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Why the World Is Drawing Battle Lines Against American Tech Giants

nytimes.com

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Re: Why the World Is Drawing Battle Lines Against American Tech Giants

#21

Post by at-fates-hands »

georgeecollins wrote: post #4

This is a bit overblown. Amazon doesn't have the retail sales of Walmart even in the US. Walmart has been able to dictate to manufactures rules for packaging and distribution for a couple decades now. Somehow we survived and now they are being disrupted. Europe may be "vulnerable" to US tech companies but it is not clear they will be as successful in China, India and other parts of the world.

A lot of countries are already very weary of US Tech companies coming in and doing what they do best - drive competition, drive down costs and get people to buy their products.

All you have to do is see how India has been handling Apple, keeping them at bay and out of their country.

Re: Why the World Is Drawing Battle Lines Against American Tech Giants

#22

Post by strictnein »

verroq wrote: post #10
barisser wrote: post #3

I found this article really frustrating. The US government forces American tech companies to spy on users, so US companies are to blame? These services are so useful and well-liked around the world that they should be considered a threat? The author is amazingly willing to accord French bureaucrats the right to regulate the cultural consumption of Frenchmen. How is this defensible? Should we knock Netflix because it…

How is it not problematic when American tech form an oligopoly on internet services? Especially when these services need to bend to the whims of American government.

> "Especially when these services need to bend to the whims of American government."

In what way are they doing that today? How is Netflix bending to the whim of the US government?

Re: Why the World Is Drawing Battle Lines Against American Tech Giants

#23

Post by JPKab »

georgeecollins wrote: post #4

This is a bit overblown. Amazon doesn't have the retail sales of Walmart even in the US. Walmart has been able to dictate to manufactures rules for packaging and distribution for a couple decades now. Somehow we survived and now they are being disrupted. Europe may be "vulnerable" to US tech companies but it is not clear they will be as successful in China, India and other parts of the world.

Of all of these companies, Amazon will be by far the most disruptive to these other countries.

The key difference here is that Amazon slowly built and perfected their model here in the USA, allowing domestic competitors time to adapt to the ever growing efficiency and disruption brought by Amazon.

Amazon can then take this perfected model and drop it like a bomb in other countries. (Not that they haven't already done so in certain segments, but wait until Amazon Fresh hits some of these countries)

Eventually, even the US is going to face a HUGE disruption with the advent of self-driving trucks. As bad as that will be in the US, it will be worse in Europe, where wages for truckers are much higher and will incentivize replacement. I predict that Europe will be much, much later to approve self-driving vehicles than the US will for these reasons.

Re: Why the World Is Drawing Battle Lines Against American Tech Giants

#24

Post by chrischen »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #9
verroq wrote: post #2

The world is slowly learning from China.

Learning how to have slaves for population? How noble of them. Not really.

I lived in China. Can confirm I was not a slave, at least not in the sense that America had black slaves.

Re: Why the World Is Drawing Battle Lines Against American Tech Giants

#25

Post by sievebrain »

di4na wrote: post #11
barisser wrote: post #3

I found this article really frustrating. The US government forces American tech companies to spy on users, so US companies are to blame? These services are so useful and well-liked around the world that they should be considered a threat? The author is amazingly willing to accord French bureaucrats the right to regulate the cultural consumption of Frenchmen. How is this defensible? Should we knock Netflix because it…

Let's look at it the other way. Launching a movie cost a ton of money. So to keep a diverse culture ( we all agreee diversity is great isn't it?) and diverse way to think, you need to help less mainstream way to think. You spend years elaborating complex way to let mainstream exists and makes money, without disturbing it too much, but still keep a working amount of culture disruptor and new ideas growing. And you eve…

So to keep a diverse culture ( we all agreee diversity is great isn't it?)

No, we don't all agree. Not when the "diversity" is someone looking at the market and saying "there are too many good movies. we need some shit ones". Nobody needs to diversify away from quality, which is essentially what the French laws do.

Don't mistake the bizarre fetishes of a small number of French elite with some kind of natural law or elegant philosophy. The French government have to protect their cultural industry because it produces bad stuff that even the French don't want to watch. There is no justification for this: every attempted justification boils down to sophistry.

Re: Why the World Is Drawing Battle Lines Against American Tech Giants

#26

Post by dougmany »

barisser wrote: post #3

I found this article really frustrating. The US government forces American tech companies to spy on users, so US companies are to blame? These services are so useful and well-liked around the world that they should be considered a threat? The author is amazingly willing to accord French bureaucrats the right to regulate the cultural consumption of Frenchmen. How is this defensible? Should we knock Netflix because it…

>These services are so useful and well-liked around the world that they should be considered a threat?

Just because something is well liked, does not mean it is beneficial to society overall. Junk food and facebook come too mind. I love Netflix but part of me feels my life would be better without it too.

Re: Why the World Is Drawing Battle Lines Against American Tech Giants

#27

Post by Zigurd »

wonder_er wrote: post #6

I see four parties in play, but the author describes only two: 1. Foreign governments 2. American government 3. American companies ----Not mentioned in the article---- 4. Foreign citizens 5. American citizens Groups 3, 4, and 5 are more-or-less aligned. Groups 1, 2, and 3 have more conflict than anything else. Since American companies are doing an end-run around control, governments are frustrated. I'd never expect o…

Foreign governments have been surprisingly un-wary of American technology. Considering their autonomy of decision-making, their strategic industries' ability to compete for international business, and, to some extent, their sovereignty is at stake, you'd think they would put more resources into shifting the game toward data privacy.

Re: Why the World Is Drawing Battle Lines Against American Tech Giants

#28

Post by bduerst »

vox_mollis wrote: post #8
barisser wrote: post #3

I found this article really frustrating. The US government forces American tech companies to spy on users, so US companies are to blame? These services are so useful and well-liked around the world that they should be considered a threat? The author is amazingly willing to accord French bureaucrats the right to regulate the cultural consumption of Frenchmen. How is this defensible? Should we knock Netflix because it…

The US government forces American tech companies to spy on users, so US companies are to blame? We still, to this day, don't know the extent to which PRISM and BULLRUN participation was forced, voluntary, or completely opaque. We have Marissa Meyer claiming USG threatened charges of treason, and we have Google denying involvement full-stop. I doubt if we'll ever know.

We do have an idea though. Industry experts have said they think that PRISM was a dark fiber hack between data centers (even the name implies it).

Most tech companies have closed the exploit by encrypting data over dark fiber.

Re: Why the World Is Drawing Battle Lines Against American Tech Giants

#29

Post by marxidad »

DominikR wrote: post #14
verroq wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it not problematic when American tech form an oligopoly on internet services? Especially when these services need to bend to the whims of American government.

> How is it not problematic when American tech form an oligopoly on internet services? They are the best so they won. I have no problem with that and I don't think anyone should have as long as there's no abuse of power. > Especially when these services need to bend to the whims of American government. This is what I have a problem with.

They didn't win because they are the best, unless you mean they are the best at winning for arbitrary reasons, like random market forces.

Re: Why the World Is Drawing Battle Lines Against American Tech Giants

#30

Post by HillaryBriss »

wonder_er wrote: post #6

I see four parties in play, but the author describes only two: 1. Foreign governments 2. American government 3. American companies ----Not mentioned in the article---- 4. Foreign citizens 5. American citizens Groups 3, 4, and 5 are more-or-less aligned. Groups 1, 2, and 3 have more conflict than anything else. Since American companies are doing an end-run around control, governments are frustrated. I'd never expect o…

Maybe 4 and 5 are not quite so aligned? In democracies, governments should still be viewed as instruments of the voters to a significant extent.

Significant quantities of French voters have supported a government that tries to preserve and extend the French language and culture. In some ways, countering the influence of a large American company and the culture it imports can be seen as a legitimate expression of French voters, n'est-ce pas?

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