Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why the World Is Drawing Battle Lines Against American Tech Giants

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 177 posts

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

#61

Post by Daishiman »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #38
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.

If the current crop of tech companies can supersede MS, AOL, Yahoo, MySpace, etc. Why can't companies from other parts of the globe do it as well? It just takes one company to do something different and build inertia. That's all. What is keeping European companies from toppling Google or FB or Twitter? Edit: Keyboard fail.

Here's a brief list: difficulty for funding or capitalization, an existing concentration of tech talent on a few hubs, smaller market sizes that are less attractive as first launch sites, costs of translation into said markets (not just textual translation, but brand, intention, marketing, etc).

The examples of the companies you mention have been superseded for the most part, but that's also been due to the fact that new players managed to get huge amounts of cash through funding. Believe it or not cash is not just that liquid globally that you can fundraise like it's SV anywhere else.

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

#62

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #46
woah wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bin Laden killed many fewer innocent people than were killed and continue to be killed in the American middle eastern wars. Do you feel that Google should deny the doodle to anyone who says anything good about Gerorge W Bush or Barack Obama?

[deleted]

[deleted]

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

#63

Post by chmike »

France is a souverain country that uses his legitimate right to create laws that protect french peoples culture, health, etc. It is more recently after companies that use unethical tricks to not pay taxes to the country. This is stealing the french people. Considering the brutality and souless behaviour of creditors to Greece, the behavior of the French souverain country against tax frauds is perfectly legitimate and regretable necessity.

I whish Americans had more consideration and respect for foreign countries.

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

#64

Post by DominikR »

hellbanner wrote: post #53
criley2 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is beneficial to society, it has dramatically changed how people organize and communicate. You can always tell the difference between facebook users and non facebook users now. The non-facebook users don't hang out as much and don't show up to group events as much. "Why wasn't I invited?" "I hit everyone in the FB invites" "Oh I don't have facebook" "You're not using the tool our entire social group uses to…

Have you considered the "non-facebook users" coordinate offline, in-person and can use other technologies like SMS, email, phone calls, IM, chat apps, running into friends at the store, visiting a friend's workplace and "passing the word along" telling friend A who tells friend B?

Your examples aside from chat apps are quite unrealistic. I don't even know when was the last time I invited someone to an event using any of the listed methods, it must have been years.

But even if running into friends at the store was a thing, it doesn't mean that Facebook is not used by a billion people for organising social events and is therefore beneficial to them.

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

#65

Post by CPLX »

criley2 wrote: post #42
dougmany wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Facebook is beneficial to society, it has dramatically changed how people organize and communicate. You can always tell the difference between facebook users and non facebook users now. The non-facebook users don't hang out as much and don't show up to group events as much. "Why wasn't I invited?" "I hit everyone in the FB invites" "Oh I don't have facebook" "You're not using the tool our entire social group uses to…

> Facebook is beneficial to society

Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't.

That argument hardly obvious enough to take on faith however, the concepts of "widely used, willingly" and "beneficial to society" do not have a 1:1 relationship.

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

#66

Post by AlgorithmicTime »

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…

If the people want diversity, they can choose to watch those diverse films. Then the money they pay to watch those films will encourage others to watch those films. But it seems the people don't want to watch those films.

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

#67

Post by sievebrain »

tensor wrote: post #60
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the current crop of tech companies can supersede MS, AOL, Yahoo, MySpace, etc. Why can't companies from other parts of the globe do it as well? It just takes one company to do something different and build inertia. That's all. What is keeping European companies from toppling Google or FB or Twitter? Edit: Keyboard fail.

There are definitely companies from other countries that do well. For example, Skype, Spotify, Shazam, and Soundcloud are all European.

Don't forget SAP.

Clearly, the key to succeeding as a tech firm in Europe is to start your company's name with an S.

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

#68

Post by lbebber »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #40
chrischen wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

But are you prevented from visiting a wide range of websites? That is them deciding for you what you can and can't do. If you're not Chinese citizen then it's your choice being there. But if you're a Chinese citizen then all choices are made for you, what qualifies you as a slave.

Of course not being able to access a website you want (and censorship in general) is not good, but comparing that to slavery is absolutely ridiculous.

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

#69

Post by tobias3 »

LamaOfRuin wrote: post #16

The article fails to mention some of the most significant events that have happened in this space: Google news fights. Multiple countries have tried to force Google to pay to continue operation of Google News. Google was willing to simply stop operating Google News in those countries, rather than paying for the privilege. It turned out that the media companies needed Google more than Google needed them, and they work…

The best part is that the media companies are now explicitely licensing the content to Google (for free). Google competitors won't have those licenses and won't have the market power to get them for the same conditions, so they made it harder for Google competitors.

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

#70

Post by verroq »

pjc50 wrote: post #58
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 article starts by asking you to view things from another perspective. It's not asking you to "knock" Netflix, it's inviting you to consider the point of view of people who do. American media is subtly hegemonising. All media carries with it the culture of those who produce it, but US media also carries a very strong assumption of "defaultness": that everyone is a (mostly white) American at heart. What effect does…

The irony is that for there to be diversity there must be protectionist policies and xenophobia to preserve it.
Post reply on HN