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Cake day: October 25th, 2023

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  • The Nordic employer-employee dynamic is fascinating. Did you know that there isn’t really a minimum wage in the Nordics? Neither did I! Despite this, workers are paid and treated well. Because of unions. In fact, the system works so well that Denmark has been resisting the EU’s demands to instate a minimum wage. At the behest of unions! Workers in the Nordics generally take matters into their own hands. In some respects it works really well, because the dispute is handled between interested parties. People who have deep working knowledge of the situation. I think it’s much more effective and flexible than getting the government involved, which tends to take ham-fisted action far too slowly. At the heart of it is a very liberal principle: you can’t force someone to work for you. That’s slavery. Everyone has the right to not work. Of course, Tesla has the right to fire those workers. But then the entire workforce is entitled to stop working at the same time. It’s a great example of a company having a bargaining partner with equal bargaining power on the other side. This doesn’t really ever happen in America, or really most other countries, which is why Musk is so confused. He’s about to learn that bullying unions in the Nordics doesn’t work.



  • I really think Apple screwed the pooch on this one. They had a decade to open up iOS in a more controlled way. They did the opposite, locking out apps on competitive grounds, opening themselves up for obvious antitrust action. Now the decision is going to be out of their hands around the world, and the legislation is far more onerous.

    As an EU citizen I cannot WAIT for the DMA to come into effect. I’m genuinely excited to see all the interesting new apps and the creativity which will be allowed to flourish again on the platform.





  • Apple’s new legal case takes issue with specific decisions taken by the European Commission under the DMA, but the exact details of the challenge have not yet been publicized. The case is expected to include an argument against the ‌App Store‌ being included on the EU’s list of gatekeeper platforms, which requires app sideloading to be an option to allow users to avoid the ‌App Store‌ if they wish.

    This is not correct. Apple has so far not disputed iOS being classed as a core platform service. This means they are not disputing the requirement to open up iOS for competing app stores. However they have disputes the App Store becoming a core platform service. This would place additional requirements on the App Store around which applications they accept and decline, prominence of their own applications relative to competitors, and a host of others like marketing transparency.

    This is Apple throwing as much as they can at the wall to see what sticks.