Today, I joined Eric Seufert for my seventh (!) appearance on the Mobile Dev Memo podcast[1] to discuss the European Commission's April decision on Meta's "pay or consent" model.
This is a great post that helps everyone understand where regulation in the EU is going wrong. It's not the laws or regulations themselves. It's the way they are administered.
For me, the kicker is in this section:
"What we get from Brussels is lawyers making categorical decisions about digital markets without understanding their economic dynamics. Their formalistic interpretation, divorced from business reality, poses serious risks to European competitiveness.
There’s a segment of privacy officials who view AI like they do cryptocurrency—as a fad to be stopped or at best ignored. They're the same crowd that eagerly shares every paper suggesting LLMs can't count or “reason” properly. Combined with the Commission's explicit stance that they needn't consider economic impacts on gatekeepers or third parties, this attitude threatens the welfare of Europeans."
Unfortunately, this is all true. Most of us who work in the tech sector believe in the power of harmonised regulation to clear the path for responsible innovation. But regulators creating uncertainty in how their regulations should be interpreted only create blockers to innovation in our societies. Ursula von der Leyen, please take note. And take action.
This is a great post that helps everyone understand where regulation in the EU is going wrong. It's not the laws or regulations themselves. It's the way they are administered.
For me, the kicker is in this section:
"What we get from Brussels is lawyers making categorical decisions about digital markets without understanding their economic dynamics. Their formalistic interpretation, divorced from business reality, poses serious risks to European competitiveness.
There’s a segment of privacy officials who view AI like they do cryptocurrency—as a fad to be stopped or at best ignored. They're the same crowd that eagerly shares every paper suggesting LLMs can't count or “reason” properly. Combined with the Commission's explicit stance that they needn't consider economic impacts on gatekeepers or third parties, this attitude threatens the welfare of Europeans."
Unfortunately, this is all true. Most of us who work in the tech sector believe in the power of harmonised regulation to clear the path for responsible innovation. But regulators creating uncertainty in how their regulations should be interpreted only create blockers to innovation in our societies. Ursula von der Leyen, please take note. And take action.