It is a false choice, forced upon Google by the DMA. To be clear, these are the “choices” you refer to:

A) Do nothing and get fined infinitely
B) Make their UX worse to comply with the DMA, resulting in lost revenue for Google sites … and still possibly get fined anyway
C) Spend millions to maintain interoperability standards that aid competitors who won’t have input in (or pay a cent to fund) such standards … and still possibly get fined anyway

None of these are good for Google. But if you think C is the best choice for a for-profit company, we’ll just agree to disagree.

This is the main flaw with the DMA as written. It shouldn’t leave a gray area or room for “malignant compliance” (which sadly, has no definition in the DMA, so yet another hole in the act). There are obvious ways to make the law better, had regulators did some research and talked to UX designers and tech evangelists beforehand.

Not to lose sight of the original article, I think the most important takeway is that UX designers should shop claiming ignorance around how regulations like the DMA will impact the user experience for consumers. These are UX discussions that should be happening before acts get passed, not afterward.

Designers better get up to speed on these existing and proposed regulations — and more importantly, learn how to predict how companies will react. So when the EU gets around to regulating AI, designers will be able to rationally debate the pros and cons of legislation instead of having their heads stuck in the sand.