The problem is the expectation that services/apps/radio/tv-channels need to be free when we know that there is nothing really free in this world (except maybe the air we breathe?).

This is the same problem that Firefox is facing. If you listen to the crowd here on HN, Firefox is either evil or dumb or both to take money from Google, yet at the same time, these same people would scream bloody murder if Firefox was a paid only browser that cost 5.99 a month because everything these days is a subscription and this is terrible.

Every product requires maintenance and has ongoing costs. Let me ask you, do you work for free? If not, then why should they?

So instead of spending hours debating over the value of ads in apps and sites, on the radio and so on, what is the solution if: - ads are a no go - subscriptions are bad - donations are unreliable and cannot ensure the proper remuneration of the creators

And let me say, that is is not a comment supporting ads, I am genuinely asking what the solution is because I just don't see it.

What about 40%? 50%?

Most people agree that taxes need to be paid for the common good of society. However, many people disagree about the correct amount and increasingly about the usage of said taxes.

That is the real problem in my opinion.

This is not a rant. I responded to OPs message point by point and simply expressed my opinion on these matters just like he did.

I also responded to OPs thinly veiled accusations that are completely unfounded and downright accusatory.

I am not sure what you are trying to get at.

Are you implying that this new draft is not in any way related to the recent Chat Control proposal that wanted to intercept all encrypted messages on phones in the EU, this same proposal that has been debated many times here on HN?

If so, then I am sorry if you think this blatant lying. You must have not been paying attention nor have read the many drafts of this law.

This proposal of tightening regulations around messaging apps and VPNs is being pushed as part of the other pushes for digital identity, age verification and potentially linking online identities to your real identity.

This is not happening just around Europe. It's also happening in the UK, Australia and more and I disagree with everyone of them.

This is not a conspiracy theory, this is publicly documented information that has been reviewed by journalist of all sides and has been decried by many human rights organizations who rightfully see all these moves as wanting to remove fully or partially the anonymity that the internet has provided thus far while curtailing freedom of speech.

> It's disgusting that people run here, write utter complete lying bullshit and then you attack folks that say "hey, this is complete bullshit".

I haven't attacked anyone. I am not sure what you are talking about.

I was the one who was attacked ad-hominem by OP who casually hinted that I was either a troll, a bot or working for Russia or China when the truth is that I am simply a EU citizen who is dissatisfied with the way the EU has handled a lot of it's tech regulations and I am simply voicing my personal opinions on these matters just like anyone else does in these threads.

Maybe you don't share my opinions and that's fine, we don't have to be friends.

> Be better

I will interpret this comment as simply someone who sees himself in the right and looks down on everyone else as poor souls needing to be guided to the light. This is not Reddit, you can get off your high horse now.

Even on HN there is been a surge of users who instead of defending their arguments or positions on certain sensitive topics such as the EU prefer to simply smear the opposition.

I write about the EU a lot because I live there and I am especially interested in what the EU is doing regarding tech.

I am especially critical of policies that target my private life and it irks me to no end that some people will claim loud a and clear that I should simply be grateful for what the EU is doing when the EU's actions in a lot of matters that I care about have either been deceptive and/or completely went against the supposed principles that the EU is supposed to have.

One cannot talk about tech without talking inevitably of the second or third order effects that derive from it which is again almost inevitably linked to politics either in the US or elsewhere.

Of course there is such a thing as EU wants X. The commission drafts laws and presents them to the MEPs who vote on them. The MEPs do not have the ability to propose their own laws. So all these bullshit laws that are voted on originate from the commission.

If I tell you that you can have a red balloon and you only choice is either to accept or reject the balloon, then you don't really have a choice do you? You can't say I want a blue balloon.

> Most of the anti-privacy crap hasn't happened thanks to the EU. Particular countries and lobbying groups have been pushing this through the Commission and Council and most attempts have been rejected by the EP.

Most attempts? And that should somehow reassure me?

Here is another law that was overturned after many years even though everyone knew it was illegal from the start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive. It only took something like 8 years.

When Romania protested that this was illegal under their constitution, the EU sued them and forced them to spy on their own citizens. So thank you but no thank you.

> If we didn't have the EU, some countries would have long introduced this nonsense (like the UK). But in the EU that does not make much sense, since there is a single market, so you have to enforce it EU-wide.

On the contrary, if we did not have the EU then it would not be such a problem because the same people who are pushing for this crap would have to repeat the same process 27 times, one in each country and they would have to convince/bribe their way into each government. Instead they can now push this stuff through the commission and it gets voted on and if approved gets applied to 450M people in one go.

That is the definition of single point of failure if I have ever seen one.

> The European Parliament + courts of justice/human rights are one of the last beacons of democracy/freedom worldwide that resist upcoming authoritarianism. We should support them and remind the Parliament over and over again that they should be continuing the good fight.

Do we now have to resort to this sort of emotional arguments? The EU as a whole is 27 countries, the world has more than 200 countries today. Are you claiming that most of them are hell-hole under some sort of tyrannical government? You can't be serious.

This is my problem with the EU supporters these days, you guys are so quick to shove in everyone throats the amazing stuff that the EU supposedly does for us every day but as soon as someone complains, you revert to using the same tactics as populists with the US vs Them rhetoric, the emotional manipulative language and what not.

Also your last paragraph is in complete contradiction with your previous statement. Somehow the EU/European parliament is the last bastion of democracy/freedom but it stills wants to access my private messages and emails (for my own good of course), and now it wants to force VPNs to record identifying information of its users (for our own good again).

If what you say is true then we wouldn't be having this conversation because anyone who proposes this sort of law should have been ostracized and kicked out of the commission in no time. Yet here we are.

> By the way, nearly all your comments on HN are about politics and all trying to sow dissent on Western (and especially European) democracies.

Ha, yes, you got me! I can see that when the push comes to shove it's easier to go for the subtle ad-hominem or character attacks.

God forbid someone in Europe could have any issues with the way things are going at the moment. Seems highly suspicious.

Should I send you a copy of my EU passports? Maybe that's whats going to be required in a few years time to post online if the all-mighty EU gets its way but I can understand if you want to start doing the policing early. After all we can never be too careful.

By the way, I love the new definition of democracy theses days: agree with us about everything or we will consider you a Chinese/Russian/Populist/evil (take your pick) troll.

Its perfectly fitting with the way the EU is trending down towards authoritarianism and subtle freedom of speech suppression.

GDPR does not protect you from governments snooping on you. The same way it does not stop governments from collecting data on you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive

It sometimes even forces governments to collect more data on their own citizens like in Romania.

The only difference between the US and the EU is that the EU has somehow managed to convince a bunch of useful idiots (not saying that you are part of it) that it is better than the US when in reality its the same shit just with a different color and smell.

The EU won't stop until it has access to all your data, all your messages, anything you read, save, send will be scrutinized by the the big great EU and it's little minions.

Hey, at least we get the freedom of movement right?

Or is it also Russia propaganda that it wants to force VPNs to collect data on their users or force everyone to use their real identities online so that it makes it easy to prosecute anyone for wrong speech?

https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/the-eu-pr...

Nah, you are right the EU is good for us. No issues there at all.

Europe is the outlier here. The rest of the world checks your passport when you come in their country because they like to know who comes and who goes for a lot of reasons including public safety, biosecurity and so on.

The fact that Europe has basically given up on trying to filter who comes in is not necessarily a model that is desirable for the rest of the world.

> Thanks to the EU free movement of people, I've now studied, worked and lived in four different countries.

You can do that without Europe as well. Do you think people did not move to another country or studied in another country before the European countries decided to remove borders? What about now with all the students moving to the US/UK/Australia/Canada?

In all western countries, if you dig a little, you will find scandals after scandals from the ruling parties or the so called elite.

Why should a lambda citizen believe that there is any sense of trust anymore when those who are at the top clearly have no problem lying to get in or stay in power?

It's the same problem with the media biases. Newspapers and news organizations have completely stopped providing information and started pushing propaganda. Nothing more.

Then we lament the loss of confidence and the demise of democracy in the west.

Your comment is contradicted by this direct quote from the article:

> In the rejected New York Times articles, Wade was not presenting any controversial hypotheses, but simply reporting the findings of various genetics studies published in mainstream journals.

Maybe Wade put his own spin on the findings in his book/in the articles but does that undermine the credibility of the papers published in the mainstream journals?

In many subjects where we don't have a clear answer, we have different theories, some are bogus and others will eventually be disproved until we finally reach a consensus.

Until such time, it is perfectly reasonable to expect that all points of view are represented.

> When Wade is “the only science journalist to cover a study” [...] around six paragraphs of text were removed from this article

The fact that they removed a point of view/theory on a subject because there are no other competing theories is simply wrong.

Imagine if we applied the same rule to physics. We don't know why the universe is expanding faster than anticipated. It could be dark matter, it could be something else.

Until such a time as we can prove one of the other, then all theories should be presented with caveats/warnings that these findings are not definitive and will most likely change in the future.

Instead of doing that in this case, it was decided that some theories should simply be removed because they do not fit with the conventional wisdom of what we consider acceptable or believable.

But science does not care about what is believable or acceptable. You gather evidence, you create a theory and you or someone else proves your it or disproves it. You don't simply sweep things under the rug because they make you uncomfortable.

And before you take this comment as supporting all fringe theories, we are not talking here about the flat Earth or that vaccines cause autism. Both of these theories have been disproved extensively.

Heck, there is even a Wikipedia page that was created just for this purpose: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccines_and_autism

So in conclusion, if there were multiple theories on this subject, I would expect them to be presented on Wikipedia warts and all so that the readers can see where we stand on the subject. Instead what we got is simple one sided censorship.

This is the same exact playbook used by the Church when Galileo came out with his theory of Heliocentricism. His idea made the Church uncomfortable and instead of trying to disprove him, they simply decided to silence him. Maybe we should avoid repeating the same mistakes?

News organizations each push their own agendas by misrepresenting facts or present rumors or second comments as certainty. Then months later, we finally learn really what happened and realize that a lot of the context of story was missing or completely fabricated.

Then we lament at the death of democracy.

Italy is simply making a political choice to attract wealthy people instead of other people. Is it unsustainable as you put it, who knows? But what we know for sure is unsustainable is raising taxes like France every year on the middle class.

Also contrary to France who is running a 6% deficit annually, Italy is running a 3% deficit so it is managing its finances much better than France.

So much so in fact that France has become the de-facto "sick-man" of Europe because it is simply incapable of reforming itself.

Macron is on his way out and his government is paralyzed because they do not have a majority in parliament and he is pretty much hated by everyone. Meloni on the other hand is pretty well liked and has good chance of being reelected in 2027.

In France the situation is much more unstable with new candidates for the presidential election coming out of the woodwork every month including Francois Hollande, the most hated president of the entire 5th French republic who sees himself making a comeback somehow.

The outlook for France in 2027 and beyond is bleak. There are no parties interested in reforming France so the debt will keep on increasing, the public services will keep on deteriorating and none of the structural issues will be resolved either by the right or the left.

All of this to say that if I was wealthy French resident, I would consider moving to a country that is taxing me less and that is also much more politically and fiscally stable at the moment than France.

Yes, we should all let the governments decide if we should have access to our email addresses and pinky promise they won't use your data against you if one day you decide to disparage the sitting president/prime minister of the country you reside in.

Corporations bad! Government good! M'kay!