I don't have an X account, so I can't see the conversation, but there don't appear to be any carveouts for non-profits or small businesses in the amendment, unless perhaps "any company offering an internet access service to households and businesses" has more criteria in context than a simple reading would suggest.
I wonder how distribution via torrent would be accounted for. Or if it would be worth it for larger players to adopt such a model, or just pay up or exit France.
MrMorden 41 minutes ago [-]
Your version is marked as rejected three weeks ago. The screenshot is of a version that was adopted today.
Scaevolus 36 minutes ago [-]
Paying 0.055 EUR per GB of traffic sent to French residents makes video streaming fundamentally unprofitable.
phkahler 20 minutes ago [-]
>> Paying 0.055 EUR per GB of traffic sent to French residents makes video streaming fundamentally unprofitable.
How so? If you're paying a few EUR to watch a movie there's should be plenty of profit left.
Kirby64 8 minutes ago [-]
Video streaming platforms are not generally running on a pay-per-view monetization model. A few offer this, but the vast majority of them are offering it at $15-20/months for unlimited streaming. 4K video uses quite a bit of bandwidth. Low end is something like 15Mbps. That’s ~7GB/hour. Or, $0.385/hour at these proposed rates. Doesn’t take long to start approaching the cost of the streaming services charge.
irq 9 minutes ago [-]
What if you're paying a few EUR a month for unlimited streaming on some app, not high profit new movies? The profit they make per episode for some rerurn of some old show you binge is probably a few cents at best.
draugadrotten 47 minutes ago [-]
That Laffer curve is going to hit France in the gonads.
mitxela 24 minutes ago [-]
Laffer curve is about percentages (and also irrelevant below 80-90% and irrelevant if you think government shouldn't be a business). Taxing people with zero money millions of dollars isn't even on the curve, it's just a completely separate bad thing.
The separate internet tax on the other hand, that's about 1000% of the cost of internet, and a 1000% tax is definitely on the wrong side of the laffer curve. They are essentially banning the internet.
juancn 33 minutes ago [-]
France is desperate.
They have a deficit problem, they cannot print money and people really don't want to give up their pensions.
Unless the curb public spending they are heading to a hard crash (and will probably take a couple other economies for the ride).
mitxela 23 minutes ago [-]
Couldn't they just admit the problem with capitalism is that you run out of other people's money, and then stop giving all the money to billionaires, and then there'd be enough money? The french government is who decided the french government has to pay all that money, they can just decide differently.
brandur 11 minutes ago [-]
Quite terrifying that this appears to be a sincere comment. The top marginal tax rate on French nationals including CEHR is over 55%. The country spends ~60% of its GDP, almost 10% higher than the European average, let alone the average worldwide.
Could you elaborate how France is "giving all the money to billionaires"?
thaumasiotes 9 minutes ago [-]
> Couldn't they just admit the problem with capitalism is that you run out of other people's money
What do you mean when you say "capitalism"?
MayeulC 10 minutes ago [-]
I mean, the law is stupid, but as one of the commenters there says, there is a 2% revenue (profit?) cap, and I don't think that VideoLAN makes a lot of revenue.
ChrisArchitect 29 minutes ago [-]
Discussion:
French national assembly votes 0.055€/GB internet tax
The stupidity of European politicians is that extreme, it cannot be explained away by assuming a lack of education. I was never a conspiracy theorist, but the discrepancy between "That's something an educated person should understand" and what they are actually doing is that large I cannot bridge it mentally.
This may be a defect of mine, it probably is, but I have no but.
cjs_ac 39 minutes ago [-]
If you’re an American, the only news you hear from Europe is clickbait peddled by American journalists. Day-to-day politics in European countries doesn’t affect Americans, so it isn’t reported on. Journalists in Europe pay excess attention to American school shootings and Texas’ decades-long struggle to successfully administer the death penalty for the same reasons.
nekusar 10 minutes ago [-]
I disagree.
I've been watching Iceland news, along with machine translation of Icelandic.
Right now, they're increasing taxes on parking, toll roads, 30% increase on hotels and B&B's, and per-kilometer driving tax.
It's insane the amount of taxes on taxes on taxes. And foreigners not in the know are about to get whalloped for $1000 extra around the ring road.
Sure, Iceland isn't EU proper. But they are Schengen along with other alliances. EU complaint stands, given they tax tax tax tax.
ThrowawayTestr 20 minutes ago [-]
What does your comment have to do with out of touch European politicians?
24 minutes ago [-]
Gys 1 hours ago [-]
The combination of ignorant politicians and smart lobbyists is universal.
Edit: why would VLC or any online company stay in France?
advisedwang 33 minutes ago [-]
> why would VLC or any online company stay in France?
IIRC all the people involved with VLC are French and live in France. They might want to stay in their native country where they speak the language, have families, have the right to remain and vote etc etc.
api 35 minutes ago [-]
My big fear about right wing politicians is corruption and authoritarian right assaults on women and minorities.
My big fear about left wing politicians is well intentioned stupidity.
arjie 29 minutes ago [-]
That does present the situation grimly. Do you pay the Danegeld to get the former to not do the assault thing? After all, the malicious competent can perhaps be bought. On the other hand, the incompetent could be manipulated by a sufficiently capable intelligence. I'm not one of those, but then again I'm not one of those who can buy the malicious competent either, to say nothing of the unfortunate situation where one ends up with the malicious incompetent - having mistaken malice for unaligned self-interested competence.
mitxela 22 minutes ago [-]
It's extremely common that when a right wing government transitions to a left wing government, the left wing government notices it has insane unpayable debt and tries a bunch of desperate things to repay it.
Mamdani had the same problem but was luckily able to negotiate practicable payment plans on NYC's debt.
Also I believe it's much easier to solve well intentioned stupidity than to solve malice.
I don't have an X account, so I can't see the conversation, but there don't appear to be any carveouts for non-profits or small businesses in the amendment, unless perhaps "any company offering an internet access service to households and businesses" has more criteria in context than a simple reading would suggest.
I wonder how distribution via torrent would be accounted for. Or if it would be worth it for larger players to adopt such a model, or just pay up or exit France.
How so? If you're paying a few EUR to watch a movie there's should be plenty of profit left.
The separate internet tax on the other hand, that's about 1000% of the cost of internet, and a 1000% tax is definitely on the wrong side of the laffer curve. They are essentially banning the internet.
They have a deficit problem, they cannot print money and people really don't want to give up their pensions.
Unless the curb public spending they are heading to a hard crash (and will probably take a couple other economies for the ride).
Could you elaborate how France is "giving all the money to billionaires"?
What do you mean when you say "capitalism"?
French national assembly votes 0.055€/GB internet tax
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50308240
How can I see an English translation?
This may be a defect of mine, it probably is, but I have no but.
I've been watching Iceland news, along with machine translation of Icelandic.
Right now, they're increasing taxes on parking, toll roads, 30% increase on hotels and B&B's, and per-kilometer driving tax.
It's insane the amount of taxes on taxes on taxes. And foreigners not in the know are about to get whalloped for $1000 extra around the ring road.
Sure, Iceland isn't EU proper. But they are Schengen along with other alliances. EU complaint stands, given they tax tax tax tax.
Edit: why would VLC or any online company stay in France?
IIRC all the people involved with VLC are French and live in France. They might want to stay in their native country where they speak the language, have families, have the right to remain and vote etc etc.
My big fear about left wing politicians is well intentioned stupidity.
Mamdani had the same problem but was luckily able to negotiate practicable payment plans on NYC's debt.
Also I believe it's much easier to solve well intentioned stupidity than to solve malice.