As a former European, I agree with your first statement. I love that the EU is taking this seriously, and I like how they introduced the "gatekeeper" term to apply regulations only to the "big ones" and not small businesses (even though I don't agree with many of the individual laws in the DMA).
That said, you can't argue that this isn't protectionist - we simply don't have any gatekeepers here, so if we're fair the DMA is only hitting international competitors (except Spotify maybe?)
Wow, I did not know that, thanks for making me aware of this. I guess the tech press only covers the big cases? I didn't even know there were so many cases already.
edit: I looked it up - you are talking about the DSA (digital services act) while I was talking about the DMA (the one including the gatekeeper specification) - so that's not really what I meant....
No, this is under the DSA (digital services act), not the DMA.
The DSA tells platforms how they must keep users safe and transparent, the DMA tells the largest gatekeepers how they must behave toward competitors and business users.
That said, you can't argue that this isn't protectionist - we simply don't have any gatekeepers here, so if we're fair the DMA is only hitting international competitors (except Spotify maybe?)