Comment by reactordev
10 days ago
Asking my EU friends, why do you let yourselves be bamboozled by the US tech companies when you’re totally capable of doing it yourselves?
Seriously. You don’t need Google. You just need a plan and a will to execute.
It is amazing. All the US companies have to do is dangle a “free” solution and the EU will go for it, and then be all surprised pikachu at the terms they agreed to.
EU isn't at all capable of doing that because it's not a hegemonic state, it's just bunch of a countries coming together to coordinate on doing stuff.
My guess on what happened this time is, people were tasked to implement a way to verify age anonymously and this was the only feasible way to do it because of their constraints that don't allow them to do bigger stuff that China or USA will able to do through having the budget and enforcement power.
I don’t disagree, my argument is why continue? The scientific method is thrown out the window. Age verification, oh you need the cooperation of member nations of the EU, ok, wait, everyone has different systems, ok, new objective - standardize the systems so we can do age verification like we want.
I know politics isn’t logical but if you keep drilling down the root cause, eventually you’ll hit bedrock.
Because countries don’t want to give away more sovereignty?
EU needs to federalize but europeans are still too nationalistic for that to happen. Even Germany is too tiny to matter in the global stage but even small countries with population of a city in America will be like “we are special, we can take on USA and China because of our intrinsic characteristics. Even if we can’t we are definitely better than our neighbors”.
Regulation and lack of capital. Just read the report from Mario Draghi if you don't believe me.
We have EU regulations, those are much tighter than in US, on practically every front. Labor, finance, environment, data, AI, you name it, we have it regulated. And then you have the country level regulations on top. That's right, EU sets the floor, not the ceiling.
Suppose you have a start up in Poland, you have managed to get funding and you are offering services in your country. You want to do that in Germany? Get ready for complying with new set of regulations. And you better hope that individual German states don't have something extra on top of those.
All of those regulations have purpose, it is possible that they were designed by well meaning people and bring some benefit. But their compound effect is catastrophic. It is not that you can't push trough, you can, just look at Kiwi or Mikrotik. But it's an uphill battle and your competition from overseas has it so much easier, that they can end up outgrowing you, and eventually buying you out.
What’s the point of regulations when you’re being bent over by US Tech? You can’t say there’s regulations and then give it all to a monopoly…
> You can’t say there’s regulations and then give it all to a monopoly…
Why? These are very closely intersecting things. It is very convenient for government to regulate and force monopolies to do what the government needs. And vice versa, strong regulation allows monopolies to avoid the emergence of new competitors. Win-win.
A lot of this is legacy holdovers from the Biden era.
Both the US, the EU, and the rest of the OECD began the process of aligning digital services taxation and regulation [0][1] under the Biden admin, as it was also a fig leaf tossed at the EU by the US to prevent a potential trade war with the EU [2] due to the IRA and CHIPS act.
The US has now removed itself from this OECD initiative, and most other major markets have begun to as well either due to US pressure or their own self interest. It also played a role in reducing Biden/Harris' chances in 2024, as much of the Obama era tech coalition shifted support and donations to the Trump-Vance campaign due to their support for repealing and fighting against digital services taxes globally.
The US also removed it's gloves when negotiating with the EU this admin compared to previous admins, so dangling the threat of retaliatory measures is not well received and can elicite a quasi-hard power response.
[0] - https://www.eiu.com/n/the-oecd-global-tax-deal-still-hangs-i...
[1] - https://www.oecd.org/en/topics/sub-issues/reallocation-of-ta...
[2] - https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/06/business/dealbook/biden-c...
You need a pile of money first. And that works differently in the EU.
You have sovereignty of the EU and nations willing. Don’t say it will take money. Money is fake. You can do this.
Everyone’s ready. The only reason US is wealthy is those subscription fees and vendor lock in we have.
They will be sued by Google for illegal state aid.
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how does a pile of money work in the EU?
In the US due to various historical economic factors there's a lot more money going around. Basically the EU has to ship $100 of steel to America to get $100, while America can just print it. America has been printing money and giving it to the rich for a long time, resulting in the American rich having relatively huge piles of money and not enough to spend it on, resulting in highly speculative things getting funding, i.e. venture capital.
There isn't really venture capital like that in Europe. Your business has to bootstrap. There are big businesses that could fund big ideas but they are big because they do one thing well - a company like Airbus isn't going to branch out and build an AWS.
Investors want a realistic plan to make money, they will hardly fund anything without a clear strategy on how to make money.
The same way it does anywhere else.
Because most politicians in most countries (even most dictatorships) feel that interfering with the free market is too radical. They feel it's fickle and too risky to upset.
Anyway, if a government tried to make a European smartphone design, it would be treated as any other government supply contract, resulting in a terrible design-by-committee. So in the end, all politicians are willing to do is wait around and say "someone should do something".
It's actually a little better than that. One thing they can do, and have done, is make funds available for individuals and small groups who want to have a go themselves. Notably NLnet funds a lot of projects. They're all small projects though so they're not really capable of displacing megacorps in the free market. Stuff like MNT hardware remains niche hacker stuff.
Lack of capital. Fear of consequences.
Google rolls into town and wants to spend half a billion euro on a datacenter? Sure thing. They'll say that it'll boost the local economy while being built - by creating a couple of thousand jobs for the contractors that are going to build and maintain it, and then some onsite jobs for the next decade or two, creating a couple of hundred jobs for techs / engineers.
And as long as they keep playing ball with google, projects like that will pop up once in a while. If you're difficult, there's also a risk of the rich tech companies taking their business some other place.
With that said, I've recently noticed more voices for building our own stuff - as there's a real risk that US tech companies will simply comply if pushed enough, say, by a POTUS that's out for blood and wants to hurt certain foreign users. Ban/lock out certain users from gaining access to software, turn off their infrastructure, etc. who knows.
But, alas, there just isn't the same willingness to pour in capital on the important things. For private investors it doesn't make much sense, unless they have a bulletproof contract with domestic users willing buy their service - and using state funds isn't too popular, either.
Truth be told, any of the big tech businesses can undercut any competition, and probably build better and faster. If anything, it could be the case for tariffs - outsourcing critical infrastructure will leave you very exposed. If European countries all over the board started to abandon US tech companies, they'd cry to Trump, who in turn would probably start a trade-war.
Now replace Google with an EU company doing it in the EU for EU jobs and everything you described. It’s not like money only comes from the US.
You are right to be worried. US companies under this administration can’t be trusted to follow the law. Why should they, when our commander in chief isn’t and has a panel of judges who let him do whatever. Just the other day he suggested Obama be investigated for treason. So yeah, we’re toxic, and you all should seriously quarantine yourselves.
EU businesses are pretty conservative. They don't have the insane amounts of capital that arose in Silicon Valley as a result of the Bretton Woods system. There are companies that size, but they're all in, like, manufacturing, or coal mining. There's no EU company that both has a billion dollars and knows how to be AWS. There are companies with billions of dollars (euros) and there are different startup companies that probably could be AWS if they tried really hard, but never the twain shall meet.
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It's largely a political issue. At this stage you can't create alternatives to Google and other U.S. tech giants without removing them from the market (so essentially the Chinese approach, which has allowed them to build their own massive tech giants). But that path is nearly impossible for the EU due to the risk of U.S. retaliation. The EU can't even implement a digital tax.
You also can't just say, "Here's a few hundred billion in public support to create alternatives to U.S. tech giants", because the U.S. would argue that it's unfair state aid and retaliate.
There isn't enough private capital in the EU with the risk tolerance required to take on such a challenge independently.
We also lack a reserve currency like the USD, so we can't print $2 trillion a year, much of which ultimately flows into the U.S. stock market and further boosts U.S. tech companies, making competition even harder.
EU markets are already fully penetrated by U.S. behemoths that can either withstand or acquire any privately funded competitor, thanks to their massive cash flows and valuations.
For all these reasons, the outlook isn't very promising.
>>There isn't enough private capital in the EU with the risk tolerance required to take on such a challenge independently.
That can be improved by making traditional investments (real estate, land) less attractive while making investments into businesses more attractive. You just need to change tax incentives by removing capital gain tax and introducing real estate/land value tax (or raising it). Removing red tape would help as well and then making the common market really common.
As it is there is very little incentive to invest in companies here.
> That can be improved by making traditional investments (real estate, land) less attractive while making investments into businesses more attractive. You just need to change tax incentives by removing capital gain tax and introducing real estate/land value tax (or raising it). Removing red tape would help as well and then making the common market really common.
That's unrealistic. Majority of people in the EU own property and/or land, and no one wants to pay even more taxes on it. In my EU country, the majority of politicians own more than two apartments. I don't see them working against their own interests.
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Russia can do it. Thinking EU can’t shows only how low the self esteem is. And it’s a very sad story. EU needs to wake up sooner rather than later.
I'd argue Europe is further in to their economic decline that the US, but both are in a downward trajectory
> And it’s a very sad story. EU needs to wake up sooner rather than later.
Indeed, it's a very sad story. I'm afraid the EU is in a coma, so waking up is not a given.
Russia can do it because they are a dictatorship. If they were a free-market democracy, I very much it would happen.
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What outlook? What planet are we on? Why are we debating who makes better handcuffs? Do E.U citizens prefer their handcuffs be made in Europe? I'm so confused.
The only will you get from EU is to protect incumbents and the only plan is to make another centrally planned fund that distributes money to chosen entities. EU is very good at removing the carrot while wielding a big stick for would be entrepreneurs.
Because politicians are corrupt
Because national interests always end up trumping the EU in it's current form.
American companies like Google [0][1], Amazon [2][7], and Microsoft [3][4][5][6] have spent billions in FDI and hiring, thus building strong relationships with EU states like Ireland, Romania, Poland, Finland, Sweden, and others, but French and German competitors haven't (or don't exist depending on the service or SLA).
This means a significant portion of EU member states have an incentive to maintain the relationship, because the alternative means significant capital outflows. A Polish legislator doesn't have to answer to French voters, so they will incentivize the relationship with BigTech. Thus, these nations will lobby tooth and nail against destroying the relationship.
It's the same reason Hungary courts Chinese FDI [8] and enhancing the Sino-Chinese relationship as leverage against the EU pushing too hard [9].
[0] - https://www.gov.pl/web/primeminister/google-invests-billions...
[1] - https://www.gov.ie/ga/an-roinn-fiontar-turas%C3%B3ireachta-a...
[2] - https://www.aboutamazon.eu/news/job-creation-and-investment/...
[3] - https://centraleuropeantimes.com/microsoft-google-invest-big...
[4] - https://www.reuters.com/technology/nordics-efficient-energy-...
[5] - https://www.idaireland.com/latest-news/press-release/an-taoi...
[6] - https://www.government.se/articles/2024/06/prime-minister-to...
[7] - https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/industries/cloud-technology-emp...
[8] - https://hungarytoday.hu/hungary-seeks-to-stay-leading-europe...
[9] - https://theloop.ecpr.eu/hungary-and-the-future-of-europe/
Don't kid yourself, the US is going to war against anyone that tries to regulate big tech as we are seeing with the US government going against Brazil and the Pix payment system
No it doesn't work that way. That's a lot of political will for little monetary gain. Don't forget that countries in EU are still quite capitalist and many of the bigger companies have huge investments in the US. EU itself is a quite neoliberal org too. It has all sorts of forced privatization laws.
The post WWII doctrine of US that's applied in Europe is strengthening the bigger businesses. Those businesses use US tech since investing in an actual European tech sector is expensive. Especially after all the first players took critical positions.
The time to invest in that sector was in the 80s and 90s. Europe had a different relationship with the US and it was trying to encite small ex-Soviet states to join, so they can exploit the cheap labor. So nobody actually invested in local tech sector.
It is now an uphill battle that'll cost more than the original investment. Only countries with strong independence urge like France is willing to fight it. Most of the EU countries are not.
Where do you get from that we are capable of doing it ourselves? All EU-made software I've used was terrible, and the one that was a bit better than terrible was bought by a US company.
Where do you live? I live in Sweden and I have used a lot of not so bad software from Sweden. Maybe its just your country, but at least in Sweden the government can make software for its services that works well, better than what I've seen from the US government.
> and the one that was a bit better than terrible was bought by a US company
But here you say EU can make great software? Just that USA then buys it. So we should just ban USA from buying our great software companies, is that what you are saying?
Most closed source US software is garbage too. Some stuff, like Steam, is beloved anyway. But actually the program itself is terrible and slow even on decent computers.
Struggling to think of corporate produced software that doesn’t suck. iOS Safari is ok, I guess.
Sure but "almost all tech is bad but almost all non-bad tech is American" in effect means European software is seen as bad. (And as an American who's spent a lot of time in Europe, this has been my experience, personally.)
In America the least bad stuff eventually rises to the top. In Europe it feels like it's all just one shared pit.
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At least in Norway, the user -facing state services are good. They used to suck, but are now good.
I can do most anything online, haven’t had to physically visit an gov office for years, outside voting and getting a new passport photo. And everything just works.
Edit: and before anyone points out that we’re not in EU, yes - but we’re in the EEA.