
I'm sure the UK will roll out similar legislation
And I'm sure Apple will just laugh and threaten to stop selling iPhones to the sick man of Europe
Apple has given up its fight against being designated a gatekeeper under Europe's Digital Markets Act (DMA), meaning the iMaker will give people in the European Union greater choice over their browser engines and application store on iOS. The American mega-giant today announced several significant changes to its mobile …
“delivering not a single trace of any benefit to anyone who isn't a hedge fund manager/disaster capitalist/parasite”
Plus of course the million+ sole traders, trading below the U.K. VAT threshold of £ 85k. Because if we were still in the EU, they would have been hit by the EU VAT harmonisation in 2022, forcing them to suddenly pay an additional 20% tax.
The woman who set up a cleaning business for 15 hours a week, around her school-age children. The handyman who does the necessary for the elderly in their local area. The market trader in your local town who just does weekends. Most countries in the EU have always had very low VAT thresholds, but we haven’t. It would have been catastrophic sea change for a huge swathe of our population at the low end. It’s not that you don’t care about the little people, it’s that they are literally totally invisible to you.
95% of people don’t even know there *was* a massive hurricane in the EU VAT system that narrowly missed them. Because the people who would have been crippled aren’t educated enough to read European tax news, while the people who do wouldn’t recognise their own cleaner on the street. Like all Remainers, the only thing you even notice is the loudly trumpeted interests of the Volkswagens and Airbus of this world.
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So Apple claims its not a gatekeeper, relents allowing independent app stores while at the same time erecting another gate in front of your new freedom, one that only it can control. How very fruitful for their profits. I don't think the new regulations state erecting new barriers is the aim of the act.