Y Combinator urges the White House to support Europe's Digital Markets Act
362 comments
·March 13, 2025jonhohle
alwayslikethis
> digital “purchases” are transferrable and have all of the rights and privileges afforded to physical goods.
I concur. We need to establish a "secondary markets act", which would allow individuals to transact accounts and digital items worth under a certain amount (let's say $10k, as a non-waivable right, so it wouldn't apply to larger B2B contracts). Essentially, these things should be viewed as property of the consumer and be freely sold. Without the freedom to transact, there can't be a free market.
ethbr1
The problem with enforcing resellability on digital goods is the technical ability to copy them.
If I have full ownership of a digital good, then I have the ability to copy it.
Any limitation of my ability to copy requiring removing some control from the owner and escrowing it with another party (e.g. DRM).
As much as I hate to say it, allowing digital good resale is a good use for a blockchain: uniquely identifying an instance and then keeping a decentralized ledger of who owns it at any time.
However, there would still need to be a carrot to make this system attractive.
If there isn't, then why wouldn't people just create infinite copies off-ledger and ignore it?
And without any viable digital goods ownership system, who wouldn't companies default to the current model of only offering licenses / subscriptions?
alwayslikethis
Piracy has always existed and will always exist. The issue is that it only takes one determined pirate to overcome the DRM and that piece of information is freed from DRM. You can already do all this even without a legally recognized right of ownership.
I assume plenty of people are willing to pay for things they appreciate. Maybe the carrot can be some kind of recognition: you get to make a digital signature from that token that you can display as a part of your digital identity. There could be discussion forums that require you to have such a token to participate in.
heraldgeezer
GoG survives selling DRM free games. Unsure if this would work on all markets.
pbronez
Yes. This is the killer app for blockchain. I want Movies Anywhere, but for everything and without an industry gatekeeper. If I am subscribed to Netflix, I should be able to watch every video in their catalog through any service that has the bits.
idiotsecant
I hate that crypto ever had this big money swell associated with it. If we could divorce the technical protocols from the scams and shilling people associate with it, it actually has some interesting uses that barely anyone is willing to talk about it a non-shill or non-disgust way.
oneplane
That secondary markets thing has been an earlier subject (but not really covering app stores etc at that time), there were issues where larger companies didn't want you selling CD Keys or Windows license keys you weren't using, and they didn't want the ones that were bought in one market to be used in another (i.e. grey market import etc). I think they (the EU) ended up telling the corporations to suck it up since whoever owns the thing is free to sell it when they don't want it anymore.
This is of course also a factor in the move to subscriptions since you'd no longer own a persistent license or product and as such there's nothing to sell. Ironically this should also mean the 'product' (subscription) has far less value than the actual product, even if it's technically the same system/software. Yet subscriptions are more costly than a one-off you repeat every couple of years. Sigh.
madsbuch
Why shouldn't it apply to larger contracts?
There is a very easy way to get around such a requirement from legislation: Just call it licensing instead of a purchase.
The need for such a legislation is corporations reckless use of the words "purchase" and "buy" for goods that have been licensed.
kbolino
But licensing is a very obfuscatory word. What are the terms of the licenses? Consumers don't really know and they vary widely anyway.
Buying may have been a misnomer but it had some useful baggage that is shed with the terminology shift.
Fluorescence
> very easy way to get around such a requirement from legislation: Just call it licensing instead of a purchase.
Licensing should come with enhanced consumer rights e.g. an explicit license duration and allow the consumer to return the license for pro-rata refund within that duration. The license should be for the IP and honoured for all formats and platforms that meet some regularity threshold. The absurdity of having to rebuy things you "own" because you switch device or format has to end.
Along similar lines, hardware should be called "hire" not "sell" when the manufacturer maintains control over the device e.g. locked bootloaders, encryption keys, online service dependencies, forced updates with no downgrade, remote-access privileges, telemetry, not meeting "right-to-repair", hardware locking preventing component replacement or choice of consumable (e.g. ink) etc.
Similar return rights should apply if hardware is leased. Seller would need to be insured/escrow to meet consumer refunds if they break their side of the lease (e.g. going bust and shutting down required online services).
alwayslikethis
This is a part of it, but I don't think it's all there is. Words mean little when there is such a large power and information asymmetry between consumers and sellers.
The law should formalize the concepts of rentals (licenses) and purchases. Purchases create non-waivable rights of transferability and allows the owner to demand compensation when a service closes: for example if I shut down my movie platform, you should get to download a copy of everything you own.
Licenses on the other hand do not confer such rights, but should still be transferable under a certain value and have a set period during which its terms must be fulfilled, otherwise the licensee needs to be compensated. No "we change the terms at our sole discretion at any moment" nonsense.
Vendors can give you extra rights (like prorated returns or exchanges), but they can't take any of the codified rights away. I assume there needs to be some details about companies just setting a license of one day but never revokes access to avoid the regulation, but someone smarter than me can probably figure that out.
For larger licenses I think the customer (usually customers) has a greater negotiating leverage, so it isn't as necessary to codify these terms, but of course this is contingent on there not existing trillion-dollar corporations, which is not the world we live in.
bloppe
> I personally don’t care about alternative app stores
That's because it's difficult to imagine how alternative app stores would force first party app stores to be better, or risk losing business. For a start, everything would become much cheaper for you. They would also have a real incentive to provide new features and innovations. You don't have to switch to a third party app store to realize the benefits that follow from allowing them to exist.
Someone
> For a start, everything would become much cheaper for you
That, I doubt. Most stuff already is dirt-cheap on the App Store (and riddled with ads). It’s not like, for example, getting into Apple’s App Store is so expensive that it adds dollars to the price of apps.
Gareth321
> Most stuff already is dirt-cheap on the App Store (and riddled with ads).
Are we using the same App Store? Anything of worth is behind a $10 monthly subscription. Apple has intentionally made subscriptions the only viable commercial model on the App Store. Then they take 30% (with some exceptions). They forbid competition, so developers aren't free to distribute to iOS customers in any other way.
pjc50
Merely being in the app store makes everything 30% more expensive! Including any subscriptions through the app, which is just ridiculous. This was the whole basis of the Epic lawsuit. And you can't tell people to sidestep the Apple cut by not putting the payment through them, that will get you banned from the app store.
swat535
For those advocating for multiple app stores, I have a 2 questions.
EU users might be best suited to respond, as they are currently experiencing this change (though I believe the impact will be different once it's rolled out globally).
1. How do you think having multiple app stores will affect user experience and app discoverability? It seems likely that not all apps will be available in every store, meaning users may have to search across multiple platforms to find what they need.
We’ve seen similar issues in the gaming industry, where each company has its own launcher, or in the movie industry, where content is locked behind different providers, making it difficult to figure out where to access it. This is why platforms like Netflix and Steam initially succeeded.
Meanwhile, the Windows/PC model has shown that an open ecosystem can be a security and privacy nightmare for the average user.
2. On that note, how do you envision ensuring privacy and security in these alternative app stores? Risks could range from major tech companies like Google or Facebook running their own stores and collecting even more user data, to scammers creating fake stores that steal credit card information.
latexr
I’ll speak only for iOS since that’s what I’m most familiar with.
The important thing to realise is that no one wanted alternative stores. Not really. What everyone wanted was for the existing store to not be stressful oppressive garbage. If Apple didn’t have draconian rules where they charge too high margins and repeatedly reject apps for stupid petty reasons, they wouldn’t have found themselves in this situation. The other big players would even likely accept having to sell via in-app purchases (offering better consistent protection to consumers) if Apple weren’t egregiously eating into their margins.
Don’t take my word for it, we have (now public) internal emails where Apple executives discuss these very issues and question how long they could keep it up.
Alternative stores were the next best thing. When it became clear that Apple wouldn’t fix their behaviour, the only choice was to fight for legislation where they don’t have as much of a say. Make no mistake, they (Tim Cook in particular) brought it on themselves.
As to your specific questions:
1. App discoverability has been unusable for years. The App Store is the last place where I look for apps.
2. The App Store is already filled with privacy-violating apps and scams. Apple ensures jack shit. Scammers don’t need to create fake stores, they are already doing pretty well for themselves in the main store selling flashlight apps with expensive weekly subscriptions.
Is this situation worse for non-technical users? Maybe. Right now there are big scary warning when trying to add third-party stores, and that does make some sense. But Apple will have to get off their ass and make better privacy protections at the OS level.
Nursie
> For a start, everything would become much cheaper for you.
People say this, but of all the apps I have on my phone, I'm not sure I actually paid for any. Browser, smart-device controllers, a few games, streaming services (that I pay for direct), messengers of various sorts, banking, transport, ticketing, government apps.
I know people must pay for apps as Apple make a lot of money off it, but it's not really something I do.
tonyhart7
Yeah this is called cross subsidies, people acting like every app need to pay tbh
most app/games etc is freemium and I can tell you that smaller people that pay is subsidies the system because most if not all people using it freely
oblio
We can add this comment as a data point of 1 and compare this to the tens of billions Apple makes from the AppStore, then we can try to figure out which side is more relevant for lawmakers (who inherently have to lean towards statistics).
dylan604
> For a start, everything would become much cheaper for you.
That's such a fallacy that pro alt-app store people like to trot out. What evidence do you have that will happen? Are you basing it one the assumption that if devs no longer pay Apple a cut that the devs would lower their prices? Why do you think that would happen and the devs wouldn't just leave prices where they are and keep this cut no longer going to Apple? Why would devs leave that money on the table? Why do you think the alt-store would also not take the same cut or only slightly lower? Why would they leave money on the table?
At the end of the day, the biggest alt-store push is by devs wanting more money in their pockets, not the end users.
jakubmazanec
Are you questioning the basic function of competition in a free market? Why would devs lower prices? Because other devs would release better apps cheaper.
pjc50
The same dev will often literally sell you the same IAP/subscription off their own website for 30% less. Under the current system.
BrenBarn
I'd go further and apply something like the notary/broker approach to the collection of data. Types of data should be defined in law. Some (say, email address) would be "free" to collect, but subject to strict sharing requirements like you describe (e.g., you can ask anyone for their email address, but you can't do anything with it except use it yourself to contact them). Others (mailing address) would be allowed for certain purposes (e.g., you need to mail the person a package). Companies should expect regular audits and stiff financial penalties if they collect such data but cannot objectively demonstrate that they actually need it to perform a service they are providing to the person who provides it. (This means you can't collect someone's mailing address unless you actually need it to do a specific thing for that person; simply using it as input to your internal analytics isn't good enough.) Others (e.g., location tracking) would require an approval process akin to being licensed to transport hazardous waste or something, so that it would be straight-up illegal to collect such data without prior approval. That approval process would involve full public disclosure of all intended uses of the data. You can't collect sensitive data without telling everyone exactly what you're going to do with it.
A large portion of the data that is illegally shared should never have been collected in the first place.
lodovic
Some of this is already achieved by the EU's GDPR, not the DMA
scyzoryk_xyz
I was about to say - GDPR has been pretty effective at warding off any kind of such non-sense here in the EU. Having been on the other end, it makes entire teams not indulge in certain methods. I never had to argue with marketing department why we want our users not be bombarded with spam.
What I would like to see regulated are all those dark-pattern surveillance techniques that are slapped on absolutely everything these days. I’m just looking at a toaster, I don’t want the toaster company looking back at me just because I looked at a fucking toaster once. Makes me weary of looking at stuff. This wasn’t even that freaky pre-AI, but now it’s a whole other ballgame. Stasi would love this stuff.
exac
To play devil's advocate, the common person accepts credit scores, and has no idea how they work. Should credit bureaus also be illegal? Or some medium whereby the credit companies _can_ collect the information, but can't sell it, or share analytics or even anonymized data?
MegaButts
> Should credit bureaus also be illegal?
I didn't realize there were many people defending credit scores. I mean yeah, I would just assume they should be illegal. At least in their current opaque form where it's impossible to contest or even get someone to explain your score to you.
scarab92
A large component of interest rates is a risk premium that depends on the likelihood of a borrower defaulting.
Credit scoring significantly outperforms any other methodology for assessing default risk, including credit matricies and especially human assessments (humans are shockingly bad at assessing default risk, rarely much better than a biased coin flip).
It's all well and good to say we should get rid of credit scores, but because they are so much more effective at assessing default risk than other methods, the consequence will be significantly higher rates of default, which means more people in financial hardship, and higher interest rates generally (though especially to low risk borrowers who will now be assessed as having closer-to-average default risk)
It's also not often appreciated, but credit scoring is also the single best technique we have to stop people borrowing beyond their means and entering into financial hardship and debt spirals. There are other techniques that exist to identify at-risk borrowers but these alone aren't as good as an approach which also incorporates credit scores.
As for explainability, unfortunately the best credit models are trained using AI techniques, which results in low explainability (since the risk signals are complex and multivariate). Older GLM approaches can be used, but aren't as good, so if we want high explainability, the trade off is worse performing credit models, and thus higher borrowing costs.
bloppe
Without credit scores, it would be impossible to get loans or a mortgage. I think a lot of people would be pretty bummed about that.
noirscape
I mean, yes? Credit scores are forbidden in many countries because of how opaque they are and because of the data collection aspect.
In a lot of countries, the only external thing the bank is allowed to use when you apply for a loan is whether or not you have existing loans (which is just to prevent you from borrowing money to pay off other borrowed money), the amount of money you make annually and what you currently have saved up.
eptcyka
And? The common person accepted cigarettes as part of their daily life, and leaded fuel, and many other things which should’ve been changed and ended up being changed. Do you think hackers like to leave the world as is?
rawbot
I also don't really care about alternative app stores, I just want to be able to develop apps without paying a license or abusing a testing system (Apple, Testflight), and be able to install them without "jailbreaking" my device.
That's the reason why even with its warts, I have been a very happy Android user. It's my device, and I can modify it to become whatever I want it to be (with some constrains that don't really affect me atm).
josephg
Yeah I’m an Apple user and this is one reason I’d consider switching. I don’t mind consoles like the switch or PS2 being sold at a loss, and making it up via expensive games. But Apple double dips here. They make a profit on my phone. Then they charge a crazy marketplace fee for the App Store. Then they have the gall to charge 3rd party companies for access to the NFC chips in our devices. It’s outrageous.
Is it my device or not, Apple?
ryandrake
We could probably implement your first thing but just extending HIPAA to cover all entities, not just health care providers. HIPAA's privacy, security, data selling, and breach notification rules are exactly what we need and could effectively apply to any business.
DownrightNifty
> I personally don’t care about alternative app stores
I've seen this sentiment a couple of times here and I think it's the wrong framing on what the EU is trying to do. Third party app stores aren't the point; they're just a vehicle enabling users to choose which software they want to use without interference from Apple. The indie devs using AltStore PAL don't all necessarily want to use it, but they're forced to because of the way Apple chose to implement DMA compliance.
In fact, the DMA doesn't even explicitly require that gatekeepers allow third party app stores; they can only allow direct distribution (e.g. via web sites) instead, if they want (this is to the best of my understanding of the text, but IANAL).
When you say you don't care about alternative app stores, what you're really saying is that you don't care about the end user's ability to use apps that aren't approved by Apple. That is certainly an opinion that many folks have, but I'd prefer that they refrain from hiding behind the shield of "third party app stores are weird and who even cares", whether deliberately or not.
jonhohle
Having grown up through ad-bars, Windows malware, email worms and everything else that could go wrong for most people during the late 90s on and not wanting to do IT for my entire extended family, I don’t mind having a popular platform with guardrails. Unfortunately, I think providing non-curated access and opening up platform features that are currently gated by security features to unscrupulous actors will make things worse for more people than it will help. After over 15 years of iPhone use, I’ve never had any of the problems that plague PCs and I attribute a lot of that to a restrictive app distribution model, sandboxing, etc.
End users can (and do!) use apps not approved by Apple on mobile devices every day. They just do it on something that’s not an iPhone (or have the capability to jailbreak their iPhone and know what they’re getting themselves into). Corps and devs can also run custom software without Apple approval. I’m personally fine with that delineation and I’d much rather have stronger GDPR-like and property laws.
DownrightNifty
Some good points overall, and I think I agree in a lot of ways, actually.
> (or have the capability to jailbreak their iPhone and know what they’re getting themselves into)
It is a common misconception that people can "just" jailbreak their iPhone if they're not happy with the walled garden. This requires someone finding a critical-impact zero day vulnerability in iOS, quite literally worth around half a million dollars [1]. Apple is hard at work as we speak trying their hardest to prevent those from slipping in -- and that is a good thing, in general. It's not currently possible to jailbreak any up-to-date iOS device.
I'm all for sandboxing and other iOS security features; I'm not proposing that we get rid of any of that. Sideloaded apps would presumably still be fully sandboxed, and would still only be able to access sensitive data with explicit user consent. This is very different than the situation on Windows, where in 2025 you can still double click an .exe and instantly have all of your passwords and credit cards stolen (not an exaggeration; this literally happens).
I'm also not against the idea of making it difficult enough to enable sideloading so as to make social engineering attacks against grandma effectively impossible. This is what Chromebooks are doing; nerds get root, but grandma doesn't.
However, the DMA is more concerned with delivering alternative apps to everyone than it is concerned with empowering techies. So I can see why you might not support it even if you want to have a little more control over your phone, as a techie.
alwayslikethis
> In fact, the DMA doesn't even explicitly require that gatekeepers allow third party app stores; they can only allow direct distribution (e.g. via web sites) instead, if they want.
Is Apple actually complying with the DMA then? They are still requiring notarization, which means apps still have to be approved by them.
DownrightNifty
The DMA allows Apple to take "strictly necessary and proportionate" measures to ensure that alternative apps do not "endanger the integrity of the hardware or operating system". IMO iOS notarization (which is a different and more involved process with many more rules than notarization on macOS) goes well beyond that, but it's up to the EU to decide.
areyourllySorry
the issue with transferrable digital goods is that they are also much more easier to steal. see robux, giftcards, bitcoins…
VagabundoP
Big tech has always driven me mad with how they leverage their monoplies once they reach a certain size.
Why can't I swap cloud backends on the mobile platforms?
I shouldnt need a gmail/icloud account to setup an android/ios device. Open those api's and let me use another hosted service or host my own.
After a device becomes unsupported release the unlock codes or whatever. At that point it becomes a security hazard anyway. I should be able to create custom roms/software to keep using it if I want.
Kon-Peki
> Big tech has always driven me mad with how they leverage their monoplies once they reach a certain size.
This book explains everything:
https://store.hbr.org/product/information-rules-a-strategic-...
I’ve never seen it in a library, but you can occasionally find used copies, if you don’t want to buy a brand-new book that is a roadmap to doing things you disagree with.
VHRanger
Oh wow, those authors.
For those not in the know, Carl Shapiro [1] and Hal Varian [2] are well known economics researchers. Hal Varian ended up working at Google building the AdWords auction after writing this it seems.
For anyone wondering, there's this person called *Anna* that has an *archive* where the book can be found.
PaulHoule
Somebody was telling me how Hal Varian was "evil" the other night and I added that Vint Cerf was one of the people Upton Sinclair meant when he said “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” [1]
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/21810-it-is-difficult-to-ge...
Gud
If they were responsible for AdWords, they’ve had a net negative influence on the web.
jillyboel
Are you referring to https://annas-archive.org/?
echelon
The real problem with these giant companies is that they can move into entirely new markets, eg. film production, and afford to lose massive amounts of money. They can effectively lose billions of dollars while gobbling up market share and starving the oxygen out of all the existing players in that market who need profits to sustain themselves.
Amazon and Apple are undercutting Hollywood and losing money. They're subsidizing their Hollywood efforts with funds from unrelated business units (hardware, grocery stores, primary care doctors, etc.) You can get cheap (free) entertainment if you subscribe to Amazon Prime shipping, so why spend money on the competitor's product if entertainment is (at some gross sense and scale) fungible?
The thing that needs to be broken up is the ability of these giants to subsidize moves into healthy existing markets or even nascent markets. They push out the incumbents with their massive cash hoards gained from unrelated business unit activity. They don't even try to profit at first until they've captured the market and suffocated the existing players.
It's unfair that Amazon and Apple can make movies, buy out James Bond, Lord of the Rings, etc. off of their trillion dollar market caps, iPhones, and AWS profits. It's unfair that they can plaster free advertising on the side of their delivery vans or get free ad placement front and center in their App Store. That costs everyone else millions of dollars - a large percentage of the unit economics. Big tech has every advantage and is literally murdering entire markets with these insane, unfair advantages.
These giant companies are like an invasive species. They're like lionfish moving into the Caribbean, killing all the local fauna. No natural predators. Complete decimation of the local ecology.
Their behavior disconnects innovation, healthy and rational market monetization, and the actual rewards that should go to the investment and labor capital pioneering those areas. Institutional giants are snuffing out anything they see that they can expand into.
Big companies need to be broken up for the sake of healthy markets and innovation. Big companies are gravitational singularities that distort everything.
randmeerkat
Over the years, I come across thought provoking comments from time to time on this platform. I usually take a moment to ponder what I just read. Then I ask myself who wrote this..? Then return to look at the username. More than once I find the name echelon. Echelon, you have a great mind and do a lot to further the HN commentary. Thank you.
PaulHoule
And also with their overvalued stock they can pay employees in stock and also buy competitors in stock. Amazon might not be that much better than Target or Walmart but the market prices them in much better.
vunderba
Over sufficient time, a corporation eventually hits a tipping point where it becomes more economically viable to starve out and/or buy out your competitors rather than to innovate, and then to further entrench one's monopoly through special interest lobbying groups with their massive capital reserves.
Preventing the predictions of Marxists like Lenin around "Late Stage Capitalism" (disregarding the imperialist/colonialism overtones) from becoming a reality was supposed to be the job of trustbusting organizations like the FTC and DOJ but well... here we are.
clown_strike
It goes to a login page but I was curious enough to pry.
ISBN 087584863X or 9780875848631, "Information Rules" by Carl Shapiro. Available on the prominent alternative procurement network.
jcoleh
Could we apply a progressive tax to large corporations (like big tech monopolies) to force them to figure out what aspects of their own business should be split up and spun out to keep the size of companies roughly equal to "one layer of the stack".
Seems like a progressive corporation tax would be an easy way to allow "the market" to naturally limit the size of corporations and find the correct separation points for separate businesses.
ragebol
Really random thought: the tax you pay on profit is proportional (or even 1:1) to your market share. Become a monopoly? 100% of your profit is now taxed.
Nicer to stay at eg. 25% and have competition. Maybe ramp it exponentially
(yes, I know there are loopholes in this pie-in-the-sky)
JoshTriplett
It's a creative thought. But how do you define "market", and which market applies to which profit?
Also, if you invent something so novel it makes a new market, that would imply you are immediately taxed at 100%.
null
enriquec
"unlock codes or whatever"
As an engineer, I can tell you it's not even easy to keep things working internally - let alone support every possible integration. Just because it's easy to say, doesn't mean it's feasible to do.
But if you're convinced its what people want, there's nothing preventing you from making it your life - like other people have done with their strategies.
graemep
No one is asking for support for every possible integration.
What people are asking for is not actively preventing other integrations. That means through business means and deals as well as technological measures.
xxpor
I gotta be honest, I really feel like these comments are completely divorced from reality.
No one (p99.99) wants to get rid of Google/Apple on their phones. But "how do I install Play services" is a wildly popular search for people who own Kindle Fires.
No one wants to deal with the Windows 98ificaiton of phones.
refulgentis
I appreciate the engineering perspective, and you're right that supporting every integration isn't trivial.
Is there a difference between providing an "unlock code" upon deprecation, and requiring "support for every possible integration"(?)?
Setting that aside, it seems it not every possible combination needs official support, but rather that providing an open or documented way for motivated users or communities to build upon or repurpose devices would be beneficial. Many projects exist precisely because tech companies allowed or at least tolerated community-driven solutions.
It's less about expecting everything to be effortless for the original manufacturer, and more about avoiding deliberate restrictions that prevent the community from extending a device's useful lifespan.
GTP
> Is there a difference between providing an "unlock code" upon deprecation, and requiring "support for every possible integration"(?)?
As a different engineer than the one you where replying to, I can say that yes, there is a substantial difference between the two. What the original comment was likely referring to with unlock codes, is the ability of unlocking a smartphone's bootloader so that one is able to install custom ROMs. But this is very different from providing support for said ROMs. A company can totally say: "here's the unlock code, but you use this under your sole responsibility, we will void your warranty if you do this". Being able to install custom ROMs at the cost of losing the warranty is a compromise I'm willing to accept: one can still wait for the warranty to expire and then install custom ROMs.
Teever
Do the tech companies that make the devices that we now require for daily life because they decided to make the world that way release all of the resources necessary for independent people to do what you're suggesting?
If not that's something that we need to regulate.
enriquec
The regulations stop more people from being able to do this than competition does. "because they decided to make the world that way" Who is "they"? Participants in the free market? I don't think inept politicians should supersede them.
keyringlight
Depending on what you want to use it for, the device and the ROM is one aspect, but secondary to that is the online services and apps accepting your device. I think android ROMs are a dead-end now because of aspects like safetynet/play integrity, unless you put the work into countering/spoofing them a lot of the tasks people use phones for now such as online/accounts/payments require the device to appear untampered/modified for security purposes. I have my old 2018 phone on android 14 via an unofficial lineage build because there was the freedom to do that, but I expect a bunch of apps will also make use of their freedom to deny me entry.
If you're only using it for on-device tasks then you're probably fine, although at that point the benefits of updating a ROM are probably marginal
pbmonster
I'm on grapheneOS on my daily driver, and that ROM officially passes basicIntegrity compliance without spoofing, but it lacks SafetyNet compliance (and fundamentally won't ever be able to get it officially) and the project refuses to fake/spoof it.
This is enough for absolutely everything except Google Wallet/Pay.
I'm fine with that.
Zak
I haven't had to put much effort into keeping my Play Integrity bypass working. I might touch it once a year. I do fear the day Google starts actively fighting it.
victorbjorklund
> Why can't I swap cloud backends on the mobile platforms?
Not a mobile dev. Why can't you switch your backend from AWS to Azure or Hetzner?
Sailemi
They mean cloud backend as in switching one's cloud backup destination from iCloud to a competitor - e.g Onedrive. Not possible on iOS.
ttoinou
Wouldn’t we loose specific features if a common cloud backup standard is developed ?
mrguyorama
No? Why would you. "Expandable" open standards are perfectly possible, though they do lead to some market fragmentation, but "market fragmentation" is just another name for "Product differentiation".
Early in the 20th century, the telephone network was NOT an open standard. You had to ask AT&T to come to your home and wire a new telephone into THEIR network, and you weren't allowed to do anything else with that network. Opening that network up allowed us to build good modems (instead of relying on acoustic couplers which had abysmally low data rates due to bad quality coupling), build things like fax machines etc.
Open standards with open networks is a driving force to innovation. The internet is another one. We should be pushing very hard for basic rights to interact with networks and infrastructure.
If the power companies had the kind of control that we've given """Tech"" businesses over their "networks", you wouldn't be allowed to plug anything "unapproved" by a business into the wall. Your local utility could literally extract a tax on any product that needed electricity.
Open standards and laws that explicitly allow working in someone else's system for the purpose of Fair Use and interoperability are a requirement for continuous progress. A patent can encourage someone to make an initial investment into improvement, but the very moment they have any advantage the patent system means nobody else will be able to offer that kind of functionality for 20 years or so. Consider how long none of us were able to "Buy now" on any website other than amazon.com because of a stupid patent.
The entire PC ecosystem only exists because the law says that there was a way you could, legally protected, interact with someone else's intellectual property. It doesn't have to be easy, just possible. Clean Room reverse engineering is an insane endeavor, but without it, IBM would have strangled PCs as a platform in the crib, because that would be more profitable a business than what we have now.
If we want technological advancement and the ability to buy what you want, use what you want, do what you want with what you buy, then we need to forcefully wrest control away from these big companies who would really prefer to maintain tyrannical control over their "platforms" because it's just more profitable.
Stuff like the Digital Markets Act does that.
tonyhart7
- "Why can't I swap cloud backends on the mobile platforms?" why would I make such system exist in the first place????
no one can stopping you to create such system tbh, but expecting others to follow your ideologies is insane
developing android and ios is come with a cost and they need to figure it out earn some of their money back and this is the "moat" that they have
mrguyorama
Right, which is why we should abolish the FDA, because forcing someone to follow my ideology of "stuff sold as medicine shouldn't kill me (99% of the time) if I follow the directions" is immoral.
We should also abolish copyrights, because forcing companies to respect my IP is an ideological stance.
Trademarks are gone too, because you can't force a company to not trample my trademark and abuse my brand position without forcing an ideology on them.
wilg
> Why can't I swap cloud backends on the mobile platforms?
The real answer is because this is a ton of work for very little customer benefit and creates tons of headaches to solve a mostly theoretical problem. It's not worth it to anyone involved.
hbn
Exactly, Apple will put in all the work to implement cloud features in a way where you can swap out the backend just so Hacker News Guy, as the "techie" guy in the family, can set up his whole family with his own hacked together cloud backend for their phones which will regularly fail and cause people to like their iPhone less, and/or support calls to Apple that will be 100x harder to troubleshoot.
callc
> The DMA designates six tech companies as “gatekeepers” to the internet — Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, and Microsoft — and limits these technology kingpins from engaging in anticompetitive tactics on their platforms, in favor of interoperability.
DMA seems like a no-brainer for those that support users’ freedom. Since DMA came into effect almost two years ago, can anyone comment on its effectiveness?
Side note, I’m glad the EU takes normal people’s rights seriously. Wish the US was a leader on this too.
DownrightNifty
> Since DMA came into effect almost two years ago, can anyone comment on its effectiveness?
I'm so glad you asked, because I wrote an entire website about it: https://doesioshavesideloadingyet.com/
Executive summary: Epic Games benefits greatly from the DMA, but powerusers and smaller developers don't get much benefit. This is due to Apple's lackluster compliance measures that are currently being investigated and may be deemed illegal.
We might hear another update from the EU rather soon though: https://9to5mac.com/2025/03/10/report-apple-will-be-fined-by...
I really hope that the DMA does not go down in history as a failed experiment, because that will be a huge loss for open platforms as a whole.
coastalpuma
This is a great site, and thank you for the effort.
One suggestion for an addition to the section on FOSS: Related to the issue of not being able to modify the source of apps we use, we also can't verify that an "open source" app on iOS is built from its claimed source code. We just have to trust the developer. This blocks true auditing of iOS apps for data privacy practices, something we know is needed given that the "privacy labels" are often deceptive https://archive.ph/Ak6qU. As such, this is a data security issue as much as a user freedom issue.
DownrightNifty
Thanks for the suggestion. Feel free to contribute this change yourself if you want: https://github.com/DownrightNifty/dihsy/blob/main/dihsy.md
I'll probably end up adding it myself if you don't want to, because it's actually something I wanted to include originally but forgot to.
This is definitely a huge issue with the current implementation of DMA compliance. Apple's mandatory DRM encryption scheme as part of the notarization process doesn't just block reproducible builds and the improved security that those offer, but also means that third party app stores aren't capable of auditing the apps they offer in any way. If Apple lets something slip through their notarization review (which is not an impossibility, since it's happened on the App Store before), then the third party store carrying that app will be unfairly blamed for the incident.
ks2048
iOS has sideloading, if you pay $100/year for a developer account.
DownrightNifty
That is listed under "unofficial sideloading methods". A more accurate title would've been "Does iOS support sideloading yet?" but I wanted to keep the domain name as short as possible :)
The Apple Developer program is not intended as an option for end users to enable sideloading on their device, even if that is a side effect of joining it. It is only intended to allow developers to briefly test new builds of their own apps in a limited capacity before uploading them to the App Store (or third party stores in the EU). Apps "installed" this way expire after a certain length of time and you must ask Apple's cloud service for a new certificate each time that happens in order to keep using them. You're still tied to Apple indefinitely this way. If your developer account is terminated for whatever reason, or Apple decides to increase the price such that you can no longer afford your account, then suddenly you no longer have sideloading, and you no longer have access to any of the apps you previously sideloaded.
Therefore, I lump it into the same category as jailbreaking -- yes, you can argue that the existence of that means iOS already has sideloading, but it's not officially supported.
Sidenote: You don't need to spend $100/yr if you want to go the "unofficial sideloading" route; AltStore (Classic) is available for free: https://altstore.io/
fundatus
Apple has been really against this one, but you can now have p*rn apps on your iPhone in the EU. Which I think is great, because why should I be restricted in the use of my own device by the moral code of an American corporation?
probably_wrong
> why should I be restricted in the use of my own device by the moral code of an American corporation?
I would argue that, while it's true that some of your rights are restricted by corporations, others are just there waiting for you to exercise them.
Use your freedom, take chances, write the word "porn" in HN without fear. Otherwise there's no point in demanding freedoms that we're too afraid to use.
fundatus
Good point, I wasn't sure if writing "porn" would be flagged by some kind of badwords filter, so I didn't bother, but apparently it's no problem over here :-)
briandear
[flagged]
kristiandupont
Right, porn causes trafficking while hate speech is so-called and the worst that can happen is that some people get offended.
Yours is a political standpoint, not an ideological one. Which is fair, but don't pretend it's not.
lucumo
> Freedom of porn but not freedom of speech
Interesting take. Why would porn be less deserving of freedom of speech than other forms of speech? Sounds to me you only believe in freedom of speech you like.
michh
I mean, if protesting for the Palestinian cause can get your green card revoked, I don't think America has any moral high ground on the topic of free speech anymore.
thrance
Such bad faith. Videos of people fucking are bad and moral to censor but neonazi memes must be protected? That's the twisted logic that is currently leading your venerable democracy to its death.
shadowgovt
"Not opposed to food in theory, but its connection with obesity and bad labor practices is undeniable so the quantifiable harm it causes is much greater than the hypothetical harm of being offended by a meme or so-called hate speech."
Tomte
As a direct consequence I have two alternative app stores on my iPhone. Something Americans cannot have.
AceJohnny2
What are the worthwhile apps apps on the alternative stores?
njintje
Fortnite, Fall Guys, Delta (Emulator for Nintendo DS, Gameboy, N64, NES and much more).
Torrent clients. QEMU. YouTube Apps with Sponsorblock and Adblock.
null
jen20
Americans absolutely can, if they live in the EU where this law applies.
Europeans living in the US (such as myself) cannot.
I’m not commenting on whether this is good or not, merely that the last statement in your comment is incorrect.
OccamsMirror
or Australians :(
yupyupyups
Apple still indirectly controls what is distributed and charges developers outside their app store money[1]. So it hasn't been effective enough to actually open up the platform for arbitrary apps to be installed.
[1] https://developer.apple.com/support/core-technology-fee/
niemandhier
That is under investigation, and believed to be non compliant with the act:
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_...
nodoll
I don't like they are designated as "gatekeepers".
margalabargala
As far as I can tell, it's a descriptor used negatively, not a crowning designation.
arlort
They are the ones who allow getting into a walled garden. Short of calling them "gates" gatekeeper seems pretty apt
walterbell
Do you ________ take this immortal corporation ________ to be your lawful internet Gatekeeper?nativeit
I object to this foul, tainted union. The children will have crossed toes and webbed eyes. God expressly forbids this in Romans: “Yea, unto thee I say, no man shall lay with an algorithmically-endowed data sucking Beast With A Billion Bucks as they would with a woman…shit, or with a guy, it’s 2025–evangelicals are off the rails, political leaders are depriving a suffering majority of life saving services while propping up a gilded minority, all manner of unsavory acts are being committed in My name, frankly I think it’s well past time I gave Adam and Steve my official blessing. You do you, as long as it’s all love, go with Me, God” (paraphrasing a bit at the end there)
Anyway, what was this originally about? Armageddon?
riffraff
The key is to imagine them as Zuul the Gatekeeper from Ghostbusters.
s1artibartfast
Why? the designation comes with obligations, but Im not aware that it confers any benefits.
14
I have honestly slowly over the years lost my love for the iPhone. Back in the early days they were exciting and you could jailbreak and do lots of fun things not typically possible on a non jailbroken phone. Some of those fun things eventually became features of the stock iPhones but in the end the phone is very locked down and can only do a very small portion of the things it actually could do if not so locked down.
walterbell
> Some of those fun things eventually became features of the stock iPhones
iOS has since stagnated without the field laboratory of jailbreak innovations.
When VMs return to iOS to compete with Android Linux VMs, a new innovation cycle can begin. Concepts proven within the freedom of Linux or macOS VMs can be reimplemented in stock iOS or native iOS apps, for integration with native workflows.
whazor
I now have a torrent client on my iPhone.
Cupprum
I might be wrong, but are you talking about the qBitControl from Altstore Pal?
If so, that is not a torrent client, but only an app to control torrents on a different computer. Or did i not understand the app correctly?
oersted
Good. They keep making laws intended to control some of the negative impacts of these companies, but they usually have the resources to mostly get around these laws, and they end-up affecting smaller companies in ways that the government didn't intend or consider.
ankit219
Supporting a policy or a regulation which looks at just competition with zero incentives to care for users because it may help the portfolio is not a good look. People may argue otherwise, but DMA exists to make sure the gatekeepers lose market share to their rivals, even if it comes at the expense of consumers. Eg: Google asked to remove maps from their search page, which means a user has to do extra clicks to get to the info they want. Bad experience yes. And now, they still did not lose market share so EU is asking google to do more.
I am not against the spirit of the act, but their goal is to listen to competition and ask for changes accordingly. If it screws up users, so be it. There would be no winning. Yes, google search is a monopoly, and should not be so big. The act is unbalanced.
A lot of proponents of iMessage example miss out that WhatsApp won outside of USA. By just building a better product and utilizing network effects.
Gareth321
> DMA exists to make sure the gatekeepers lose market share to their rivals, even if it comes at the expense of consumers.
It sounds like you're not very familiar with the DMA. Most of the regulations have direct benefits to both consumers and developers. From the consumer side, it permits me to:
* Install any software I like, including software Apple doesn't like. For the longest time Apple wouldn't let me install Microsoft xCloud. It was only after the DMA that the loosened this restriction. Ditto for emulators. They still forbid many apps focused on gambling, porn, and cryptocurrencies.
* Install any App Store and choose to make it default. I can choose a default browser now. Soon I will be allowed to choose a default navigation software. It's INSANE that this was locked down until the DMA.
* Use third party payment providers and choose to make them default. Why should I be forced to use Apple Pay?
* Use any voice assistant and choose to make it default. Siri is the worst of all personal assistants. Why can't I use another one?
* User any browser and browser engine and choose to make it default. The fact that Apple forces everyone to use WebKit in 2025 is nothing other than a farce.
* Use any messaging app and choose to make it default. I am currently forced to use Apple's SMS app.
* Make core messaging functionality interoperable. They lay out concrete examples like file transfer.
* Use existing hardware and software features without competitive prejudice. E.g. NFC. A focus area for the Commission is cloud backup. Apple currently doesn't permit the use of competing cloud backup provides, or one's own, for that matter. iOS can only be backed up to Apple servers, and other apps on a per-app basis.
* Not preference their services. This includes CTAs in settings to encourage users to subscribe to Gatekeeper services, and ranking their own services above others in selection and advertising portals
* Much, much, more.
This is before we have explored the various ways the DMA improves the competitive landscape. Apple is clearly abusing their dominant market position to block competition. This is always bad for everyone except the one company in the dominant position.
ankit219
I did not mention apple in my comment. And what you wrote does not contradict what i wrote.
If they truly started with customers, perhaps we can agree that having to click another site to get to a simple one line answer is wrong. Thats why people prefer LLMs, they get the answer without having to click to multiple sites. But it's good for competition. In cases where customers and competition is at odds, ideally the law should favor customers. Except in EU, it favors competition. Customers dont have a seat at the table, competition does.
Gareth321
> I did not mention apple in my comment. And what you wrote does not contradict what i wrote.
I believe it does. You wrote that the DMA is intended to make gatekeepers lose market share, "even if it comes at the expense of consumers." Clearly this is coming at the expense of no consumers. On the contrary. This is a major improvement to way we use these essential products. I provided concrete examples of the iPhone that I use. This is a major win for consumers across the EU. It's also a major win for competitors. The only company it hurts (ever so slightly) is Apple and a handful of other trillion dollar companies, and I think they'll be just fine.
As for "intending" to make gatekeepers lose market share, one could argue that all anti-competitive laws "intend" to make market abusers lose market share. We still consider anti-competitive laws a net good for the market and society.
cropcirclbureau
Strange to use WhatsApp and "utilizing network effects" as part of your rhetoric. Haven't they been commonly used to harm users?
And to address your general argument, I don't think bad UX can be put in the same category of harm as monopolistic market manipulation. Of course you can have the most integrated, slickest, most clairvoyant apps if you're Google. They have the money, data and access for it. And you could justify walled gardens for this but not abuse of monopoly. It's unbelievably shortsighted to do so.
null
nolist_policy
> And now, they still did not lose market share so EU is asking google to do more.
Can you elaborate on that?
ankit219
So, after the first round of compliances, they did a review of the changes and did meetings with the likes of Yelp etc. This led to the next round of changes.[1] I am for the changes, just that I think you should also look at it from user perspective too, especially when what the user wants vs the competitor wants is conflicting.
[1]: https://www.wsj.com/tech/google-proposes-further-changes-to-...
owebmaster
We should not pay more to Google/Apple to do less clicks, they use the same logic to make it difficult to cancel or stop paying for things. You seem to be confused about what screwing up users mean.
econ
What worries me is the way big tech is forced to build some kind of law book (they call their TOS) some kind of detective apparatus, some kind of kangaroo court and a model for punishing the citizen (user) which is not something anyone should want them to do including them. It is like the old time court where every decision is made though the lens of profit. It gets even more dystopian in a closed ecosystem.
mcny
This is really our (US) fault. Terms of service is not the law. It should never be the law. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is a terrible piece of legislation that is completely out of touch with reality. It should have been abolished a long time ago and yet we have taken no steps to abolish it here in the US.
This is all our (US) doing. We blazed the trail like this and have done nothing to correct our mistakes.
Cupprum
Sex workers in Bangkok pay around 10% of their salaries to the bars where people can find the workers.
Apple and other companies take around 30% as a fee for using their marketplace.
I don't see a reason why big tech should get a higher cut.
thrance
I don't see why they should get any cut, do you pay Dell whenever you install a game on your laptop?
tanjtanjtanj
Did I download the game from Dell’s servers? Was the game made using tools authored by Dell? Did the game go through a quality assurance process run by Dell? I know at one point they ran a digital distribution platform and I’d be highly surprised if they weren’t charging some sort of fee.
alwayslikethis
Any claim of fees for hosting a distribution platform is nullified by the lack of alternatives. I don't get to kidnap you can then charge you rent and food costs.
eloisius
Are you allowed to download a game from someone else’s servers or forego all the quality assurance that they’ve done?
permo-w
did you misread "should" as "shouldn't"? I know I did on first read
9283409232
This is a silly argument and I'm sure you know it.
thrance
It's silly in that it shows how ridiculous the situation is. No one asked for Apple or Google to be the wardens of what users can or can't install on their devices. Asking for a fee for this "service" is the cherry on top.
We've been able to install whatever we want on our PCs since the dawn of personal computing and it never was an issue. I don't see why we couldn't have a similar system on mobile devices too.
zoobab
DMA is cementing a duopoly in mobile OSes.
Trop break that duopoly, we need rules for hardware manufacturers to store complete spécifications in a trusted public registry, with fines if the doc is incomplete, misleading, etc...
hsuduebc2
Breaking up monopolies used to be one of America's greatest strengths—Standard Oil, AT&T, even Microsoft faced real antitrust action. That willingness to enforce competition fueled economic growth and innovation.
But under Trump, there’s little chance of that happening. Big Tech has only grown more entrenched, and instead of being challenged, it’s likely to gain even more influence. The era of real trust-busting is over for now, and these companies aren’t going anywhere. I hope for the best in future.
I'm interested how it would be with Musk. He has enormous influence over the markets but he is not an "company" but an individual. I wonder how this would be resolved. I guess just let him choose what he can keep? That's sounds fishy to me.
seydor
The outcome of the dma is better served by breaking up the companies so that google cannot share data with YouTube or facebook with Whatsapp.
The EU regulations so far did not achieve much (other than eradicating EU ads market) , and the YC knows that.
They want to distract the government away from breaking up bigtech and towards an anodyne (but annoying) regulation.
patrickmcnamara
The DMA does make it so you can unlink your Google account from your YouTube account, or your Facebook account from your Instagram account, and that they can't share data. Or what are you meaning?
raverbashing
So, when was the last time a company was split by the SEC or such? I can only think of older examples (Boeing, AT&T, etc)
What I think regulators are seeing is that they split, wait a bit then merge all over again, negating that effect
And I agree about the GDPR, though the DMA seems to have had bigger effects (including preventing EU from getting the wet dud known as Apple Intelligence - I guess we can recognize this was a cop-out from Apple for a poor product instead of an actual hurdle)
yatopifo
I take it the legislative branch is completely irrelevant in the US at this point… how quickly you gave adapted to living under a dictatorship!
s_dev
This is absolutely not what I would have expected.
I love Paul Graham but he's always criticised the EU for having too much of a heavy hand regulating things and 'stifling innovation' while there is plenty of room for nuance here -- the EU can be doing both. I think this suggests many in YCombinator are not as 'Libertarian' as they originally thought and there small mindset change happening.
FinnKuhn
If you are against heavy handed regulations I think supporting the DMA is only logically as those regulations are now coming from gatekeepers such as Apple or Google so limiting them in what they are allowed to do is fully compatible with this mindest I believe.
s_dev
The Libertarian philosophy is concerned with limiting the powers of government not companies.
I think people are seeing that companies can wield as much power and influence as governments can and yet have no democratic mandate or similar accountability mechanisms that we impose on governments.
lblume
By this point, it should be fairly clear that unregulated markets lead to monopolies. If modern libertarianism still entails "the freer the markets, the freer the people" I would consider this to be empirically disproven[1].
[1] Except for minimal states which have not succeeded in reality because some type of strong organization's force will likely always exceed the market's implicit one.
s_dev
I'm hoping YCs next 'big' move for growth is to open an accelerator in either the UK or the EU. The US is moving in the wrong direction and the EU needs institutions like YC. Plenty have tried and failed to replicate YCs success both in the US and the EU but I think YC could make it happen.
thecleaner
YCs success has nothing to do with just YC (not to take credit away) but rather from the fact that the US is a large unified well-regulated market. EU has sensible rules sure but the market isnt unified and the individual countries dont have big enough markets to sustain large numbers of software companies. YC itself is honestly quite open with their knowledge but its just that EU in itself is a pretty terrible place to run a business. Lots if regulation, some good ones.
malthaus
you have to judge people for their actions, not their philosophical essays.
ycombinator (which, nota bene, also spawned sam) is nothing but distilled capitalism with a fig leaf to appeal to a subset of nerd culture and you all ate it up
c16
I think where this will fall on deaf ears is due to its branding.
~Europe's~ America's Digital Markets Act might work better with this administration, irrespective of how good or bad the content contained within it is.
In terms of what to focus your efforts on, this can be re-evaluated in a few years time when staff will actually dig in, beyond the optics.
I personally don’t care about alternative app stores, but I know many do, especially here.
I really want two things:
* companies cannot engage in any activity a common person would consider “spying”, cannot take the data collected by users of that service and transfer it to another entity, and third parties may not aggregate data collected about persons for any reason. There are a million and one useful reasons to do each of these things, but companies have proven themselves morally bankrupt and should lose that ability. This would go beyond “opt-in”, just make it illegal or the impractical (e.g. it would require a notary, licensed broker, or lawyers on both sides to engage in the practice)
* digital “purchases” are transferrable and have all of the rights and privileges afforded to physical goods. The producer/consumer balance shifted completely in favor of the producer with digital goods. Terms need to be more favorable to the purchaser as well as protections following the dissolution of a digital marketplace.