The EU's DMA Is Failing the Consumers It Was Meant to Protect

I've always leaned towards being pro-EU, particularly against the backdrop of the economic fallout from the self-inflicted wound of Brexit. But I strongly believe the EU's continued interventions on technology have been detrimental to consumers.

I'll skip the mess of GDPR and cookie compliance and focus on the most recent flawed legislation: the DMA. The Digital Markets Act had good intentions, but it has failed in ways that will become increasingly apparent. The EU has tried to consolidate legislative power by using the weight of the Bloc to influence big tech, imposing strict rules and requirements on companies it deems to be "gatekeepers". This has undermined the free market by embedding the idea that big tech providers should be bound by a different, disadvantageous set of rules that limits their ability to compete with the rest of the market.

Sounds fine, right? Big tech needs to be constrained because it wields too much influence and power, crushing competition and putting EU sovereignty and privacy at risk. The problem is that US-centric big tech businesses have simply concluded that the EU is a small slice of the pie, and it's easier to exclude them than to implement these strict impositions universally. The EU clearly overestimated the importance of the Bloc's economic weight to these companies.

People living in the EU are now missing out. Apple's new Siri AI is the most recent and stark example of a feature that may never come to the EU and there's currently no timeline for it arriving at all. The gap between the EU and the rest of the world is widening as time goes on, and the tech experience of EU citizens is materially poorer, and increasingly so.

Now, in fairness, the EU's narrative is different. When Apple announced the Siri AI delay, the European Commission's response was that nothing in the DMA stops Apple from launching in the EU, and the decision not to ship is "Apple's and Apple's only". There's some truth in that. Apple could comply, but they are choosing not to because compliance would mean handing rivals deep system access it doesn't want to give (and would counterintuitively compromise security and privacy for citizens). So is this regulatory blockage or corporate brinkmanship? It's both... but that distinction doesn't help the person in Berlin or Dublin holding an iPhone that does less than the one in New York. Whether the feature is blocked or merely withheld in protest, the lived experience is identical, they simply don't get it. Someone who lives in the EU versus outside of the EU is not equal.

The list of Apple features the EU misses out on is growing; no Siri AI, no Apple Intelligence at launch, no iPhone mirroring, no live translations, no tap-to-share, as well as a raft of restrictions and changes across the OS (including Maps). And it's not just an Apple problem, pick any tech company. Google, for example, rolled out AI Overviews in the EU a full nine months after everyone else, and EU users still face gaps around Gemini features, advanced AI image generation, satellite SOS, and more.

The effects of the DMA are going to compound over time.

But that's okay, right? US tech needs to be challenged, and pushing EU citizens towards EU alternatives is a great way to create competition, diversity, and limit US control and influence over the world. Except there are no EU alternatives anywhere close to being worthy, and there won't be for some time.

You can point to obscure Linux distros, or alternatives to Google like Proton and Tuta, but realistically, the EU hasn't produced much of anything that users can safely say rivals the capabilities and experience of their US counterparts.

The DMA is like trying to hammer a nail with a sledgehammer. I don't disagree with its ambition, but its scope and implementation have been poor. Consumers are suffering the consequences, while the issue the DMA was trying to fix remains unresolved (there are no credible EU alternatives). What's really needed is investment in startups, in initiatives, and in people. Retain the brightest minds the EU has to offer by incentivising opportunity and growth. You can't legislate your way out of a hole when you're completely reliant on the US. It's like cutting off your nose to spite your face.