
Ask HN: Why is Europe doing a lot to penalize the Big Five with taxes and laws? - rblion
Looking at the &#x27;Digital Europe&#x27; website, I get the feeling this is as much about Europe &#x27;getting some of the pie&#x27; as much as it as about ethics.
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dClauzel
Given that Apple, Amazon, and Google together pay less taxes than a middle
size company thanks to their "fiscal optimisation", the answer is pretty
simple ;)

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rblion
I sometimes wonder why they are penalized for being that innovative and
forward thinking. They followed the paradigm of capitalism and they mostly
play by the rules. A few grey areas but I don't be embarrassed to say that I
respect and trust Apple, Google, and Amazon.

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DyslexicAtheist
FAANG is a cancer on society (ask the Rohinga) and they don't pay their taxes.
The same is true for IKEA & Starbucks but their damage is at least limited to
loss of tax revenues (double Irish with a Dutch sandwich etc).

The damage FAANG does (and how their toxic business-model is copied by EU
start-ups) deserves imo this intervention by regulation. But yes it's not
disputable that this is also an attempt to level the playing field for local
companies.

I think EU is more technophobic than the US (and Asia) because there are many
that still remember the horrors of the Stasi. Many don't want to embrace the
Silicon Valley & Asian surveillance capitalism. Disruption (by moving fast and
breaking things) is quite a disgusting to many of us ... and the rise of
right-wing populism (globally) sure is rooted in this ignorance by
technologists (to a large extent).

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romantsegelskyi
How is Netflix a cancer though?

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DyslexicAtheist
I've been using netflix for a bit over a year, just cancelled it this fall.

From what I can see the content is mostly shallow (Hollywood over TCP).
Despite them being a global player they totally lack local content. There is a
total lack of great French, German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Korean content
(not there would be a lack of good local conent) and hardly anything that is
critical of the US. So it's just another US propaganda channel to make the
hypocritical US come across as a country with great values (when they're the
most vile and terrorist country in the world today).

Also, there is no way of knowing who Netflix shares my search/watch history
with. And I have 0 doubt that this info is in the hands of multiple entities
we've no idea about.

