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Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

foreignpolicy.com

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Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#751

Post by GreenWatermelon »

lurking_swe wrote: post #656
ndriscoll wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression is that many if not most KDE developers are in Europe. That's some of the most useful user-facing software that exists. Most big American "tech" has essentially no utility, and is built around mindless scrolling, spying, and ads.

No utility you say? i’d argue all of this is relevant to consumers and/or businesses in europe: • Microsoft windows • microsoft office (excel, etc) • google search • google maps • gmail and yahoo mail • smartphones • space-x (affordable satellite launches - for accurate weather forecasts and GPS) • OpenAI (pioneering LLM’s from a product perspective) • Visa and Mastercard networks • AWS / Azure / GCP • Adobe (photosh…

> No utility you say? i’d argue all of this is relevant to consumers and/or businesses in europe: > > • Microsoft windows > > • microsoft office (excel, etc) > > • google search > > • google maps > > • gmail and yahoo mail > > • smartphones > > • space-x (affordable satellite launches - for accurate weather forecasts and GPS) > > • OpenAI (pioneering LLM’s from a product perspective) > > • Visa and Mastercard networks > > • AWS / Azure / GCP > > • Adobe (photoshop, etc) > > • Zoom / Webex (Skype is an exception, created in europe) > > • Salesforce > > • DocuSign > > • AutoCAD > > I can list more if you’d like…this was literally off the top of my head. All of these businesses and products were created in the united states, some with VC funding. They employ hundreds or thousands of engineers, product managers, etc. They provide critical business capabilities to businesses around the world. Some are user facing as well. > > As far as critical business software Europe has created Skype, SAP, and i think that’s it? From the hardware side, major kudos for ASML and Airbus. > > The stuff you read about in the news is focused on bad actors and toxic social media junk. thats a small piece of big tech.

Honestly, this comment inadvertently proves the need to quarantine US tech. Almost every product you listed is utter garbage, especially Windows.

There's nothing inherently better about Windows than Linux. Libre Office suit can become much better than MS Office if ot got enough suppoet - support that just goes away to M$ contracts.

Google search has become utter garbage.

Hetzner exists, and more Cloud companies would exist if it weren't for America's Big Tech having a competitive advantage due to their sheer size.

Adobe is a shit company with shit behavior. I'd welcome its implosion anytime. Again, if the billions siphoned away for their licenses was spent on FOSS alternatives, we'd end up with such healthier ecosystem.

Visa and Mastercard are leas innovation and more completely regulated duopoly at this point.

Also, with the exception of SpaceX, I'd gladly welcome the complete implosion of all companies you mentioned. I'd love to watch them burn to cinders, while the world finally breathes free.

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#752

Post by GreenWatermelon »

lurking_swe wrote: post #657
amai wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No innovation in Europe? Who created Linux? Python? ARM? ASML? Outside of IT: BioNTech (first Covid mRNA vaccine), Ozempic from Novo Nordisk? A fee seconds of googling is enough to show how ridiculous this claim is.

The trouble with these examples is that many of them are foundations or open source projects. They don’t employ europeans and provide a direct boost to the european economy. So yes there is definitely innovation but is it translating to JOBS in europe? Is python a company that hires hundreds or thousands of engineers, product managers, etc? no. Same with Linux. Also Linux was created by a european (torvalds) while he…

This is less a nitpick and more moving the goalpost. GP Talked about innovation, while you argue job creation.

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#753

Post by GreenWatermelon »

tdiff wrote: post #528

I think that people outside EU who believe it does not need big tech may be unaware that average salary in EU IT is around 80k, and actually a lot of people (not only IT, but also doctors, for instance) relocate to US/UK/Swiss hoping to make much more money. Its not clear who will be running innovative companies here and how EU is going to compete with China's completely different work ethics.

Big tech didn't create linux or git. Big tech isn't working on Firefox or Kagi.

Big tech created windows, chrome, and ads. Big tech puts ads in everything, everywhere, all the time.

I'd say big tech going away is a good thing. We need more linixes, firefoxes, wnd Kagis.

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#754

Post by GreenWatermelon »

Lichtso wrote: post #134
meiraleal wrote: post #2

Regulating the tech Market is great for local tech só what happens is pretty the opposite. No country will lose GDP if meta or google leave

> Regulating the tech Market is great for local tech Except, it is not. At least not in the situation that the EU is in. Because all regulations are a constant burden on business, small relative to big corporations, huge for medium companies and insurmountable for startups. The EU has no big players, not a single one! We have a few medium players like SAP and that is it. So, we are already far behind and every weight…

It's good the EU doesn't have a big player. Having big players is like having cancer. The EU has a functioning Immune system, the US is buckling under its immunu-comporomised ass. The resources ~~cancer cells~~ big players are extracting aren't going to the people.

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#755

Post by GreenWatermelon »

threeseed wrote: post #48
chmod775 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you just counting on others being too exhausted to bring yet another moot argument to its predetermined conclusion? I'll finish it to save everyone some time: A: how much of gdp is facilitated through the search abilities of meta and google, though? B: It doesn't matter. A: Why not? B: There will be someone else who is willing to play by the local rules fulfilling the same function in their place, just like in ma…

> There will be someone else who is willing to play by the local rules Building a competitive search engine or AI model requires VC investment. It's simply too expensive to do otherwise. VC investment requires a vibrant startup ecosystem, well crafted regulations and a risk-tolerant culture.

lol. Kagi exists and kicks the ever-loving shit of the garbage bin that is google search.

So no, ot doesn't require VC cash to build something useful for people.

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#756

Post by [deleted] »

GreenWatermelon wrote: post #755
threeseed wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There will be someone else who is willing to play by the local rules Building a competitive search engine or AI model requires VC investment. It's simply too expensive to do otherwise. VC investment requires a vibrant startup ecosystem, well crafted regulations and a risk-tolerant culture.

lol. Kagi exists and kicks the ever-loving shit of the garbage bin that is google search. So no, ot doesn't require VC cash to build something useful for people.

[deleted]

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#757

Post by mafuku »

awesomeMilou wrote: post #517
roenxi wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty telling though. When dijit was talking about Tencent, Microsoft or Google a few comments ago they were being presented as these huge incumbent behemoths that scoop up everything in their path. And, fair enough, they are. But when Nokia starts with an overwhelming incumbents advantage, their board doesn't even have confidence that Nokia's internal talent pool can lead them to make a mobile phone! They couldn't…

> their board doesn't even have confidence that Nokia's internal talent pool can lead them to make a mobile phone! I'm sorry but it's honestly pointless discussing this as no one in this thread wants to spend even an ounce of time into researching this. Reading your comment in it's entirety tells me you weren't there when stuff was happening. > That was an A-Team EU hardware company's performance. For the record, the…

I used to have a Lumia phone as a teenager and it was very nice. I loved how curved and rounded it was, made it look very sleek and sci-fi, and it felt really good in the hand. Even the panel-style home screen was considered to be pretty cool. I remember at the time that, as you say, the main criticism was that it was isolated from the main android/iOS app store ecosystem and there were hardly any apps for it.

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#758

Post by LorenPechtel »

nradov wrote: post #628
LorenPechtel wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a symbol of trust in identity, not trust in veracity. Same as SSL certificates.

Nah, it was never a symbol of trust in identity. A lot of those accounts were actually managed by social media staff, not by the "verified" people themselves. It was always just a meaningless vanity mark.

If the person chooses to have others manage it that's their business. That doesn't change the basic nature--it's saying this is who it claims it is.

As someone described it: You know that https://www.satan.com is actually Satan but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to sell your soul there.

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#759

Post by jjtheblunt »

GreenWatermelon wrote: post #755
threeseed wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There will be someone else who is willing to play by the local rules Building a competitive search engine or AI model requires VC investment. It's simply too expensive to do otherwise. VC investment requires a vibrant startup ecosystem, well crafted regulations and a risk-tolerant culture.

lol. Kagi exists and kicks the ever-loving shit of the garbage bin that is google search. So no, ot doesn't require VC cash to build something useful for people.

Kagi is wonderful: agreed!

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#760

Post by lurking_swe »

GreenWatermelon wrote: post #751
lurking_swe wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No utility you say? i’d argue all of this is relevant to consumers and/or businesses in europe: • Microsoft windows • microsoft office (excel, etc) • google search • google maps • gmail and yahoo mail • smartphones • space-x (affordable satellite launches - for accurate weather forecasts and GPS) • OpenAI (pioneering LLM’s from a product perspective) • Visa and Mastercard networks • AWS / Azure / GCP • Adobe (photosh…

> No utility you say? i’d argue all of this is relevant to consumers and/or businesses in europe: > > • Microsoft windows > > • microsoft office (excel, etc) > > • google search > > • google maps > > • gmail and yahoo mail > > • smartphones > > • space-x (affordable satellite launches - for accurate weather forecasts and GPS) > > • OpenAI (pioneering LLM’s from a product perspective) > > • Visa and Mastercard network…

ok, but real businesses and governments actually use them to run their business.

How long do you think a typical business would survive without excel? Do you realize how crazy powerful excel is? I hate that tool as an engineer but its utility is immense. I agree windows is junk, yet it somehow ends up in all the critical infrastructure lol. Crazy but that’s what happens. Same with autocad- good luck efficiently designing physical infrastructure like bridges in your country without that tool.

Hetzner is not struggling to compete with AWS or Azure because it’s smaller…it’s because Hetzner has almost no features. They have even less features than DigitalOcean. Hetzner basically offers VPS hosting, elastic block storage, and easy deployment of some common apps. Do they offer any of the building blocks for deploying a high traffic service into production? Or deploying something that requires a lot of distributed components? No. stuff like managed databases, flexible file storage (like S3), and most importantly a managed multi-container deployment. Like fargate, ECS or EKS.

example showing how Volkswagen uses AWS and why it’s not a good fit for Hetzner: https://youtu.be/OLy8CgRn8ts?si=VpOYlelneiGI7XZk

—————-

unrelated, i think the LibreOfficr example is interesting. I think it would be difficult to design a competing product because at this time companies pay for a full suite including: outlook, office, sharepoint, etc. and office is available in the browser with realtime multi user editing too! Maybe the LibreOffice project should pivot in that direction? Perhaps they could offer a cheap online version of their products, as a way to fund continued development, while making the desktop version free?

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