Remarks by EU Politician on Regulating Apple and Google ➹

I’m still digesting this, but I must say I find the knee-jerk reactions from mainstream Apple blogs amusing to say the least, because they all miss the mark where it regards context.

Yes, it’s a bucketload of money. No, it’s not to be “paid”, its been in escrow all this time. And yes, it accumulated due to Ireland’s very deliberate setup as a tax haven for tech companies, which brought them a lot of investment that would otherwise not have been done in the EU (I wish Portugal had had the foresight to do the same setup, but with Ireland being an English-speaking country and its ties to the US it probably wouldn’t have panned out as nicely).

And yes, the politicians are “cashing in” on this as a win “against” big tech–but they (as an abstract entity) were the ones who set up this arrangement in the first place decades ago to bolster investment, so… everything seems to be working out as planned, really.

Any mentions of the DMA and EU protectionism are just red herrings (most US commenters don’t actually have a clue).

Just goes to show you that context, history and bias can go a long way, I guess.