> "If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock."
Well, a little surprised that didn't lead to a massive shareholder lawsuit considering that what he's saying is borderline illegal.
"Revlon, Inc. v. MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings, Inc." kinda cemented into case law that the court can determine you have to pick the option that maximizes shareholder value. This was related to a merger, but I could see its interpretation being further expanded.
@SlicerDicer@daringfireball@sdw the reality is that boardroom chaos at Apple would probably have tanked the stock enough in the short term that it wouldn't be worth the courtroom drama
but some day that calculation will change and they'll come for the throat of the CEO who pulls this
@feld@daringfireball@sdw It’s not illegal because some things like accessibility, Apple does for legal reasons. They will get sued if they don’t do them. Whether that is the only reason, or is Tim playing a good game of cards, is debatable perhaps, but it’s a solid defense against shareholder lawsuits.
> The legislation will apply from 28 June 2025 to the following.
So yes I'm sure, it is not enforced by anyone yet.
Additionally this law is *crazy* and destroys the chance of there being competition in the market. So now if Microsoft or Nokia wanted to get back into the smartphone game they are going to be forced to meet these standards?
Does this mean it will be illegal to sell e.g., the Librem5 in the EU? This places an incredible burden on anyone who wants to build an open source phone that isn't built on Android
Great job EU, way to once again destroy competition and force a duopoly because of your insane regulations.
@feld@reiterator@daringfireball@sdw there's upward of 4000 ADA lawsuits against software every year because years ago the courts applied a novel theory to argue that some phone apps are a public accommodation. This goes all the way back to the Obama DOJ. A lot of them are dismissed but a lot of them are settled.
@reiterator@feld@daringfireball@sdw it appears this applies to state and local governments (it's been a rule for federal websites for a long time already but many federal sites are still not compliant)
@reiterator@daringfireball@sdw Google/Android really can't compare to VoiceOver, Voice Control, and the Braille keyboard input that Apple has had for years.
Maybe it's better now but Android has been many many years behind on this.
@feld@daringfireball@sdw So your position is that a large multinational like Apple only needs to start trying to comply after a law is in effect, not plan ahead beginning from the time the law is enacted? (In this case, 2019).
@sun@feld@daringfireball@sdw Ok. I suspect Apple sells devices to those government agencies. The article also refers to title 2 of ADA that is above my pay grade to understand, but if I were a lawyer defending against a shareholder lawsuit, I would probably read carefully.
@reiterator@daringfireball@sdw turns out it doesn't really matter, the law you cited has a huge exception that everyone smart will use. They can just argue the economic burden is too high and they get a free pass to not do the accessibility work.