Repair and modularity tend to go together, especially in the face of bad actors. Otherwise you get this scenario where companies work to intentionally create hardware that is likely to be damaged during repair/replacement efforts. The hardware equivalent of Microsoft intentionally trying to 'integrate' Internet Explorer into Windows.
As for government trust, I think it can almost entirely be explained as a result of the government behaving in an ever more opaque fashion, and constantly lying on top of that. Fool me once, and all that. In the Kennedy era, and all the way up to his assassination it remained extremely high - well above 70%. Since then it's been spiraling downward, to its now pitiful levels where we're at today - about to enter the single digits. [1] It's practically an achievement in itself to be that distrusted. I mean can you imagine a time when somebody could say non-ironically, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."? Anyhow, I digress. It's just a topic I feel strongly on.
I agree about the opaqueness likely being the root motivating factor regardless of idealogical bent.
I'm not sold on modularity - the EU seems to be effectively dealing with malicious compliance. Even the details of repairability are tricky enough because you're internalizing an externality but it can be debated that if the externality is a better tradeoff for society which benefits from a faster pace of innovation because the companies don't have to support those products forever (support costs for older products are very real in engineering & supply chain orgs). Think about how very different phones today are from the 1st gen. That being said, now that things have stabilized, maybe forcing phones to standardize a bit would be OK provided manufacturers are still allowed to innovate (e.g. such requirements wouldn't be relevant to VR which hasn't reached an innovation plateau like phones and laptops have).
I'm not entirely sure what you mean here at all. The EU seems to be doing basically nothing about malicious compliance. Apple's DMA 'compliance' is actively hostile and ensuring it's all but impossible for anybody to actually take advantage of the freedoms the DMA is supposed to mandate. This page [1] offers some of the fee schedules developers releasing on alternative marketplaces would face. If anything it'll just turn into another GDPR where they'll occasionally fine Apple some token amount (relative to their revenue), which Apple will drag on through the courts as long as possible, and ultimately just shrug and write off as a business cost.
First, they are tackling repairability & it seems fairly reasonable as most EU legislation seems to be [0]. Repairability is a tough topic not only because there's opposition for BS reasons. Think about a CPU - are you arguing that you need to be able to repair a broken pin on the socket? I hope not because you recognize the physical and economic challenges that entails & that making that repairable likely drives up the cost of the CPU in the first place (if someone wants to they should be able to try, but is the manufacturer on the hook for offering repairs if their non-standard repair attempt fails?). And think about how much more and more integrated the SoC has become with the main CPU package absorbing almost all peripheral chips - within that context "repairing" often effectively means buying a whole new super expensive component to begin with (& in my experience the 3p repairs often try to skimp on using substandard components & don't clearly communicate it). So basically the number of repairable parts in electronics is shrinking due to improvements in manufacturing.
As for DMA malicious compliance, it's still waaaay to early to say they're doing nothing. There's a lot of hubub about it clearly and it's on their radar. Meta & Microsoft have gotten into the game lobbying the EU to do something so there's countervailing pressure [1].
> According to a new report from the Financial Times, two of the biggest critics of Apple's new App Store rules are officially lobbying the EU to reject the iPhone maker's crafty new App Store terms.
> The EU could potentially fine Apple for non-compliance when the law goes into effect if it determines that these policy updates do not embody the spirit of the DMA. Or the DMA could reject Apple's App Store proposal entirely and force the company to come up with a new DMA-compliant policy.
But basically expecting a regulatory body to start enforcing something less than one month after compliance became mandatory (it took effect March 2024) of a fairly complex piece of legislation is asking a bit much of any regulatory body. It takes time to investigate this stuff in the first place so that they can get ready to bring a court case. They'll also negotiate with Apple before-hand to see if a resolution can be reached without a lawsuit in the first place.
But the EU already hit Apple with a massive 2B antitrust fine:
Yes, I'm sure they'll fine them, and Apple will laugh. That 'massive' $2 billion fine is the world's most gentle slap on the wrist for a company of Apple's scale. Their European revenue was $89 billion 2021 and had been regularly growing, so it's easily upwards of $100 billion. [1] And their global revenue is $383 billion. They likely earned vastly more than $2 billion from the bad behavior alone.
Imagine you earn $100k a year, it would be the equivalent of a $520 fine - a speeding ticket. And it won't just be the $520 fine. Apple will appeal and drag it through the courts for as long as possible, both reducing the cost of it due to inflation, and also potentially getting the cost itself reduced. So you create a scenario where at the end of the day, we can engage in all the behavior we want and all we have to do is deal with a speeding ticket every once in a while, all the while the bureaucrats pat themselves on the back for really cracking the whip. This is not even close to a deterrent.
It's the ongoing practice of treating massive corporations with kid gloves, while behaving brutally towards small businesses or individuals - when, in an ideal world, it should be the exact opposite. And again, we're back to the trust issue. Because obviously the reason they're being so gentle is because they want to have the headline of really cracking down on e.g. Apple, but don't actually want to risk Apple withdrawing from the EU. And that conflict of interest will not go away, and thus will guide their future actions as well.
> Think about a CPU - are you arguing that you need to be able to repair a broken pin on the socket?
No, because a CPU is not a line-replaceable unit on Apple hardware. Nobody, not Louis Rossman, not Apple-certified repair stores, and not street-shops in Shenzhen are doing SOC-level repairs. It is a complete red-herring example that almost makes me question how serious you take this, accusing others of using "BS reasons."
> So basically the number of repairable parts in electronics is shrinking due to improvements in manufacturing.
That's really tangential to the point. Integrated components can still be replaced with donor parts (or OEM replacements) if each component isn't DRM-matched to a phone. Apple goes out of their way to deliberately stop their systems from being repaired by others, and it doesn't stop at miniaturization.
> it's still waaaay to early to say they're doing nothing.
If someone is doing nothing, you're never too early to call them out on it. We're not waiting for Apple to get the memo, they have had three years to anticipate this legislation and the only thing they seem interested in doing is pissing and moaning in a PDF while trying to get their last petty jabs in against Spotify and Epic: https://developer.apple.com/security/complying-with-the-dma....
Apple is doing nothing, you can't piss on my back and tell me it's raining.
As for government trust, I think it can almost entirely be explained as a result of the government behaving in an ever more opaque fashion, and constantly lying on top of that. Fool me once, and all that. In the Kennedy era, and all the way up to his assassination it remained extremely high - well above 70%. Since then it's been spiraling downward, to its now pitiful levels where we're at today - about to enter the single digits. [1] It's practically an achievement in itself to be that distrusted. I mean can you imagine a time when somebody could say non-ironically, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."? Anyhow, I digress. It's just a topic I feel strongly on.
[1] - https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/09/19/public-trust...