The EU started fining Apple years ago before the DMA. This is just one area. And the EU has been fining many American tech companies. Google AI tells me the number is $15,000,000,000 over the last decade.
The discrepancy between the US and EU is huge, meanwhile the tech skill set (and other business skills too) difference between the US and EU is negligible. I do not believe this is a nuanced issue.
I would like to suggest Tidbits create a tracker of the differences between the features Apple ships standard and in other countries.
Taking that number as accurate, that works out to less than 1% of the EU’s operating budget over the same period. I’m still not seeing the revenue generation aspect of it.
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Okay, we’ve established a broad framework for the amount of money involved in this context, so people can use that to decide what they think—no need for further discussion on this branch.
@Halfsmoke’s comments about market cap made me wonder why I chose that stat. I think it’s because, when we’re talking about the very top companies in terms of market cap, we’re using it as a stand-in for power and influence. The fact that the market (through stock price) feels the company is worth so much says something. The fact that market cap can vary is actually also useful, since if it wanes, that’s a hint that the company may not have the power or influence it once did.
But simultaneously, that’s also why I included Apple’s trailing 12-month (TTM) net revenue of nearly $100 billion. That’s almost incomprehensible and shows just how much money is sloshing around Apple.
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Other interesting stats (courtesy of Yahoo Finance):
- Revenue (TTM): 408.62B
- Gross Profit (TTM): 190.74B
- EBITDA: 141.7B
- Profit Margin: 24.3%
- Total cash (most recent quarter): 55.37B
- Operating cash flow (TTM): 108.56B
Yes, that’s a a massive amount of income, but 75% of it goes to running the business. Even without the R&D costs, it is expensive to manufacture and sell that much product.
It’s also interesting that they have a tremendous amount of cash, but nearly twice as much flows into and out of the company over the course of a year. Which means it’s not so much sitting on a hoard (as some like to claim), but is really more like a buffer to prevent reliance on short-term loans during the course of a year’s operations.
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I would draw a difference between “drafted” and “tabled” (in the UK sense, to bring forward and place on the table.) EU Parliament has no ability to ‘table’ legislation. “drafting” legislation is a sausage-making process that often, if not always, involves groups of constituencies (also called “lobbyists” when you don’t agree with them), government experts, staffs of the individual legislators and of the relevant committees (at least in the US, ‘committee staff’ say for the Armed Services committee is separate from ‘member staff’ for each Member of Congress). All those contribute to the draft, bringing forward expertise, analysis, preference, impact analysis, etc.
Going to nitpick a bit here because Woz, though very “hippie” and user-focused, was a hardware guy and wasn’t involved with the Mac to my knowledge. The Mac had many other people pushing for stellar user experience, including people like Bruce Tognazzini, Larry Tesler, and Don Norman, and their influence lasted for decades. If the primary voice of the user was Woz, the excellent Mac user experience that lasted for such a long time would not have happened…
Yes, with the addition that the previous posts here are in reference to “the early Apple days”. Since Apple was founded in 1976, went IPO in 1980, and launched the Mac in 1984, my feeling is that the Mac-era began after Apple was a well-established company.
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It is also a matter of different political systems views on economies. The EU leans heavily socialist with the socialist view of planned economies (one of the reasons for BREXIT) while these United States promote primarily free economy beliefs. Thus the EU wants to dictate to companies on how they run their business and design their products while US companies are rightly only minimally constrained by US government regulation.
If US companies want to business in the EU, they need to follow EU rules and regulations. When Apple kowtows to the Chinese dictatorship, nobody dares speak up. But when the EU, a legitimate democratically elected governing body, does what the US itself does just the same (you need to follow US law to do business in the US), people cry foul. That’s baloney. As an American that spent many years working and living over there, let me just say that in my book only misinformed/uninformed Americans think the EU is “socialist”.
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Eh… no. It tends to varied forms of social democracy as a norm, all mixed economies in short. Quite a range of them across the continent at that. And accordingly the interests of the public factor into legislation which prompted this discussion. It has been a mixed bag for sure but that goes both ways. Look, having lived lengthy periods paying taxes, running a company and raising a family in both the US and the EU I see benefits to both approaches.
Thinking that the EU is socialist is only a measure of how far the center has been moved in America.
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As an EU citizen living in The Netherlands, who has lived in the US in his teens, I can only say that I am glad to live in one of the happiest and wealthiest countries in the world. I think I can say we currently have more freedom in the EU than in the US. EU regulations are mostly aimed at fair competition, protecting employees, customers and the environment from big business solely focused on shareholders value, and are governed by democratic principles and processes. Calling that socialist is a distortion of reality. On average I think EU policies are a good thing for everyone living in the EU now, for the future of humanity and life on the planet in general. As things are now, I would not want to live in the US, I don’t even want to visit my family there.
As for Apple, instead of complaining about mostly fair regulations I would like them to focus more on the wishes of their users instead of dictating what Apple thinks is best for them. I still like using Apple products and really like how everything works together (mostly seamlessly) but I more and more start to dislike how Apple forces software updates (often full of little bugs), removes much used functionality and ignores feedback about bugs.
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Very interesting point of view as always!
Here is a french interesting one too:
I absolutely agree with you. The main target (behind a smoke screen) is to get low level device access. While this is no problem on Android devices the iPhone is locked down for good..
Main interest is NFC communications because of identification/tracking possibilities.
Apple provides high level access to most functionality and it’s well documented. This is suitable for most applications. It is possible to use NFC for a lot of things without any trouble (use it for several purposes at home and for work). The request of the EU is to gain low level access circumventing Apple’s privacy restrictions.
Other parts of the requests are byproducts. Ever heard of a request to put Volkswagen wheels on a Mercedes ? Or a request to open up full control of their ear phones on iOS? On Android there’s plenty of functionality, on iOS it’s just dumb ear phones. Where’s that request ?
I would like to congratulate Adam for his very balanced reporting on the issue, without any polarization! That is a cherisable good in our modern world!
As Apple user, I have good faith that the company intends to make great products for me. And as EU citizen, I have good faith that the EU Commission guards my and my fellow citizens’ overall digital and democratic well-being. I am confident that when open discussions on these different viewpoints take place, good solutions can be found that bring every party involved forward. Let’s keep faith in respectful discussions!
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Mr. Perlman seems to be reacting to some deep internal issue rather than reality. All the things he lists as part of the EU’s “deep trouble”, to the extent that they are present in the US, do not do much to make the US a better place to live than Europe for it’s citizens. That aside the point here is that the EU rules are not all that unreasonable unless you are Apple. Apple has not had anyone looking over it’s shoulder so to speak as it has designed it’s ecosystem. The result has been a very smoothly integrated ecosystem but also one which was not very friendly to outsiders. The EU regulations may indeed make it a bit more difficult for Apple to live the life to which it has become accustomed but they will also open the Apple ecosystem to others on a more equitable basis. Given Apple’s origins ( Think Different ) it is sad to see that their reaction is to whine rather than simply go about recognising what it is that the EU regulations are trying to achieve and making their ecosystem not just conform but excel. None of the stuff the EU is mandating is impossible. Nor is it particularly difficult to implement. Apple’s quiet acquiescence in Russia and China versus it’s moaning in Europe adds hypocrisy to the charge sheet. Time to step up Tim.
PS - While we are thinking about all this, and the digital “quality of life” in particular, isnt it time for some meaningful oversight of things digital in the US?
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Funny I see here lots of political responses while all of mine have been deleted by the moderator. There is no way to contribute to a discussion if I have to worry that my response is going to be censored and as a result the discussion is skewed away.
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What I’m trying to do here is keep the discussion focused on Apple and this particular situation, without devolving into general opinions about the EU or other EU-related topics that have no end, much less any connection with TidBITS.
That’s why I’m removing your subsequent posts about higher prices in the Netherlands and the Dutch parliament’s opposition to the Danish plan to monitor EU citizen chat messages.
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