I think the danger in pulling out of the EU market is that a lot of (I guess) highly skilled EU people would work hard to produce a reasonable replacement. Which might actually become a EU success story if you think about it.
@helge There’s no thought given to how they’d make up the short fall. Which would be China, India, and other markets that are far more iffy than the EU.
@Gte I don't think they have to make up the loss (especially considering the fines). The earnings are high enough either way and I tend to agree that the EU market is relatively small. But it could also become their largest competitor, which may have been overlooked in the equation.
@helge Wall Street may feel differently. I’d agree that in the short term it’ll be a speed bump but not huge. As you say, there’s unforeseen risks longer term and who knows what the knock on effects would be.
@Gte WS will probably feel differently, but I doubt it'll have a huge impact since Apple will still be the one company with massive profits elsewhere.
But I wouldn't call the other thing "long term". If Europeans really have no access to Apple devices anymore, they will have to switch to alternatives rather ASAP. And I bet there will be a huge push to make those better. E.g. I'd certainly would want to have something comparable to an iPhone software wise 🙂 Hail #GNUstep 🙂
If Apple stopped selling iPhones, and taking apps from, the EU; what would prevent them from continuing to offer the App Store and other Apple services to customers who either travel, or purchase iPhones from other countries (eg switzerland)?
Is the EU going to build their own great firewall?
@Gte@kraigschmidt I'm not sure about that, I think overall consumers could actually win. We are stuck in this 2-player ecosystem and maybe need a major dent to start to get to something better again.
And the low market share argument goes both ways. Android has a much larger marketshare in the EU already. Loss of Apple would be annoying (particularly for me), but it is not like there are no reasonable alternatives and something you can build upon.
@Migueldeicaza@Gte@kraigschmidt Me neither, the duopoly is Apple and Google, not iOS and Android, the latter being more a generic like "Linux". You can certainly build on Android for sth new, and I assume that's been done already by Samsung and such? (I have no idea about Android)
The wrong thing is that it "can already be" anything I want, that's clearly not true. I want a reasonable Cocoa (or maybe SwiftUI) version and AFAIK that doesn't exist (yet).
@helge@Gte@kraigschmidt corporations don’t have feelings, just a balance sheets. If the balance sheet gets so bad, Apple not being in the eu market is the least of the problems
@Migueldeicaza@Gte@kraigschmidt I agree on the former but I can't parse the latter. It's not about Apple not being in the EU market, but about Apple choosing not to be there. (which I think won't happen due to the former, but we'll see).
If they choose not to, the majority of the population already chooses a different option, and there will be increased incentive to build a better one.
As for incentives, the delta from Android to iOS is so small that I do not think what can make a better one burst into the scene. There are various Android forks aimed at being Apple-ified, and for assorted market reasons they have failed to catch up.
@helge@Gte@kraigschmidt The second parts is merely: if the market conditions are such that Apple is no longer available in Europe things would be so screwed up, that this is the least of anyone's problems.
@Migueldeicaza@Gte@kraigschmidt I don't think that insisting on alternative AppStores are market conditions that are screwed up in any way. The majority of the citizenship already lives in this awful world and somehow managed to survive for years.
@Migueldeicaza@helge@kraigschmidt I’m broadly concerned about the growing isolationism in the US and UK and what it means for the post-war era of prosperity. Between calls for tech companies to consider leaving Europe, sabre-rattling about NATO, a concerted effort to stop funding Ukraine fighting authoritarianism, and a growing dissatisfaction with democracy I fear we’re heading for a very dark place.
@Migueldeicaza@helge@kraigschmidt Yeah. It’s more the calls for thinking about leaving that concern me. I’m pretty sure the big players won’t just walk away. Maybe I’m just feeling extra precarious about things these days.
@Migueldeicaza@Gte@kraigschmidt There is no strong incentive to build an Apple replacement if the Apple product is still available. You just buy that. That changes if it's gone "completely" (I suspect some will be smuggled in from Russia).
I agree that leaving sounds unlikely, primarily because of the existing China situation, though that's a much larger market.
@helge@Gte@kraigschmidt I just don’t think that Europe is structurally in a place where even if Apple was gone they could build an equivalent - a commercial adventure is just very difficult to make successful, and the last 20 years have little to show for various government funded efforts for open source desktop.
@Migueldeicaza@Gte@kraigschmidt This is again in an environment where the competitors are available. If there is no Microsoft in Germany, there won't be Bill flying over and harass the Munich major.
The tinsy (people wise) country Finnland built Nokia which long dominated the mobile phone market. That the EU couldn't do that again feels like a ridiculous claim to me.
And just to be clear in case that's not obvious: It wouldn't be the EU which would be doing this, it would be actual companies.
@Migueldeicaza@Gte@kraigschmidt We'll see, or probably won't see, because Apple will most likely duck. 🙃
So far I'm reasonably happy about how the govs&corps did in the last years under extraordinary pressure. (yes, there are structural issues, but such are everywhere - our DMV is definitely better than the CA DMW 😜 and so is our general infra structure, sorry).
@helge@Gte@kraigschmidt i for one like the Apple value proposition for society as a whole, even if I have a spectrum of pet peeves.
That kind of value proposition (the overall one, not the developer tools) I think is hard to incubate and much harder to get it to flourish and scale within an European framework
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