Thom, exceedingly pure

The EU enacted a new law a while ago that all bottle caps should remain attached to the bottle, to combat plastic trash.

All the bottle and packaging makers, from massive multinationals like Coca Cola and fucking Nestlé to small local producers invested in the development of new caps, changing their production lines, and shipping the new caps. Today, a month before the law goes into effect, it's basically impossible to find a bottle without an attached cap.

I don't know, I thought this story was weirdly relevant right now with Apple being a whiny bitch. Imagine being worse than Coca Cola and motherfucking Nestlé.

Jun 22, 2024 at 1:40pmWeb
Show threadNiléaneJun 22, 2024
@thomholwerda 💯
Show threadMiłoszJun 22, 2024
@thomholwerda still, Apple can sell their castrated products in full price to EU citizens without doing any work to stick to the EU law.
Show threadmxkJun 22, 2024
@milosz @thomholwerda "castrated" would imply, that something of value is being lost.
Show threadRealWaaaghJun 22, 2024
@mxk @milosz @thomholwerda there's going to be a lot of value missing
Show threadmxkJun 23, 2024
@realwaaagh @milosz @thomholwerda that is where we disagree.
At the current point in time I would pay to get AI free variants of applications.
Show threadRealWaaaghJun 23, 2024

@mxk @milosz @thomholwerda in Europe we lack way more value of Apple products than the AI. Plus, from the announced features we're not getting the iPhone mirroring. Which has nothing to do with AI or Data Privacy.
Big part of the EU still doesn't have Siri or other Apple specific solutions, like Apple Care. Still paying the full price for the product (actually more than US citizens).

I don't care about Apple Intelligence. But we're missing a lot of other features.

Show threadAndreas KJun 23, 2024

@realwaaagh @mxk @milosz @thomholwerda
Well, we here in Austria seem to have Apple Care.

What we do not have is Apple Stores that honour EU/Austrian law.

Guess they must have settled with a NDA, but some time ago, there was a nice article in the news about how the “Apple genius” (is that how the idiots in Apple stores are called) explained to the personal assistant of a big shot attorney in Vienna that Austrian warranty law does not apply, US law applies to Apple sales in Austria.

Show threadAndreas KJun 23, 2024

@realwaaagh @mxk @milosz @thomholwerda
The article ended with the logical conclusion that attorney A called good friend attorney B who happened to one of the recognized specialists on civil warranty law locally to take care of his Apple headphones issue. And educate Apple on the detail that selling Apple products in Austria happens under the condition of Austrian/EU law.

BTW, Italy has repeatedly fined Apple for forcing consumers into AppleCare, so not having AppleCare is a per-MS issue?

Show threadAndreas KJun 23, 2024

@realwaaagh @mxk @milosz @thomholwerda
Not really.

As some developers have correctly observed, the iOS 18 Beta is missing all the new exciting features, which is highly atypical, but there are good reasons:

- Apple finds it a bit hard to tune the AI features to Apple quality expectations. Guss what, seems like Apple has not solved the LLM/world model problem, so they will take a long time to fine tune that AI beast.

- building the private AI cloud will take ~2 years.

Show threadAndreas KJun 23, 2024

@realwaaagh @mxk @milosz @thomholwerda

(Yes now it hurts that Apple has been always stingy with RAM on their iPhones, running even 3B models locally will take some careful quantization, and thus quality of outcome tradeoffs. But the real LLM for SIri and similar uses will all have to run in the so called Apple Private Cloud → building these data centres takes time, money, and difficult to get GPU. 2026 is a realistic time frame for Apple Intelligence to come as an update for iOS 18/19)

Show threadRealWaaaghJun 23, 2024
@yacc143 @mxk @milosz @thomholwerda still, EU for years is cut off from many services. Ofc, Germany, France is quite well served (UK of course too), but I would love EU to put pressure on many companies for an equal treatment of all EU market.
I find the current Apple position to be only a start from cutting off EU from even more Apple solutions. And if they will go over with it, others will only follow, that will end up with EU having worse experience across the board. From Apple, through Google till the Chineese solutions.
Show threadAndreas KJun 23, 2024
@realwaaagh @mxk @milosz @thomholwerda
Sorry, when it comes to the whole AI (=LLM) hype thing, which IMHO, is a technology without really useful use cases, that cannot be made GDPR-compliant for what people try to use it (and the GDPR is a law that flows directly from the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights in the Treaties, basically it's our Freedom of Speech fetish), I'm highly happy that the EU keeps the snake oil outside.
Show threadAndreas KJun 23, 2024

@realwaaagh @mxk @milosz @thomholwerda

Now thinking about it, most of the products that delayed because of EU laws (and had to be improved or redesigned because of the EU), I can basically live quite happily without all of them, and consider keeping them away from the local market a boon to EU consumers.

Show threadAndreas KJun 23, 2024

@realwaaagh @mxk @milosz @thomholwerda

And I'm saying that as someone who sees clearly the useful things that "AI" can produce. (But LLM are toys/snake oil/research, not really "products")

Actually to keep myself mentally agile I'm taking currently an AI study course despite my age. When the huge GPT hype hit, we (my student buddies) took the time to feed it quite some of our maths homework, it was hilarious what p(next|context) produced as very convincing and usually very false answers.

Show threadRealWaaaghJun 23, 2024
@yacc143 @mxk @milosz @thomholwerda I'm not sure why are you seeing only the LLM/AI thing as the part of discussion here.
Show threadAndreas KJun 23, 2024

@realwaaagh @mxk @milosz @thomholwerda
a) you didn't list much explicitely, AI comes to mind as the current thing Apple is holding back. (I mentioned that Apple is holding it back not only in the EU, but worldwide, but they announce it for the EU, funny that. No implementation of AI in the iOS 18 beta)

b) you mentioned Apple Care -> I explained I think that this not necessary the cool thing you think. (Yeah you cannot get it.)

Show threadAndreas KJun 23, 2024

@realwaaagh @mxk @milosz @thomholwerda

c) and last but not least, forcing companies to treat all MS the same:

Problematic.

We do not do that even inside a country. You wouldn't force a restaurant in Kraków to deliver one Pizza and two portions of Pierogi to Gdańsk, and make sure they are fresh.

Generally speaking, e.g. in Austria, a contracting mandate usually exists only stuff like utility. Electricity, mail, car insurance.

Show threadRealWaaaghJun 23, 2024
@yacc143 @mxk @milosz @thomholwerda somehow EU is able to manage mandate on straws, bottle caps and roaming. In my eyes lack of unified market regulations are just lazyness or, worse, someone has interest in that. As an example, outrageous differences in car prices across Europe. Without reason (as it's far more than tax differences)
Show threadAndreas KJun 23, 2024

@realwaaagh @mxk @milosz @thomholwerda
That one's is very strong lobbying,
AND it's a tradeoff, the manufacturers are explicitly not allowed to do anything to hinder EU re-imports. For the right to set up territorial distribution by MS.

So basically, in the cases there the net prices are clearly different, for better informed EU citizens in low car tax countries it's not really a problem to buy a cheap car. (E.g. when I lived in Germany, I drove a grey imported VW, I think from NL)

Show threadAndreas KJun 23, 2024
@realwaaagh @mxk @milosz @thomholwerda
But as the grey importing was done by a non-VW trader on my behalf, including the financing via the VW-Bank, I'm not really sure exactly where they got the car from, it just was over €10k cheaper than the same car in Germany. 🤷
Show threadAndreas KJun 23, 2024

@realwaaagh @mxk @milosz @thomholwerda

Straws, bottle caps, etc that's regulating how goods have to look to be legal to circulate in the market.
Classic EU work.

Now regulating that a company is forced to enter a contract with customers in 27 MS, is problematic.

As the 27 MS have different rules for many things. E.g. different costs for labour, different rules & costs for garbage, ...

Show threadAndreas KJun 23, 2024

@realwaaagh @mxk @milosz @thomholwerda
Not for example, the EU mandates that companies must provide replacement parts for 7 years.

What the EU did not try is to regulate the details, e.g. what are manufacturers allowed to charge for the parts?

Oh, we just run out of replacement displays for our 3-year-old mobile X? No problem, let's raise the price for the X display to 10 times the price of our current mobile Z.

Problem solved. Statistically, the sales numbers of X displays will go to 0.

Show threadAndreas KJun 23, 2024

@realwaaagh @mxk @milosz @thomholwerda
As mentioned, AppleCare is NOT the wonderful product you think, it implies that Apple basically tries to ignore the statutory warranty in the MS where it sells AppleCare → now if you happen to an attorney at hand that works pro bono to force Apple to honour its lawful obligations, great.

But most people don't have a good friend that happens to practice that area of civil law.

Show threadAnkeJun 22, 2024
@thomholwerda oh. So now I know why every time I buy a bottle of cola, I have to use mild violence tp remove the cap, or else will have the cap scratching up my cheek.
Show threadPhilippJun 22, 2024
@thomholwerda @stroughtonsmith to be fair those fucking attached caps are annoying as hell 😹
Show threadocdtrekkieJun 22, 2024

@thomholwerda You can see the same with the laws requiring Google and Meta pay for the content they scrape as they wreck journalism: They loudly claim it'll destroy the internet, *pay* nonprofits and news outlets to act like it's apocalyptic, threaten to delist news and all.

...And then if you ignore their whining about being regulated, you realize they're paying up in all the countries that held firm.

Show threadAbazigalJun 22, 2024
@ocdtrekkie On a side note, while I do understand the rationale behind this, I do not agree with having Meta and Google pay out. News outlets had it coming with their over-reliance on advertising and their being too slow to pivot.
Show threadSam Thurston Jun 22, 2024
@Abazigal @ocdtrekkie Google and Meta's entire business model is advertising
Show threadocdtrekkieJun 22, 2024
@samthurston @Abazigal And the core issue is that Google and Meta generally grab the meat of the content journalists actually worked to create... and just slap their own ads on it within their scraper platforms and avoid users clicking through to pay the news site.
Show threadEmelia 👸🏻Jun 22, 2024

@thomholwerda ngl, those new caps confused me for a bit because I was sure something had changes..

This doesn't apply to large bottles does it?

Show threadThom, exceedingly pureJun 22, 2024
@thisismissem It does here, at least in Sweden. Even the 1l and 1.5l bottles have them.
Show threadEmelia 👸🏻Jun 22, 2024
@thomholwerda will have to see if my new bottles have it..
Show threadMinaJun 22, 2024

@thomholwerda

Apple fanboys won't understand your post.

For them, Apple is the rebel against evil government interference.

Show threadFloJun 22, 2024
@thomholwerda To be fair, it’s also basically impossible to find anyone who doesn’t loathe these attached caps with all their heart.
Show threadjohnaldisJun 22, 2024
@subraumpixel @thomholwerda And also it’s become difficult to find soft drinks without a mountain of sweeteners after the sugar tax came in. I’m in favour of regulation, but the people who get elected to the EU are often exactly the people who hate both the EU and regulations, so you end up with some pretty bad rules. (If people cared a bit more about the EU and showed up to vote having researched the candidates, this might happen less often).
Show threadjohnaldisJun 22, 2024
@subraumpixel @thomholwerda I’m not at all against the “pay to opt out of tracking” thing that FB has to do, and I do think it’s reasonably positive that there are other app stores on the iPhone now, but when the people who get sent to Brussels are the same people who complain about the “Brussels gravy train,” it doesn’t lead to good results.
Show threadKari PerttulaJun 22, 2024
@subraumpixel @thomholwerda
So far these new caps are ok for me. 😉
Show threadSini TuuliaJun 22, 2024
@subraumpixel At first I was deeply annoyed by them. But I had this problem of sometimes not being able to reliably put the cap back on, and instead my nerve damaged hand would gleefully toss the bottle cap somewhere on the floor instead of holding onto it... And then I'd have to hunt for the cap, wash it, and try to not knock over the bottle in the meantime.
Completely eliminated this issue, none floor bottle caps since then. An accessibility win!
Show threadErikJun 22, 2024
@subraumpixel
I don't hate them.
I even find them practical, for example if I have to open a bottle while I'm driving.
I know that some people find them irritating, but I just don't mind them, I go on with my life, I have bigger things to worry about.
Show threadGeert UytterhoevenJun 23, 2024
@kirenida @subraumpixel Initially, I didn't like them, and managed to separate them accidentally many times. But either the caps improved, or my muscle memory learned how to handle them.
That doesn't mean accidents no longer happen. A few days ago, I had a bottle with a monostable instead of a bistable cap: while pouring, the cap suddenly closed, creating a mess on my kitchen counter...
Show threadphilbeeJun 22, 2024
@thomholwerda @stroughtonsmith Being whiny is the path to the most absurd CEO pay or the most powerful job in the world these days.
Show threadRichardJun 22, 2024
@thomholwerda I find the caps really helpful when driving, it's not like I can drop it .
Show threadterruJun 22, 2024
@thomholwerda oh i didn't even know it wasn't in effect yet. kinda puts some perspective on the whole "where did this suddenly come from"-talk in tech circles back when the GDPR came into effect (after like, two years of it being adopted so everyone had time to implement it) 🙈
Show threadKuba Suder • @mackuba.eu on 🦋Jun 22, 2024
@thomholwerda And they're all so, so shitty… in this case I wish there was *some* resistance, that anyone noticed the problem at all before the new bottles started appearing on the market…
Show threadMarco L. GatoJun 22, 2024

@thomholwerda

What's Apple complaining about? I don't know the backstory

Show thread✨buff dog himbo✨Jun 22, 2024
@marcolgato @thomholwerda iirc, they're dragging their feet hard about having to give up on making a new proprietary cable every 2 years & instead make their phones use USB-C like everything else. This will cut down on waste bc people don't have to throw out cables every 1-2 years at best, as well as incentivizing manufacturers to create cables that might last years instead of weeks, which means less waste from throwing out crappy cables.
Show threadScott CrickJun 22, 2024
@itsmeholland @marcolgato @thomholwerda Please tell me when Apple ever made a new proprietary cable “every two years”.
Show threadJustin HiltzJun 22, 2024
@itsmeholland You did not recall correctly
Show thread✨buff dog himbo✨Jun 22, 2024
@justinhiltz cool thanks for your help 👍
Show threadTom WalkerJun 22, 2024

@thomholwerda One interesting side point about these is that it's an EU law but (almost) all the bottles in the UK have changed.

Because of course, who's going to set up separate EU and UK production lines for no reason?

But the whole idea that Brexit puts us "outside" the influence of EU law is shown, in something as small as a bottle cap, to be nonsense.

Show threadTTDog666Jun 22, 2024
@thomholwerda Annoyingly some UK councils have different recycling guide lines... my daughters council will recycle a Coke bottle, but not the Coke bottle cap, and they get letters threatening fines if they include a cap in their recycling.
Show threadThom, exceedingly pureJun 22, 2024
@TTDog666 Well the UK isn't the EU so that sounds like a UK problem. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯
Show threadJanJun 22, 2024

@thomholwerda I think the right analogy here would be USB-C. All the new iPhones have it and it’s fine. Not super great but fine. Now we’re locked in this port basically forever (for better or worse).

I think there would be a whole different discussion about Coca-Cola or Nestle opening up internal stuff to other companies.

Show threadThom, exceedingly pureJun 22, 2024
@meaningful_jan You've fallen for anti-EU propaganda. Nobody's locked to USB-C. The law enables the industry to come up with a new, better standard and have that slipstreamed into the law with zero hassle... This already happened once before, when we went from micro-USB to C. No law had to be changed to do that.
Show threadJanJun 22, 2024
@thomholwerda with one company inventing it, integrating it into their own products and rolling it out to everyone else after say 2 years?
Show threadOttmarJun 22, 2024
@thomholwerda did they also require Coca Cola to let competitors fill their own coke drink into Coca Cola branded bottles and then require Coca Cola to distribute it on Coca Cola owned trucks? I think your example works better as an analogy for the forced switch to usb-c on phones. Every manufacturer now offers that, Apple included. For your Coca Cola example to make sense we have to wait until Coca Cola are declared to be a soft drink gatekeeper. Then let’s see what happens
Show threadThom, exceedingly pureJun 22, 2024

@ottmarklaas The market for softdrinks isn't monopolised or anticompetitive, nor is it an essential product category to participate in society.

Nice try, but you'll have to do better. 👍

Show threadOttmarJun 22, 2024
@thomholwerda you brought Coca Cola up as an example??
Show threadmxkJun 22, 2024
@thomholwerda not quite sure where you put your emphasis. Apple whining about having to open iOS infrastructure certainly is pathetic and annoying.
But if your focus is this LLM/AI stuff, then there is a pretty big question mark if any of the big services can legally be offered in the EU. (Which I think is a good thing)
Show threadPeter CastineJun 22, 2024
@thomholwerda You talking about the EU mandate for USB-C-only?
I grok that the mass of different connectors out in the wild is a PITA. But consider what the world would look like if governments had mandated Amphenol 50-pin SCSI for all electronic devices back in the day. Any idea what your phone would look like? And once governments make laws, they’re cast in stone for decades. Technology moves forward faster than that.
Mark my words, in five years USB-C will be a dinosaur.