Dutch antitrust authority fines Apple for fifth time
So I have been living in the Netherlands for a year or so now and this makes perfect sense judging from seeing Dutch mentality and how they handle police work, law issues, fines, etc.<p>The Dutch always try to avoid making big deals out of anything that does not need to. This starts with the police being extremely well trained, but actively not engaging in anything until it is really needed and just keeping an eye on everything - one mentionable experience was a mentally unwell homeless man in Amsterdam who posed a very obvious threat to public safety by being violent and aggressive towards pedestrians - they showed up before I even realized they were needed, but then just took that guy (who was preparing to assault a random man walking by) to the side, and then had a 20 minute conversation with him, figured out what the reason for his anger was and then left again. The guy just sat down and looked at the ground until his tram arrived… that was already quite weird to see but if it works out I thought..<p>The next memorable experience being the time where I actually completely forgot to file my annual tax statement and, to make matters worse, completely forgot to declare a not small sum of money. I then paid what I thought I owned (3 weeks too late, not one word about it just a nicely worded acknowledgement mail once I did..), left the country for a few months and then returned to find some reminders from them with the very polite note to have a look and check if that is really correct - mind you… in my home country the IRS equivalent would have their best men on me at that point - I did check and got some serious anxiety once I saw that I really did not declare it and it actually looked 100% like I was trying to hide the income on purpose..<p>Guess what they said when I called them with my eyes tearing up and me imagining how much lube I need for this to not hurt.. “First of all, please calm down Mr., your Dutch is very good by the way! Let’s see.. that will be 3% on the amount due, plus 65€ fee for also submitting the report too late. But guess what, it looks like we forgot to calculate all that stuff you submitted for using your apartment to work, so we actually owe you 3k! You&#x27;ll get it soon, and for next time try to submit your report on time, you don’t want to pay 65€ every year now do you hahahaha”<p>The stories just goes on like the time where they caught me technically importing hard drugs on the plane (amphetamines without prescription on my person) and just let me go laughing about it.. or that time where I had to defend my girlfriend from some asshole and I think I broke his nose and they just came (like 20 seconds later), had a look, the other guy just stumbled around, they asked him in Dutch if he thinks he did something wrong, him saying yes sir and them literally saying “I think your parents raised you better than that, no?“ That guy looked like he was about to start crying and that was the end of that story. He apologized to me and my girlfriend on his own accord, told me that I had an insane punch and I told him that I wouldn’t have punched that hard it he wasn’t as attractive and big of a danger to my masculinity and we had a good laugh and went our ways.<p>This just keeps going on and on, nowadays I live in a less „active“ area in Rotterdam right by the harbor but the Dutch mentality is omnipresent in anything and it really makes life so much more enjoyable.<p>And guess what, you can be absolutely fucking sure I make it a point to file and pay my taxes on time, not because it costs 65€ every year but because the symbolic value behind it is so much bigger.. I was awarded a level of respect and humanness and the thought of having to talk to that nice Dutch lady again and her being disappointed for me to have to pay the 65€ again is just not nice. It sounds completely crazy but if you are being treated this way (even if not always) there is no anger or the need to oppose the government any more. You are one of their people, you want to act as such by yourself too.<p>Now that leads me to the point I was actually trying to make, sorry for the ramble, this mentality, obviously, starts to completely and utterly fail when there are businesses like Apple involved that do not have any sense of personal responsibility. The symbolic fines will prove completely useless and are laughed at, but the Dutch will refuse deviating from this strategy. They would rather try this 5 times after another, and then a sixth time, because the whole country does only exist today because at some point everybody had to give up their ego and start working together as a country in order to deal with the water - which as far as I know produced sayings like „We are all in the same boat“.<p>Really, I would argue that companies like Apple do not have sufficient moral values to operate in that kind of responsibility, but the Dutch will uphold theirs anyway, and if it needs to be this will go on just like this for a very long time until someone is burdened with the task of thinking about real consequences, and even then it will probably not what Apple would deserve, just the bare minimum to get them to at least comply with this stupid shit. Another thing seemingly completely incomprehensible to this society, that you would make that kind of a big deal about in the end idiotically small issues as present here.<p>On another note, I have since moved to a less active part of the country, but the surprises don’t stop, they just change. Last weekend there was Storm Eunice, 100+mph.. I think classified as Hurricane, the Dutch do not see this is any kind of special event it seems, or at most as unusual.. I was sitting in the house, truly scared, I looked outside and there were still people going for walks and riding their bicycles (although with great problems). I opened the apartment door and it fucking shot open and slammed so hard against the wall behind it that the paint layer sprung off, to which a passerby reminded me to be careful as there was a storm right now…<p>Last story since this happened today again. A few days after I moved into this apartment, I got woken up by a very loud and heavy continuous sound. I got up, went into the kitchen and outside to the terrace, the sound now being deafeningly loud. I looked up and almost shit my pants. Maybe 300ft above my head, if not less, there was.. a fucking APACHE ATTACK HELICOPTER hovering above the house. A real life fucking Apache. In a relatively peaceful residential area. I couldn’t believe it. There were neighbors outside as well, they did not seem to notice. I said Hi and asked what’s going on? They did not seem to realize what I was on about either and I pointed at the god damn attack helicopter above their heads. They looked at it for a second, and then replied<p>„So what? Is this not compatible with your view of the Netherlands?“<p>Now try to find a reply to that.<p>The Apache is still.. simply around sometimes like today, and I still cannot comprehend the mindset required for god damn attack helicopters sitting above a residential area to be not even noteworthy any more, but that&#x27;s how it is. Nothing else to mention. There is simply an Apache attack helicopter, sometimes also a pair of Ospreys or F15s flying very low above this residential area and doing whatever they do. That&#x27;s just how it is. I got the Apache pilot to wave back once, I guess that was pretty cool but that is just how it is.<p>And now if you consider that almost the whole country is actually several dozen feet under sea level and the only reason it exists as it does.. is because there is a huge network of pumps continuously pumping out the water, day in and day out, and if it was not for these pumps a big percentage of this country would be deep under water, and noone even mentions it or thinks about it because thats just how it is.<p>If you just let this be for a second and try to not go crazy over the insane, absolutely batshit crazy level of mind required to decide this is worth it, you will start to see why the Dutch are where they are and why this issue and Apple itself are being so stupid it is not compatible with this society…<p>Because at the level of lack of morality and sense of responsibility that Apple operates at the Dutch would not have survived.<p>Please, Apple, just fucking do this stupid shit, you don’t deserve the treatment you get.