(C) Alec Muffett's DropSafe blog.
Author Name: Alec Muffett
This story was originally published on allecmuffett.com. [1]
License: CC-BY-SA 3.0.[2]


“Overly powerful, rent-seeking gatekeepers seem like a problem” HT @[email protected] / @sdw

2024-01-29 11:00:00+00:00

I regret so many of my peers in civil society feel they’re doing TheLord’sWork™ by calling on the EU/US to impose central planning on software architecture & user interfaces. They are often folk who also fought against (e.g) state restrictions on encryption, but somehow think it’s simply a matter of getting the right people into one room to fix all the mess, badness & inequity of the internet. By diktat, of course.

Hence this Gruber essay – which is well worth a read on its own for the context with which I basically agree, leading to the attached sweet little tweet exchange from Sebastiaan de With, regarding the Digital Markets Act.

The last decade of EU tech regulation is largely a bad attempt at protectionism and surveillance, hybridised with the rent-seeking opportunities of declaring various technologies to be illegal and then imposing fines. It’s sad that the state has successfully (and incorrectly) convinced some angry young nerds to indulge in equity-chasing anti-corporatist class warfare that ostensibly will not harm individual opportunities, capabilities and rights, simply by drawing arbitrary lines in the sand with a handful of simple metrics.

Alas, generally the first thing said after tech regulation is passed is:

Wait! No! Not like that! We didn’t mean like *that* !

or:

It wasn’t meant to apply to *us* !

…but the nerds never learn, or they have already moved onto the next heroic opportunity.

I love that I can’t tell if you are talking about the EU or Apple in this case — Sebastiaan de With (@sdw) January 24, 2024

…and…

https://daringfireball.net/2024/01/apples_plans_for_the_dma
[END]

[1] URL: https://alecmuffett.com/article/109024
[2] URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

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