Maybe focus on the riots in the streets and sort that out vs wasting energy on nonsense like this. Just saying.
I guess at least it's capped somewhat? Is there more background preceding this legislation?
This seems as ridiculous as having 1TB internet caps for residential ISPs in 2026.
Dear Netflix, my startup is Uber but for carrier pigeons. Carrying SD cards! With AI-optimized routing because I gotta mention AI somewhere...
It feels absurd to punish data heavy companies. What a weird proxy disciminator. Makes so little sense.
Also though, perhaps we see YouTube and others not just adopting & making available but pushing AV2 much faster! "YouTube AV2 streams will be available for Web as soon as early 2027." And perhaps resolutions dropping precipitously too! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50244283 http://aomedia.org/press%20releases/AOMedia-Rapid-AV2-Adopti...
This is part of the net-0 narrative and the degrowth movement that's been growing(no pun intended) in Europe. Nevermind that growth in the EU is already pretty low to begin with...
Does anyone really believe that said content providers won't pass this to their customers?
Then there is the whole "they literally never decolonized out of africa" just to keep the economy going this long and that is unable to be exploited like in the past.
They cut the kid's programs to the bone and the kids told them in the most french way possible that that was bad. Inequality has been worse than 1789 for years now.
Dont see that working in the long run
A tax is usually applied to help facilitate maintenance for something you are using. Or to disincentivize "bad" behavior. For example i pay taxes in the US that directly help pay for public schools, the fire department, roads, etc.
How does the french government bear and cost if i download data from a data center? What bad behavior is disincentivezed with this tax?
Not saying that this is not a stupid law nonetheless.
https://x.com/videolan/status/2116229135919919278?a=5Ua5pSOr...
get.videolan.org
I wonder if you host the files on a US server instead, and people from France download it, who ends up paying for the traffic?
This legislation seems so ill-conceived, it would almost rival UK's debacle trying to fine 4chan for some non-compliance.
Combined with universal suffrage and the welfare state to buy votes it is a recipe for decline and ruin.
The french state is bankrupt like all the other western democracies. They hide their pension obligations well, but that doesn’t change reality.
This system will continue to suck everything it can out of the young and the productive, because those are the incentives. There is no point at which it will stop, short of regime change.
Edit: I apologize to the French people. I did not intend to disrespect your innovations.
Given that the content providers (CDNs) are targeted, that would incentivize p2p. P2P networks are already employed by Microsoft to distribute updates, for instance.
What about CDNs? The article mention Valve, but their traffic comes from Akamai.
In any case, I would be surprised if this law ends up being adopted.
It doesnt really matter. The damage is already done.
Macron tried to turn France (unsuccessfully one might say) into a country that is open to tech businesses. This law amongst other things (record tax rates, record deficit, weak economic growth, political instability, riots and much more) is simply another signal that opening a business in France today is just too risky and this will impact future growth for sure.
You have countries that look to the future and invest in it and then you have France.
This passed late at night with an 11 to 10 vote (the entire assembly is 577 people). Odd amendments like this apparently pass somewhat frequently in similar ways.
Even though it passed, it's likely to be killed by the more right-wing parties when it gets to the senate.
I've already had enough endless discussions with people saying that the US government will jail and fine US individuals on the behalf of France and Germany if they don't put cookie banners on their websites...
That said, we do have the Germans as neighbours who are pretty damn skilled too.
Does the French state believe that its sole purpose is to extract money from any possible source for the sake of it?
even if content providers are paying - it still inhibits consumption as content providers simply pass the cost to the consumer.
imagine netflix vs megaupload. megaupload or any of those or torrents - they could be registered entities or none but they r not gonna pay. consumers will simply get their content from those sites vs the official ones.
show me the incentives and I will show you the outcome as charlie munger said.
Oh yeah you also have to not kill the population economically. What about the citizens who are doing large scale research on datasets? Those are the ones who are going to make billion dollar companies and they wont happen if they are watching the meter all the time because the government has decided to tax thought, so better not think too much!
Note that this amendment to the law was passed with 11 votes for, 10 no... With a national assembly of 577. I have to assume it was voted at night, that's when peak democracy happens.
What’s more fun is that while france is teetering on the brink, it’s hardly alone, and it’s collapse will tip the dominoes.
Something to look forward to, I guess.
nick486•1h ago