

Wait, who actually likes paying taxes?
//edit: Forgot I’m on Lemmy. I’ll show myself out, comrades.
Wait, who actually likes paying taxes?
//edit: Forgot I’m on Lemmy. I’ll show myself out, comrades.
You are right, I am speculating, as was the poster of the parent comment. I certainly didn’t mean to muddy any waters, but you have to admit that there have been things going on within the EU, that paint a bit of a bleak picture of how the table might turn if the EU had greater influence/power (in terms of aforementioned platforms and software) on the global stage.
And while you’re right that the examples I gave didn’t become actual law just yet, it’s certainly not due to the EUs benevolence that proposals didn’t materialize, but instead very much like in Mozilla’s case, that the outcry from people had them reconsider.
However, I believe there were proposals that were put into law even though the outcry was there. (eg. Article 13?)
European companies and governments regrettably aren’t better, they simply don’t have that many eyes on them because, well, they don’t have much to show for to begin with. Name a production-ready made-in-Europe browser/browser-engine. Name a widespread European messenger. A European smartphone platform? European Facebook or Twitter? Anything?
Even the few small scale European examples that you might come up with had an absurd amount of controversy to them. Remember that Tutanota thing? Remember Chat Control?
The reason people believe that Europe is so much more privacy respecting than the US is simply because there aren’t many services to exercise the same level of invasive, authoritarian control over than in the US. If 60% of the world however would be using a Nokia minäPuhelin you would see the same, if not worse, privacy-invasive regulation and controversy popping off every other week.
In addition, Denmark has the highest top personal income tax rate in Europe in 2025, at 55.9%.
So I guess this is actually great news for everyone here that loves paying taxes, as now they get to do it even longer! Bummer all the people making a decent living off of these taxes (politicians) won’t participate. Who could have seen that coming?