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We don't need startups, we need Digital-Mittelstand

mertbulan.com

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Re: We don't need startups, we need Digital-Mittelstand

#191

Post by gizmo »

lnsru wrote: post #128
gizmo wrote: post #104

> However, if you’ve ever used a product marked “Made in Germany,” you’ll understand what German culture truly values: mastery of a craft and uncompromising quality. You won’t find many Germans willing to sacrifice their health or personal milestones—like the birth of a child—for work, or to forgo their well-earned vacation in Mallorca. They’re not the kind to release half-baked products and patch issues later, nor a…

The attitude isn’t changing, I can assure you. Few people see what’s happening for real in the country. The other ones are living in the delusional small nice Germany preparing for 1972 Olympics. If you ask about limiting uncontrolled immigration you’re already Hitler’s son. If you ask about basic product improvement, that makes production cheaper you shouldn’t rock the boat, because it was always done that way. Exam…

Bizarre how you shoehorned a complaint about immigration into this. How are migrants responsible for choices made by blinkered and conservative Mittelstand owners?

It's easy to blame outsiders -- migrants, Chinese, Americans, Russians -- for problems that Germans brought onto themselves. It's exactly this belief in German cultural supremacy that makes serious introspection impossible.

Re: We don't need startups, we need Digital-Mittelstand

#192

Post by gizmo »

hresvelgr wrote: post #97

I think Mittelstand is perhaps misdirecting away from a more interesting conversation. Reading between the lines, this highlights an inherent bias in the majority of American companies to provide service to extract value as opposed to providing service for public benefit. Simply put, it's "move fast and break things" versus "WE DO NOT BREAK USERSPACE." If you want to dig deeper, this is a consequence of America begin…

> "move fast and break things" versus "WE DO NOT BREAK USERSPACE."

An alternative analogy is "binary search" versus "linear search".

With linear search you don't risk overshooting your target, and it's less chaotic, but you also don't progress nearly as quickly.

Re: We don't need startups, we need Digital-Mittelstand

#193

Post by FirmwareBurner »

touwer wrote: post #168
impossiblefork wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? They literally build machines that everybody needs to live. They make everything, all sorts of little of bits you need. If you need a special chemical reactor that resists some weird thing, it's probably from Germany.

Indeed. Zeiss lenses. Medical equipment. Boss. Siemens. The only thing that's really lacking is ict and ai. But that can be fixed

Niche businesses like Zeiss Lenses can't support the economy of the EU of 450 Milion people, especially that they mostly hire highly specialize people with PhD and up.

Re: We don't need startups, we need Digital-Mittelstand

#194

Post by fsflover »

pjc50 wrote: post #157
impossiblefork wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but what if the big-software type economy isn't actually that useful? Maybe you can grow it to 30% of GDP if you start doing a bunch of bad stuff, but if it can be replaced by open source local stuff-- if it's possible to simply kill facebook, Microsoft etc. and replace them with Linux together with a couple of not incredibly expensive software packages developed to provide a substitute, then why should we have…

> Maybe you can grow it to 30% of GDP if you start doing a bunch of bad stuff, but if it can be replaced by open source local stuff-- if it's possible to simply kill facebook, Microsoft etc. and replace them with Linux together with a couple of not incredibly expensive software packages developed to provide a substitute, then why should we have a big-software economy? People have been saying this for twenty or thirty…

All this happening in the US due the lack of good anti-monopoly regulations.

Re: We don't need startups, we need Digital-Mittelstand

#195

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #172
impossiblefork wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but what if the big-software type economy isn't actually that useful? Maybe you can grow it to 30% of GDP if you start doing a bunch of bad stuff, but if it can be replaced by open source local stuff-- if it's possible to simply kill facebook, Microsoft etc. and replace them with Linux together with a couple of not incredibly expensive software packages developed to provide a substitute, then why should we have…

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: We don't need startups, we need Digital-Mittelstand

#196

Post by FirmwareBurner »

nottorp wrote: post #190
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> However, if you’ve ever used a product marked “Made in Germany,” you’ll understand what German culture truly values: mastery of a craft and uncompromising quality. What is OP smoking? I have a Bosch oven, Gigaset DECT phone set and a Fujitsu Siemens laptop, all made in Germany and their quality is complete bottom of the barrel crap, totally the opposite of "craftsmanship and uncompromising quality". Chinese compan…

Are those actually still made in Germany? Siemens got sold looong ago, or at least their consumer facing parts, as far as i know. Except maybe the Bosch oven is made in germany. But tbh I wouldn't buy a Bosch oven, in my corner of the world outside Germany they're known for good tools not kitchen appliances. My Bosch electric screwdriver is great :)

Yes they're still labeled Made in Germany. Although what exactly is made in Germany is unknown to me.

They might even just do the bare minimum for that compliance , and put together sloppily made Chinese made parts in a cardboard box in some warehouse in Germany and call that Made in Germany in order to get subsides from the German state for maintaining jobs in Germany.

Re: We don't need startups, we need Digital-Mittelstand

#197

Post by FirmwareBurner »

fsflover wrote: post #194
pjc50 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe you can grow it to 30% of GDP if you start doing a bunch of bad stuff, but if it can be replaced by open source local stuff-- if it's possible to simply kill facebook, Microsoft etc. and replace them with Linux together with a couple of not incredibly expensive software packages developed to provide a substitute, then why should we have a big-software economy? People have been saying this for twenty or thirty…

All this happening in the US due the lack of good anti-monopoly regulations.

This is by design. US government isn't gonna kneecap it's most valuable companies now, since they're also monopolizing the international tech markets including the European one, and as long as China isn't taming its own monopolistic giants, then the US has no incentive to do it to themselves considering the economic war they're in now.

The US government threw the book at Microsoft in the 90s when tech was a small slice of the US GDP and it had no international competition, but today the tech sector is the biggest engine of GDP growth in the US, so there's no way the US government is gonna throw a spanner in that just to be richeous.

In the current economic and political climate, having a monopoly on monopolistic giants like the US does, is much better than having no monopolistic giants like the EU, since nice guys do indeed finish last.

Re: We don't need startups, we need Digital-Mittelstand

#198

Post by impossiblefork »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #181
touwer wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Zeiss lenses. Medical equipment. Boss. Siemens. The only thing that's really lacking is ict and ai. But that can be fixed

Having a company that makes lenses, even really good ones, is not the same as having a viable economy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_economic_crisis_(2022%E...

So, you're basically that, if GDP is not up, or the companies are not doing well, it doesn't matter that they're actually building genuinely useful stuff without which all sorts of people would be in major trouble?

Germany has problems-- immigration, energy etc., and maybe some companies have problems, but the US has put huge efforts into making something even a tiny bit like the German companies that are actually building stuff, presumably because its leaders know that you can't eat software services no matter how overpriced they are-- in the end actually building things is how you get things, once you are no longer forced to get some critical vitamin through trade, and we are there now.

Re: We don't need startups, we need Digital-Mittelstand

#199

Post by andai »

hresvelgr wrote: post #97

I think Mittelstand is perhaps misdirecting away from a more interesting conversation. Reading between the lines, this highlights an inherent bias in the majority of American companies to provide service to extract value as opposed to providing service for public benefit. Simply put, it's "move fast and break things" versus "WE DO NOT BREAK USERSPACE." If you want to dig deeper, this is a consequence of America begin…

It seems to me that all the America type Europeans already moved to America, and their departure only increased the cultural differences and made remaining more unbearable for the ones who were on the fence.

Re: We don't need startups, we need Digital-Mittelstand

#200

Post by nottorp »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #196
nottorp wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are those actually still made in Germany? Siemens got sold looong ago, or at least their consumer facing parts, as far as i know. Except maybe the Bosch oven is made in germany. But tbh I wouldn't buy a Bosch oven, in my corner of the world outside Germany they're known for good tools not kitchen appliances. My Bosch electric screwdriver is great :)

Yes they're still labeled Made in Germany. Although what exactly is made in Germany is unknown to me. They might even just do the bare minimum for that compliance , and put together sloppily made Chinese made parts in a cardboard box in some warehouse in Germany and call that Made in Germany in order to get subsides from the German state for maintaining jobs in Germany.

> and put together sloppily made Chinese made parts

... and you can't even blame the Chinese.

I've worked a bit for companies having custom hardware manufactured in China. The factory will build exactly what you pay them for.

From sloppy stuff thrown into a box and shipped untested to clean work with reliable parts and a burn in test done before it leaves the factory. It's just that every additional step costs extra and the dignified western industrialists are trying to save money there...

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