From our other sites
The story
On October 30, France’s National Assembly passed a bill taxing digital companies that provide high-data-volume services like video streaming and gaming at 5.5 euro cents per gigabyte of data. The tax targets major platforms such as Netflix, Google, Meta, and Amazon — the companies themselves are legally liable for payment, but there’s a widespread view that the cost will ultimately be passed on to users. On 5ch’s game hardware board, a calculation claiming that “downloading a massive title like GTA6 would cost the equivalent of ¥2,100” became a hot topic, sparking debate over a misreading of the tax rate and just how far the cost might trickle down to consumers.
France’s National Assembly adopted the gigabyte tax on Friday,
imposing a charge of 5.5 euros per gigabyte that digital platforms deliver to French internet users.
Source: techaeris.com / Original article here
What people said
The real problem is whoever's pumping out such ridiculously huge data in the first place
I've always thought it was messed up to make people shoulder the cost of data bloat
Streaming video is basically the common man's entertainment — or gaming, entertainment for people with nothing but time on their hands
And that's exactly what they're coming after first. Scary stuff.
Digital data providers — content and streaming companies like Netflix, Google, Meta, and Amazon — are the ones liable for it.
So it'll probably just get tacked onto the usage fee, I'd guess?
About €0.055 is roughly ¥10, right?
Still rough either way
Re: #11
Apparently the companies get billed for it
so it'll just mean a price hike or they pull out, right?
What's the misunderstanding here?
Re: #17
Euro CENTS!
The platform companies are the ones who technically pay, but there's no way they won't pass that cost on through pricing
so it'll end up tacked onto what consumers pay in the end
You won't be able to run video calls on Teams anymore at this rate
Even the riots in France started out as students just petitioning for cleaner schools and air conditioning, you know
University is basically free all the way through in France, so young people actually have it pretty good
Twitch completely shut down its service in South Korea as of February 27, 2024, after it could no longer bear the burden of the country's steep network usage (connection) fees.
That'd be ¥20,000 for 200GB, right?
Got a feeling it'll just mean higher fees for users in the end though
Got baited
For games, that means the game company foots the bill, right?
For online games, they'd get charged based on how much data gets sent and received during play — worst case, they just don't release in France at all
And if it's not even sold there but people play it anyway somehow, who ends up paying then?
Just browsing YouTube alone can easily burn through several gigs in a day
Games that are just huge downloads are basically catching stray bullets here
You know full well that's pointless — GTA is basically all-digital these days
Now it'll be interesting to see whether Google tries to pass the cost onto end consumers
That's just a 'code in a box' though
Is it just a masochistic national streak or something?
The government's broke, so they're desperate to squeeze money out of wherever they can
Charging extra above X gigabytes seems fair enough
Squeeze extra money out of people who keep downloading huge files
But updates, extra DLC, demos, and the like should be on the publisher's dime
Isn't that already handled by ISPs with stuff like speed throttling?
This is a tax on content platforms, so it'll get taxed like cigarettes or booze — prices go up, and I think it ends up killing games too
That's the one time even the opposition would suddenly cooperate lol
That's because people start pulling stuff on 10G lines that nobody asked for, when a 2G line would've been plenty
GTA6 would run ¥9,800 (+ ¥2,100 gigabyte tax)?
That's genuinely off-putting
It's not like you only download it once, you know?
Storage is limited, so people are routinely advised to delete and reinstall it
Background and Key Points of This Topic
This bill taxes major digital companies that deliver high-data-volume content, such as video and game streaming, at 5.5 euro cents (about €0.055) per gigabyte of data. The companies liable for the tax are platforms like Netflix, Google, Meta, and Amazon — users don’t pay the tax directly themselves. Within the thread, confusion between “5.5 euros” and “5.5 euro cents” briefly spread a misunderstanding that it would cost “¥20,000 for 200GB.” It’s a common structure in tax systems for the legal taxpayer to differ from whoever actually ends up bearing the cost, and several posters pointed out that companies here could likewise pass the expense on to users through price hikes or added fees. The specific yen figure floated for a massive title like GTA6 is just an amateur estimate — how far (and in what form) the cost actually trickles down will depend on how the tax is implemented going forward.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Hardware/Industry [Geha]) thread “France Passes Gigabyte Tax! Downloading GTA6 Will Incur a ¥2,100 Tax.”
Leave a Reply