alt Hacker News90% of Europeans use WhatsApp’s free services as their daily communication tool and throw a fit if you ever dare ask them to pay for software. Meanwhile the EU continues to rely on fines to fund its bureaucracy. But eventually it won’t make financial sense for these companies to serve Europe anymore, and the regulations and culture basically prohibit any local company from providing the same functionality.
A continent of deeply unserious people.
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qubex • today at 5:51 PM
As an Italian I’d be delighted if Meta upped and left the local market. They’ve done nothing but harm. The fact they stay is proof that our citizens are financially profitable for them, even when (as you point out) they provide software for free, because we are the product.
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>EU continues to rely on fines to fund its bureaucracy.
This is not true, big tech fines are small compared to country budgets