IT Essentials: The unstoppable force has met the immovable object

And it all ends in tears

Depending on who you talk to, regulation is either a dirty word that stifles opportunity and innovation, or - especially for those working with AI - a necessary evil that promotes safety.

Big Tech firms fall into the former category, lobbying against regulation whenever and wherever it appears. Sometimes they're successful, sometimes not, and sometimes they throw their toys out of the pram - a trend that's becoming depressingly regular.

In 2021, Meta blocked access to news on its social platforms in Australia. This month, it did the same thing in Canada. In both cases it was protesting against a new law that would have forced it to pay publishers to use and share their content, in one of the worst cases of corporate angst we've ever seen.

This week, there's been a rumour that a similarly grumpy Apple has complied with new EU legislation in the strictest letter-not-spirit-of-the-law way possible. After the European Union mandated that all new smartphones sold in the region would need to share the USB-C charging standard from 2024, Apple appears to have popped a USB-C port onto a Lightning connector and called it good.

That means the standard and Plus iPhone models will still be limited to USB 2.0 data and charging speeds: a standard now more than a decade old.

That's partly a problem with cable standards: they're not actually very standardised. As long as it has the right jack, what qualifies as 'USB-C' varies wildly. But it's also an entirely predictable outcome of trying to mandate to the libertarian spirit that suffuses Big Tech (which can also afford the world's best lawyers).

Another example, also from this week, is Microsoft finally agreeing to unbundle Teams from Office 365. That's a win for the regulators, but it follows years of the Windows-maker trying to get around the rules with minor concessions offered as a sop - none of which the European Commission has accepted.

So, what happens when an unstoppable force - Big Tech - meets an immovable object - regulation? Well, it's still playing out: Meta capitulated in Australia, but has stuck to its guns in Canada; Apple is worming its way through the cracks with lots of nodding and smiling, while hoping nobody looks at it too closely; and Microsoft got bored.

It turns out that the result of force-meets-object isn't a world-ending cataclysm or a paradox: it's a temper tantrum and a lot of expensive sulking.