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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

#161

Post by DominikR »

soundwave106 wrote: post #92
DominikR wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Invasion implies use of force and against the will of someone. Nobody forces you to use Google services, eat hamburgers or listen to US music.

Downvotes for this? I personally think that many who use the "cultural invasion" angle fail to realize that it often ends up being a two way street. In the US, not many people make a big deal when, say, a French film wins a US Academy Award (example: The Artist) or a French artist tops the US pop charts (example: Daft Punk). It's a global world, after all. Perhaps there is some scope for protecting the uniqueness of…

I as a citizen of a EU country (Austria) also share the same concerns regarding NSA and invasion of privacy by the US government and I'm highly critical of the wars started/instigated by the US in the last 20 years.

But I have no problem with being fair even if I'm the loser in the end. Google is in it's space better than anyone else by far (in the Western hemisphere), same goes for many if not most other tech companies.

I cringe when thinking about using a German or French search engine and having no other option because the EU commission has imposed a ban on all foreign competition. Sadly we are moving in this direction.

The solution I believe is to change our legal framework to reduce the risks, bureaucracy and costs (taxes) for founders of startups. Currently in many EU countries a failed business means for a founder that he'll lose everything he owns.

And if the founder has some kind of success he'll be tortured by bureaucracy and insane taxes/regulations. (50% just for income tax, in France there was even a 75% tax for a few years)

For example if you employ a handicapped person in Austria you almost have no way of ever firing that person. You have to request this from a government commission but they rarely allow this.

Or you hire a woman that gets pregnant. She gets paid leave for up to 2 or 3 years (the government pays for that, but in the end we pay higher taxes for this) and when she gets back she has the right to be employed by you for 5 years in the same or an equivalent job without any way to fire her.

I get that these laws have been created because employees were abused but this is too much.

Edit: When I talk about firing persons I mean of course bad players that don't do their job well or worse, cause damage to the company. I don't care about a persons background, race or sex as long as the job is done well.

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

#162

Post by DominikR »

Aelinsaar wrote: post #109
DominikR wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Do you think that Comcast and Verizon have won because they're the best? The best service providers, or the best at killing competition and bribing politicians?

This happens in every sector in every country and should be persecuted. But I just can't believe that the Silicon Valley tech sector dominates the West just because they are somehow the best at bribing politicians.

I just take a look at Google or Apple products and then compare it to the competition. Sorry to say it, but the US counterparts are far better in almost every way.

That's why we in the EU mostly copy stuff we see in the US and not the other way around. Of course everyone copies ideas, there's nothing bad about that, but to win you also have to be innovative. I miss that here in the EU tech sector.

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

#163

Post by strictnein »

wolfgke wrote: post #100
strictnein wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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?

> How is Netflix bending to the whim of the US government? National security letters.

Netflix has received those? Nope, they haven't.

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

#164

Post by Aelinsaar »

DominikR wrote: post #162
Aelinsaar wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that Comcast and Verizon have won because they're the best? The best service providers, or the best at killing competition and bribing politicians?

This happens in every sector in every country and should be persecuted. But I just can't believe that the Silicon Valley tech sector dominates the West just because they are somehow the best at bribing politicians. I just take a look at Google or Apple products and then compare it to the competition. Sorry to say it, but the US counterparts are far better in almost every way. That's why we in the EU mostly copy stuff…

Google and Apple are impressive both as companies, and in terms of many of their products, absolutely. They are not the norm, just the biggest.

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

#165

Post by wildmusings »

wfo wrote: post #111
yummyfajitas wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, due to the way broadcast television works, it's just not possible to cater to minority tastes. There's just no way to have the people who enjoy niche productions to pay the creators of those productions directly. If only there were some sort of global system for distributing niche productions to those subscribers who want to see them. Perhaps some sort of system using minicomputers to transmit the info…

Broadcast television can and has been catering to minority tastes for many, many years as we all know. It just can't bankroll itself by doing this, so it requires public funds or regulations to prop it up. But sometimes making room for minority viewpoints/culture/attitudes is worth interrupting the all-consuming capitalist neoliberal worldview for a moment, if just long enough to allow someone to point out its many f…

>But sometimes making room for minority viewpoints/culture/attitudes is worth interrupting the all-consuming capitalist neoliberal worldview for a moment, if just long enough to allow someone to point out its many flaws.

So affirmative action for ideas? If you can't win, maybe you can win by forcing people to listen to you?

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

#166

Post by kelukelugames »

hodwik wrote: post #18
kelukelugames wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't Osama bin Laden write a declaration about culture invasion from the West?

That's not just a funny coincidence -- the American left has for decades been slowly allying themselves against the West. That's why no one on the left batted an eye when Google chose Yuri Kochiyama for their Google Doodle, despite that she said in 2003: "...I consider Osama bin Laden as one of the people that I admire. To me, he is in the category of Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba, Fidel Castro.... I thank…

My comment was about the French rejecting Netflix, but okay.

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

#167

Post by HillaryBriss »

zanny wrote: post #43
HillaryBriss wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Fren…

> governments should still be viewed as instruments of the voters to a significant extent. At least in the US at the federal level, certainly not.[1] [1]: https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi...

Does that mean the presidential election's outcome won't make a significant difference for the vast majority of Americans, that whoever is elected - Sanders, Clinton, Trump, et al - will basically administer the Federal government the same way?

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

#168

Post by petecox »

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 problem is even worse for local ethno-linguistic minorities such as Gaelic and Welsh in the UK. Ironically France is only as homogenous as it is due to centuries of centralisation and standardisation deliberately driving out regional linguistic variation.

Which is hardly a comfort to native speakers of regional languages such as Breton, Basque or Occitan.

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

#169

Post by kuschku »

strictnein wrote: post #84
kuschku wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These governments are looking to require that a foreign company fund domestic businesses to be able to access their markets So, like the All-American clause for almost all US govt. contracts? Or the US punishment for VW, requiring them to produce specific cars in the US? > Did the government just stop giving them money once Netflix showed up? Where is the government supposed to get the money from, once they can’t m…

Netflix isn't filling government contracts Nor has Netflix lied to governments for years about the efficiency of their products and purposefully built devices to defeat government tests. VW is either facing massive multi billion dollar fines or has to reach other agreements. VW has had access to the US for decades. Them building electric cars in the US has nothing to do with access to the US market. Netflix will, in…

> VW has had access to the US for decades. Them building electric cars in the US has nothing to do with access to the US market.

That’s literally wrong.

The US government continually blocked VW from the US market, including the EPA sometimes taking 3 years for a single emission test.

As soon as a VW plant in the south of the US was built, somehow all that stopped.

> The government itself will be cut out of the loop and that's really the problem here.

Yes, and that’s the entire issue.

We’re getting a world where companies (which are basically dictatorships of the rich) are getting more power over governments. That doesn’t help anyone but the already rich.

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

#170

Post by zanny »

HillaryBriss wrote: post #167
zanny wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> governments should still be viewed as instruments of the voters to a significant extent. At least in the US at the federal level, certainly not.[1] [1]: https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi...

Does that mean the presidential election's outcome won't make a significant difference for the vast majority of Americans, that whoever is elected - Sanders, Clinton, Trump, et al - will basically administer the Federal government the same way?

I wouldn't say that. The president has a tremendous amount of international influence, and they have control over federal departments and the military to direct a significant amount of their behavior.

They just aren't the people that will change campaign finance reform, build walls, or raise the minimum wage. That is kind of what congress does. So you could elect any president and only see legislation they want passed because either they bargained with the other party in congress or their party had a majority in it already to pass the legislation.

It is only force of habit that most people expect the president's party to go with their policy ideas in congress. If Bernie were president, for example, you would not expect the Dems or Reps in congress to ever support him on anything, because hes anti-establishment.

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