How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs • Hacker News Board

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#901

Post by thunspa » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 12:51 PM UTC

khalic wrote: post #114

thunspa wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please share said stats with us

https://www.bruegel.org/analysis/how-much-research-talent-co... for an analysis and https://www.euractiv.com/opinion/europes-battle-for-american... Nothing definitive but it's still early in the exodus

I'm sorry, not only is this far from definitive, it's not even a sign of an 'early' exodus.

There is not really any exodus, sadly. The US still is significantly more competitive and offers much higher upsides to talented people willing to take risks. I live in the EU and want us to succeed, but I'm skeptical about our ability to compete with America economically and technologically, because we foster a different type of spirit.

It would be nice if this didn't matter.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#902

Post by stnikolauswagne » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 12:54 PM UTC

rickdeckard wrote: post #807

stnikolauswagne wrote: post #781

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im about as Pro EU as they come, but the problem is that lobying local governments does not help in this case. Im from Germany, we have no issues getting registration in Germany done, however when we looked into it there was quite frankly no way of getting for example the polish registration done. As citizen of Germany I cannot really lobby the local polish government, so we are basically barred from that market by E…

The polish government is not relevant in your case. It was a regulation written and signed by the Union of all countries. Your local German government is your elected representative in the European Union. They should have influenced the form of this regulation because its final form affects the business of (German) citizens in the (Polish) market and threatens the EU single-market for SMB.

Trying to be good faith here:

It was decided that the registration is left to the individual countries (which I personally agree with, at least I think I do). Now the deadline has come and passed and some of the individual countries have not provided easy ways of registering. At what point should which entity done what?

Should I as a SMB been keeping track of the registries for the individual countries and lobbied my government to apply pressure to the other governments to set up the registrations?

Should my representative have lobbied harder to take control away from the individual countries in the union so this issue could not arise? (Should I have done so as an SMB even though I on a personal level agree with the individual registries?)

Because, again, right now we have a law on the books with relatively harsh punishments but nonexistent enforcement, this benefits no one.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#903

Post by p1dda » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 12:56 PM UTC

The EU is fucking crap, fuck the EU, fuck von der Leyen

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#904

Post by StrLght » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 1:00 PM UTC

vlyan wrote: post #532

>The main idea of EPR is sensible: businesses that place packaging on the market should help finance its collection and recycling. it is not sensible at all because businesses and individuals who dispose of that packaging already pay for the privilege.

It’s even less sensible when you consider the effect that small businesses have on this. But I guess it’s just another heavily lobbied law, sponsored by companies responsible for 80-90% of packaging.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#905

Post by mike_hearn » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 1:04 PM UTC

logicchains wrote: post #858

mike_hearn wrote: post #787

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon doesn't care about guys like Lectronz, they're far too small, and the EU Commission really doesn't care about Amazon. They're openly antagonistic to US tech firms. Occam's Razor applies here. These regulations exist because the EU is 10,000+ civil servants writing whatever laws they want with no meaningful democratic accountability (this sort of thing is nobody's priority). They love creating new laws, they lo…

>dragging it to Soviet levels or worse The Soviet Union at least had factories and an arms industry, even if they were quite inefficient.

A depressingly true point.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#906

Post by etiennebausson » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 1:18 PM UTC

mstaoru wrote: post #275

hvb2 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No Chinese company will register in this farce. What makes you so sure? It really depends on enforcement but your Chinese company sure isn't going to just drop Europe as a market.

Exactly. I don't see how EU can enforce it against China, when most of the goods are imported from China. Or any other non-EU country, for that matter.

The client receiving the package (who is in the U.E.) could get fined I assume? Or the package sent back to sender for not being compliant.

So the clients will either ask for compliance from the sender or stop ordering there.

Doesn't work well for one-time orders, like artisanal novelty items, but it can still have an effect on the rest.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#907

Post by deno » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 1:18 PM UTC

11mariom wrote: post #878

framapotari wrote: post #796

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Amazon just adds another layer of packaging. I can imagine you are still responsible for yours.

And that's the irony for me - adds another package over package, but it probably complies with documents, I hope they are filled in paper. I get the idea behind the law. Not once I was surprised how many waste is in packaging and badly packaged goods (not only shipped, but even available in local shop). But this regulation changes nothing, just adds layer of paperwork and broke international shipping (many non-eu sto…

Don’t worry there’s regulation in the works that will mandate how much air you can have in the box[1]. The EU is on the case.

[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:52...

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#908

Post by philipallstar » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 1:20 PM UTC

thesimon wrote: post #637

rvba wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DHL charges 1 eur for recycling, which it pockets since the envelope or box with thr product went to the consumer... who throws it away to the segregated garbage bin - for which every consumer also pays.

> for which every consumer also pays. Idk, at least in Germany paper and (plastic) recycling is free. I only have to pay for organic trash and trash to be burned.

It's mad not to keep the recycling costs at the point of recycling collection, though. Why would the EU need to be involved, when it's either a private company or local government procuring the recycling service?

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#909

Post by philipallstar » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 1:24 PM UTC

worik wrote: post #585

philipallstar wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lobbyists don't do this. Regulators/lawmakers need to be corrupt and/or incompetent for lobbying to do this.

> lawmakers need to be corrupt and/or incompetent for lobbying to do this. Not really Lobbyists get to talk into the ears of the powerful. It is literally their job. They make very sensible arguments for their point of view. So it seems very sensible, for the legislators, to make laws that aid the powerful and impede the weak. The legislators are very busy with pressures from all sides. The cognitive load of consider…

I'm sorry they're so busy, but everyone's busy. Not everyone gets to drag money out of people on threat of jail, not have to pay any corporation tax on it, and spend that money on offices and salaries, do a bad job, and have everyone solely blame other people for their failings.

It's like if a judge blamed one side's legal representative for their terrible decisions. The legal representative is not paid to be neutral. They're paid to represent their client. The judge is paid to be neutral.

Re: How Europe is killing makers and micro-entrepreneurs

#910

Post by vintermann » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 1:25 PM UTC

mstaoru wrote: post #190

I don't know if this EU regulation will work or not (most likely not), but I can share how it is done in China (where package volume is orders of magnitude higher). China identifies "choke points" most packages pass: large platforms and logistics companies. Yes, Chinese e-commerce is more centralized on Alibaba/JD/PDD etc, but there are actually much more logistics companies in China than in EU. They also do not intr…

> But of course EU is fundamentally different in a way that the politicians need to please the electorate,

Are we talking about the same EU? In my experience EU is used as a scapegoat by national government, to push through unpopular legislation that they want "because it's an EU requirement". No one checks if they actually supported that same policy when it was actually decided in the EU - it would have been a ton of work too, since how decisions are actually made isn't exactly transparent. I think it's by design, EU is in large part made to take the blame for domestically unpopular policy. So it's not a surprise that UK conservatives eventually pivoted from profitably using the EU as a scapegoat, to sacrificing that same ghost.