US threatens EU digital services market access

Many US tech firms would be either illegal to operate in the EU or legally very difficult. Any social network is a problem to operate in the EU because you are considered fully liable for the speech acts of users regardless of company size.

Now look at web search, YouTube, social media, messaging apps, cloud... they all involve reproducing the speech of users at scale without pre-moderation. So you just can't operate them in Europe without endless legal problems and costs that make you uncompetitive. Even operating something like Hetzner is hard!

So if the EU continues picking fights with the US and access is lost, who in their right mind would sign up for the multi-decade effort to compete with them? It would be an endless nightmare and there's really no point. The EU Commission has absolutely no institutional will or ability to compete with the US in tech or service markets, meaning the EU will absolutely blink first. They are all Outlook and Netflix addicts, all it will take is their wives/husbands/children bitching about how they suddenly can't use the App Store and they'll fold quickly. So anyone dumb enough to try and build up a business that competes with the US firms purely by being EU-homed will get immolated the moment the EU gives up and submits to what the White House wants, which they are 100% guaranteed to do.

1. Lower food costs. Groceries are cheaper and healthier and eating out is more affordable (+ tipping is not necesary)

2. Generally lower rent. Unless you live outside a few very expensive cities (but it would compensate with higher salaries)

3. No need for a car. Public transport usually costs around 40 to 60 € per month.

4. No need to save for college. Public universities are free or very cheap

5. Healthcare is covered. No huge insurance premiums or surprise medical bills.

6. Less working time. Shorter workweeks, fewer unpaid overtime hours, and stronger limits on burnout.

7. More paid vacation. 25 to 30 days off per year is standard plus public holidays

8. Paid parental leave for both parents without risking your job.

9. Stronger worker protections including notice periods and unemployment benefits.

10. Child benefits and subsidized childcare in many countries.

11. Lower overall stress due to less financial anxiety around health and education.

12. Better work life balance and healthier company culture.

13. High quality public services and safer cities.

14. Easy and cheap travel across many countries. ...

I guess I will stop here.

Lower salary does not mean lower standard of living.

€70K netto in the other hand is not a good salary in Western Europe if you want a decent quality of life.

It means that you will never own more than a studio appartement in your lifetime.

We hired someone that could sell in Italian, French, and Spanish. Her profile is fairly rare, given she had a good understanding of the customer. I can't believe our CEO let her go simply because of a 4-days at the office obsession…

LLMs can't really fix this. Even though she could speak Spanish, the culture and customer needs for Spain will be a little different than those for Italy. Traditions will be different. She's a wonderful human being, but imagine a customer in France not liking her “Belgian accent” and tanking a sale… She was really losing motivation because of that. The 2 other people on sales struggled more or less with the same issue.

All hail LLMs, if you want, but Europe's issues are not that easily fixed. We end up obsessing about the wrong stuff, as if compliance and regulation was the Big Problem, instead of a boogeyman that neoliberals love to hate.