[spideymans]

Over the years, overregulation will continue to lock the EU out of bleeding-edge technologies. Every feature, every website, every innovation that doesn’t launch in the EU further plunges the bloc into technological irrelevance.

[dmix]

It also often impacts more than the EU, we still have cookie banners on websites globally because EU came up with a good-intentions idea when 3rd party tracking ad cookies were a major privacy concern. But like a lot of regulations they stick after the world changes/adapts. Now 3rd party cookies are officially dying out at the browser level and browser fingerprinting has long ago eliminated any privacy gain of cookie banners (unless you care about some first party cookie on a site that can already track you across pages server side, or use URL identifiers and other JS/AJAX). Yet annoying non-standardized, sometimes mandatory, modals before you can read a news article or blog post persist for non EU internet users...

[pocketarc]

> sometimes mandatory

This is definitely a bit off-topic compared to the article, but it's worth noting that those modals are there to obtain consent to store and use your personal data, and aren't specifically related to cookies (anymore), but the GDPR. If the news website didn't store personally identifying information about you (anywhere! not just in cookies), it wouldn't have to obtain consent, and wouldn't need any modals.

I think the most annoying part of the regulation has been its lack of enforcement, because it has led to a weird sort of complacency where there's no clear knowledge of what is and isn't required, and then websites half-ass the banner (for example, they should be making it as easy to click Reject as it is to click Accept, not sending you down a dark pattern of checkboxes and stuff), or throw up a banner just to say they have one, even if they don't need it (I've seen that!).

So we get the worst of both worlds: bad modals that don't even do what they're supposed to, and no enforcement to correct any of it.

[timeon]

Websites that are not spying on you do not need to use cookie banner.

[armada651]

I would much prefer that to living in a state where Apple holds the power to simply kill any law or regulation they dislike by threatening not to launch their products in the EU.

[spideymans]

EU productivity is already lagging its peers. Being locked out of having the most cutting edge technologies will further plunge the block into a productivity decay. Less productivity means everyone in Europe will get poorer, with declining living standards. This is not an outcome Europe can afford, especially considering its aging workforce.

There is no silver lining to this. The EU has to stop strangling its most productive industries with onerous regulations, and allow markets the freedom to innovate and increase productivity.

[Arn_Thor]

To each their own I guess. Every human-centric development in tech over the past decade which puts people before the interests of corporations seems to have been pushed by the EU. I applaud it all. And it’s making the whole world a more private, less exploited place

[nickpp]

Except the only ones building products and services actually used every day by humans are corporations - not “the EU”. Hardware, software, stuff I use for fun, work and live, comes from corporations of all sizes - not politicians.

[pllbnk]

Would you mind sharing which advanced technologies am I missing out on living in the EU compared to the US? I haven't noticed any personally.

[nickpp]

Self driving cars, for one.

[mistercheph]

Yes, europe suffered a hard decade once denied access to the technological utopia that some of the most mathematical minds in all of the san fransisco bay area had created, gpt 4 voice mode WHEN you push SIRI BUTTON technology.

[lm28469]

Is there anything else to life than bleeding-edge technologies ? A truly mind shattering question for the average code monkey

[montagg]

I think the EU’s regulations are boneheaded, but I appreciate that there are multiple ways we’re seeing societies deal with the ambiguities of technology, and we can see how it plays out. Different strokes.

[skybrian]

This take seems a bit overwrought to me, given that the AI technologies that Apple is launching look more like fun toys that are integrated into the OS.

Maybe less integration will turn out better. Do we need native apps? You can use a website and then cut and paste.

[jackdaniel]

Most of this bleeding age technology is:

- spyware

- built on copyright theft

- striving to be vendor lock-in

- vc thing with enshittification waiting to happen

silly eu regulating bleeding age technology. so much borrowed money not spend.

[ghusto]

> Over the years, overregulation will continue to lock the EU out of bleeding-edge technologies

Agreed, and; hooray!

Rather than plunging us "into technological irrelevance", it saves us from nonsense nobody asked for, mostly existing to sell more hardware that nobody needs.

[profeatur]

Europeans will continue to buy the hardware, except rather than being able to afford the Apple devices they’ll buy some very low quality knockoffs from Shein.