No, it's not in any way a hindrance to the market, merely one player who desires rent seeking. What it is doing is enforcing standards on manufacturers instead of the other way around.

zaik 4y ago
Maybe we can have an internet standard for messaging apps next?
- triceratops 4y ago
  Yes let's.
- MayeulC 4y ago
  The EU is working on it... Unless that's what you meant? https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/04/eu-digital-markets-acts-interoperability-rule-addresses-important-need-raises https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/04/eu-digital-markets-act...
- idle_zealot 4y ago
  Isn't that covered by the recently-passed Digital Services Act? It mandates messaging platform interoperability.

doikor 4y ago

> A political organization like EU has no say in this. EU and most people living within it would disagree with this statement.

blue_light_man 4y ago
- remus 4y ago
  You could flip it round and say that's why the US is lagging behind the EU in environmental protection and consumer rights. I suspect the correct answer is somewhere between the two approaches.
  - School-Cotton 4y ago
    The amount by which the EU is better than the US in environmental protection is basically a rounding error relative to what’s actually necessary to stop climate change. You might as well say they’re equal.
    - _abox 4y ago
      Climate change is far from the only environmental problem have. Sure, it's the biggest but also the biggest to solve. And the EU has had a consistent push to solve it, unlike the US, which for instance during the Trump era pulled out of the Paris accord.
      - blue_light_man 4y ago
        The solution for climate change would come from technology. Not random politicians virtue signalling and signing useless agreements which doesn't make any meaningful difference.
        p_j_w 4y ago

lelanthran 4y ago

> What just happened is, EU, a political organization enforcing the use of a technology on a company which operates on free market. Where are you living that your free market isn't regulated for the benefit of the consumer?

smithza 4y ago
> benefit of the consumer Says who? USB type-XYZ will be even more beneficial to the consumer in 5 years and the EU governing body is going to what... ? update the books with that? Force all consumer electronics companies to switch? Will they be the new guiding light for all things tech deciding what is "good" for the consumer? This is a bad take and others who might find it convenient for Apple to forced to do this are looking at this too short-sightedly.
- yellowapple 4y ago
  > USB type-XYZ will be even more beneficial to the consumer in 5 years and the EU governing body is going to what... ? update the books with that? Force all consumer electronics companies to switch? Sure! Why not? More practically, it wouldn't be hard to designate a list of standardized form factors. The average smartphone also has plenty of real estate on its edges to ship multiple connectors (especially now that so many phones are dropping 3.5mm jacks), so if some fancy-shmancy USB-D or USB-J or whatever comes out it wouldn't be the end of the world to ship both until the EU updates its legislation to allow the fancy-shmancy one as an acceptable single port. As it stands, the EU's decision represents a strict improvement from the consumer's perspective. That's worth celebrating, even before the longer-term kinks have been ironed out.
- lelanthran 4y ago
  > Says who? Who cares? Seriously, the OP made a claim that > What just happened is, EU, a political organization enforcing the use of a technology on a company which operates on free market. said claim being almost completely incorrect and devoid of fact. The reality is that in Free Markets, there is still heavy regulations. I want to know, just what sort of Free Market you are living under that doesn't have regulations on consumer devices.

Swenrekcah 4y ago

Respectfully, I would claim it's short-sighted to believe that the individual consumer has any real say in what they want, need or get with respect to offerings by trillion-dollar international conglomerates. There is no such thing as a free and unregulated market. Well, it exists but we call it the law of the jungle. This is not to say that any regulation is sensible, but this kind of standardization to avoid vendor lock-in and waste is one of the prime examples of sensible stuff.

Arrath 4y ago
> Respectfully, I would claim it's short-sighted to believe that the individual consumer has any real say in what they want, need or get with respect to offerings by trillion-dollar international conglomerates. Whole heartedly agreed. If I, as a consumer, had my say then my flagship phone would still have a headphone jack, an SD card slot, and a replaceable battery. Yet here we are.
- kyralis 4y ago
  "Having a say" is not the same as "Your opinion winning out".
  - omniglottal 4y ago
    If there weren't such anticompetitive behavior by monopolistic behemoths, one could "have a say" by choosing to buy or produce the product which offers demanded features. These specific customer demands are common and well-known, yet their effectively "not having a say" has indeed occurred, given the fact these options are not made available anywhere in the behemoth-controlled market.
- krzyk 4y ago
  > and a replaceable battery And with that EU will help out also, they are already working on a legislation for that.

soulofmischief 4y ago

The market is not free. Apple already enjoys the fruits of lobbying and market consolidation. Users are not free.

germinalphrase 4y ago

You think Apple is dragging its feet on iPhone USB-C adoption because it's in the best interest of consumers to do so?

ddoolin 4y ago

It's a phone charging port. It's not that serious. It's better for consumers if we all have the same one for everything, if possible. Unless you can tell me why not?

thehappypm 4y ago
To me this is a really good proposal. USB is already the winner here. Apple is making life harder for consumers. To me the real short-sidedness of this is that wired charging might be completely irrelevant by 2024!
ruuda 4y ago
Imagine this happened a few years ago, and the EU had instead demanded micro-USB. Then we would still be flipping plugs twice, and I wouldn't be able to use my laptop charger to charge my phone. It's not clear to me that USB-C is good enough to be the "final" connector, especially with the mess around USB versions, Thunderbolt, Displayport, etc. Unlike e.g. power sockets, where I am pretty confident that the current design can last another 15 years. (But which is not standard across EU countries!)
- ddoolin 4y ago
  I don't really see how this is any worse than the current "do whatever you want regardless of what everyone else is attempting" that manufacturers currently go by. But as other commenters point out, provisions exist to assist with this.
- nosianu 4y ago
  > Imagine But it didn't, and it may very well be because those people are not as incompetent as betting on making something a standard prematurely. They id it only now. Be careful with hypotheticals as basis of an argument.
  - blueblisters 4y ago
    In this case the counterfactual is a stronger argument than you saying "they did it only now" with appeal to authority. Unless there's a well reasoned approach to this policy, we are practically stuck with the current standard until the EU bureaucrats decide everyone needs an upgrade.

Fiahil 4y ago

> by voting with money "voting with money" or "voting with your wallet" is a complete non-sense. There is no -absolutely no- way for anyone in the industry to attribute a lost sale to a "missing" feature. I think this also a symptoms on how Americans view the world through means of consumption. Everything HAS TO be consumed one way or another.

nickpp 4y ago
There are countless examples of companies that made a product people didn't want and subsequently went out of business.
- Fiahil 4y ago
  So what ?
  - nickpp 4y ago
    So voting with my wallet not only works, but it is an order of magnitude more powerful than "regular" voting - where I am not even represented on the political spectrum.
    - Fiahil 4y ago
      This is just completely delusional
MichaelCollins 4y ago
Every time somebody says to "vote with your wallet", there is an implicit command to shut up and stop complaining about the product. The argument goes that the only legitimate way to respond to a product you don't like is to "vote with your wallet" (not buy it), implying that voting against the corporation's practices at the ballot box or on a soap box aren't legitimate. "vote with your wallet" is a fundamentally anti-democratic utterance that attempts to de-legitimize dissenters' participation in government and public discussion.
4y ago

joenot443 4y ago

Political organizations like the FCC already control parts of what an iPhone is and isn't allowed to do. Apple's never been in a position where they can offer exactly what the consumer wants without any political regulation, they've always had to follow some rules. I don't think this will go down as an important or sector-changing decision. I remember hearing the same thing online about the 2009 common external power supply law and if anything it feels like the consumer is better off. As others have said much more eloquently than I could, the answer for a happy market probably isn't total unregulated capitalism _or_ full government control, but likely somewhere in the middle. I've been an iPhone user since the 3GS and I'm pleased with this decision.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

sbf501 4y ago

> on a company which operates on free market. You probably shouldn't have based your argument on this statement, which is generally regarded as a myth. It is a myth in the sense that Apple exists in a free market: it is a near monopoly but is savvy enough not to wade into the area other companies did in the 90's and were penalized. Second, governments have the right to enforce environmental protection acts to protect the health and safety of its people. Technology companies are subject to this from day one at many levels (e.g., fabs have limits on how much toxic waste they can pump into the air). The EU is leading the way for cracking down on trillion-dollar companies who choose to treat you as a product rather than a person. I hope the rest of the world follows.

pazimzadeh 4y ago
I'm not arguing that the EU shouldn't be able to pass these laws, but which markets does Apple monopolize?
- tinus_hn 4y ago
  In the market of mobile phones for consumers who actually buy apps. That’s why everyone wants Apple to lose that monopoly. The problem of course is that exactly that monopoly is a large part of the reason why it’s the market for consumers who actually buy apps.
chroma 4y ago
How can Apple have a "near monopoly" when Samsung sells 50% more phones than them?
- jonwinstanley 4y ago
  Apple make billions every quarter and at this point no one can realistically unseat them. They collect pretty much all the profit in the phone market. They don’t technically have a monopoly, but they are in an incredibly strong position which is close to being guaranteed for the short and medium term.

funklute 4y ago

> A political organization like EU has no say in this. This is the short-sighted view. The unguided free market very often makes "decisions" that are detrimental to society as a whole, and it is absolutely necessary for political organisations to correct for this.

GoldenMonkey 4y ago
This is a false dichotomy. The government and politicians makes and mandates decisions that are detrimental to society. Often to their own benefit. And they have no competition. It would be too political to list these. But, I am sure both sides of the political spectrum can come up with innumerable examples.
- xdennis 4y ago
  Firstly, with your government, you get a vote. But just about competition: the competition is that you can move to a different jurisdiction (i.e. country). And there's a lot more competition there than there is with phone makers or phone OSes. If a Frenchman doesn't like French laws he can move to Germany and haul all his stuff there (and his pension, etc). But if you don't like the Apple ecosystem anymore, Apple will make it as difficult as possible to move. The free market isn't the utopia libertarians think it is. You don't get to protest inside Apple, you can't petition for redress of grievances, if Apple terminates your account, you don't get a judge or jury of your Apple peers to rule if it was right or wrong.
  - _abox 4y ago
    > If a Frenchman doesn't like French laws he can move to Germany and haul all his stuff there (and his pension, etc). A bit offtopic but this is still something I find very lacking in the EU. For all the good it's brought us, we still have extremely different social security in each country and if you've lived in many EU countries throughout your life it's a complete PITA to reconcile things like pensions. Some countries have state pensions, others only voluntary corp plans.. I have no idea how this will turn out when I retire. IMO these different systems should at the very least be talking together.

poulpy123 4y ago

Actually the only thing that EU is interesting is for standardizing stuff

Arrath 4y ago

You seem to be placing a lot of doom and gloom onto the proscription of a given physical port. Its not as if the EU mandated flawed encryption, or silicon manufactured only within the bloc.

jlarocco 4y ago

Phone’s already aren’t a free market. Do you, or any consumer, have perfect information about the phone market? No. Does your phone comply with FCC and EU rules? Yes. Does it contain mercury? No. Are there any taxes or tariffs on them? Probably. All of those and more mean we don’t have a free market. Corporations exist because we let them, and they play by the rules we decide.

dainiusse 4y ago

Sorry, but can't agree here. Lightning is USB2. The only thing Apple uses it for, is thei cable business

mort96 4y ago

> It's Apples best interest to make technology that the consumers want so that they can sell more units of that. This is so hilariously wrong. It's in Apple's best interest to do whatever makes them the most money. Sometimes that happens to coincide with what customers want, but it often doesn't, _especially_ in a market with a duopoly with an incredibly high affinity for lock-in.

nickpp 4y ago
- mort96 4y ago
  All running either Google's Android or Apple's iOS. Google and Apple is the duopoly I was talking about.
  - nickpp 4y ago
    It's the market standardizing around two platforms. No governmental intervention necessary. Turns out consumers prefer a familiar, predictable platform with plenty of 3rd party offerings. No surprise there. But also no monopolies.

cptskippy 4y ago

> It's Apples best interest to make technology that the consumers want so that they can sell more units of that. And in the absence of a competitive advantage, you create a captive market. Apple was smart in quietly creating a captive market as they built out their ecosystem because they saw this eventuality. One of the ways they created it was by making the ecosystem both expensive to enter and leave. You're heavily invested in proprietary hardware and all of your digital assets are locked to the ecosystem and cannot be utilized outside it. The Lightning port was innovative at the time it was introduced but it has been eclipsed in most ways by USB-C. Now it's just a DRM'd lock-in mechanism. My partner recently switched to an iPhone. I bought a USB-C Charger, and some *certified* Lightning to USB-A cables in various lengths from various manufacturers to enabled the device to be charged all over the home and in the cars. Suddenly after 3 months the iPhone refuses to charge from any of the cables or using the USB-C cable that came with the phone plugged into the USB-C Charger. The cables work however when I use an old iPhone 6 or if I plug the new iPhone into a computer using one of the cables. No errors, no warnings, just nothing; the iPhone just refuses to charge from them. Apple says the DRM exists to protect users from dodgy or counterfeit cables that might pose a risk to the users. Unsurprisingly [this official Apple cable](https://i.imgur.com/icsPxJx.jpg https://i.imgur.com/icsPxJx.jpg) will charge the iPhone just fine at full speed. I for one welcome this regulation though I'm sure Apple will find a way to nerf it.

twen_ty 4y ago

Oh please - Apple had more than a decade to improve on the lightning cable - you somehow infer that progress will be hindered now because of this ruling? You do realise why standards actually exist?

gbanfalvi 4y ago

> It's Apples best interest to make technology that the consumers want so that they can sell more units of that. It's Apple's best interest to do what makes them money, and it often aligns with what customers want. > A political organization like EU has no say in this. Standards bodies in the EU have be defining things like this for decades. > EU citizens already make this decision for themselves by voting with money and choosing to buy/not buy an iPhone. As an Apple customer I might be voting with my money, but not on the connector specifically -- just on whether the product's collective pros outweigh their cons (and whether it's better than the competitor's, ofc). If I could vote, I would've voted for USB-C a long time ago, but I just get to choose between a set of products with varying compromises. Don't know why you try to make it seem like a democratic choice. > Today is one of the dark days of EU. In short sight it's a victory. But in long sight it's a hinderence to progress by enforcing a technology on the market instead of letting the free market decide the technology. If the free market had its say, it'd be choosing profits over the environment, consumer safety and worker rights every time. Or..? Why hasn't the US, with much laxer regulations free-marketed itself to utopia?

xdennis 4y ago

> This is such a short sighted view. It's not. The EU tried to do it the easy way, where companies would agree amongst themselves. This was finally accomplished in 2009[1] by every one except Apple. [1]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2009/06/10-companies-agree-to-standardized-mobile-phone-charger-in-eu/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2009/06/10-companies-agree-t... After 13 years, the EU is finally forcing Apple. > EU citizens already make this decision for themselves by voting with money We're also voting with our votes and most of us agree with that the EU is doing here.

nickpp 4y ago
> We're also voting with our votes and most of us agree with that the EU is doing here. Never voted for crap like this or the GDPR. I voted for strong leadership against Russian aggression or not becoming energy dependent of an evil regime, but I guess mandating trivialities is so much easier.
- xdennis 4y ago
  Yes, we don't have a direct democracy (although you can vote for parties advocating it), but it's a lot more than you get with Apple. You don't get a vote on anything. "Voting with your wallet" isn't a vote at all. You can just choose to leave, but Apple makes it every difficult.
mcphage 4y ago
The interesting thing there is, the connector discussed in 2009 was the micro-USB connector. Had the EU forced tech companies in 2009 to use a micro-USB connector, would that mean they would still be on it now, and not using the (far better) USB-C connector? I think I'm for this decision overall, but otoh I'm really glad that the EU didn't force everyone onto micro-USB back in 2009. If they EU hadn't done this now, I wonder how I would feel about the possibility when 2035 rolls around?
- lordfoom 4y ago
  > Had the EU forced tech companies in 2009 to use a micro-USB connector, would that mean they would still be on it now, and not using the (far better) USB-C connector? They did exactly that, force micro-usb, but in 2010: https://www.engadget.com/2010-12-29-european-standardization-bodies-formalize-micro-usb-cellphone-ch.html https://www.engadget.com/2010-12-29-european-standardization... And now it's upgrading to usb-c, so they do seem to be able to change with technology.

_abox 4y ago

> A political organization like EU has no say in this. EU citizens already make this decision for themselves by voting with money and choosing to buy/not buy an iPhone. I think it's important to point out that most EU countries do not subscribe to the exact same free-market vision that the US does. And the biggest country that did has recently left it. Most of Europe is totally happy with a much more restricted free market than the US would ever allow. This is not something imposed on us people. It's what the majority wants, aka democracy.

mountainriver 4y ago

Yup this is huge government overreach and the EU increasingly looks hostile to tech companies which produce most of the value in modern economies. Don’t like the lightning cable? Buy a different phone, it’s really that simple

JAlexoid 4y ago
If we had a true free market, without that IP monopoly crap, I would be able to buy a 100% compatible iPhone clone with USB-C. But since Apple gets the benefit of IP monopoly - I can't.
- mountainriver 4y ago
  yeah I mean companies have IP which is reasonable, but you can buy a different phone that is USB-C compatible

jhoechtl 4y ago

Out of curiosity: You are from the US, own lots of Aple appliances and hold APPL stock? Which one of my bets is wrong?

baq 4y ago
If only Apple appliances all used lighting!
- valzam 4y ago
  It's hilarious, if you have an iphone, an apple watch and an ipad you need 3! different cables. You can't even get around 2 of them with wireless because the apple watch doesn't support qi charging, so you need 2 different pads for iphone and watch. I will never understand how apple let it come to this...

krzyk 4y ago

If it is a free market, let me install a different app store than the apple one.

remeq 4y ago

EU is not trying to impose regulation or standardization on highly innovative areas of hardware or chipset design or software design or anything of that matter. They are imposing it for something that has largely been understood and comoditized (electric charging of phones via cable and data transfer using open communication protocol) where there is little room for getting any kind of competitive advantage or differentiation or some significant innovation. Speaking about hindrance of progress is largely far fetched and not based on reality. Things like this are really not blocking any meaningful progress but they indeed are largely abused by enterprises to push proprietary things to consumer so that it can be monetized and consumer locked in the vendor ecosystem.

andmarios 4y ago

Then what about EU enforcing more energy efficient buildings and home appliances, electric vehicles and more? EU is not a political organization, it is a political and economical union. If companies are left alone, they will never make a decision that does not benefit themselves. This is why we need EU, to make the decisions that benefit the planet and the people, thus leveling the field, so companies can compete within sane limits.

fsckboy 4y ago

depending on your definition of "free market", if you're looking for the benefits of a free market, apple's monopolistic behavior is also a source of market failure

jackvalentine 4y ago

> A political organization like EU has no say in this. EU citizens already make this decision for themselves by voting with money and choosing to buy/not buy an iPhone. Surely this goes both ways - if you don’t want to play by the rules you can vote with your business and not sell in to that market?

fennecfoxy 4y ago

>It's Apples best interest to make technology that the consumers want so that they can sell more units of that Consumers wants? More like Apple wants to use one of the few proprietary technologies that they can get away with, so they can sell you cables, whilst fostering an almost cult-like adulation of their company & what they do so that any time Apple's decisions are questioned, legions of people defend them for no reason. The lightning connector is outmoded. The cables Apple makes are designed to fail, mostly around the heatshrink area. The digital standards that lightning supports are outdated: 0.480Gbps vs 20-40Gbps for USB C/+TB.

bzzzt 4y ago
> any time Apple's decisions are questioned, legions of people defend them for no reason. Maybe because your arguments are very one-sided and border on cult-like anti-Apple beliefs, like > The cables Apple makes are designed to fail All cables will fail with use eventually, there's no question to that. But suggesting somewhere inside Apple is an evil mastermind that's trying to get me to buy stuff that's deliberately engineered to be bad to get me to buy more is an accusation of which I've yet to see convincing proof. I respect your decision not to shop Apple, but I really don't like that fact you're spreading false or unverifiable claims. (n=1, I've had 1 lightning cable break in the last 10 years)

rs999gti 4y ago

> What just happened is, EU, a political organization An unelected political organization

JAlexoid 4y ago
European Parliament voted on this. It is quite literally elected.

birksherty 4y ago

I don't care about private companies, if they want to operate with people they must follow a standard and so the news is good. All the time these companies do whatever they want like ditching headphone jack, fixed batteries, even if people don't want it. They force the change and we have to comply. So yeah it's great for long term.