Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley
blogs.wsj.com
Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley
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Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley
#2"Europe" competing with a small neighborhood on the west coast where the vast majority of the world's tech capital lives?
Sorry I don't see it.
Combined with the gloomy pessimism and fear of failure even in Europe's brightest areas (London and Berlin) and the absolute, spineless pathetic nature of European VC's (no not bitter at all ;) Europe will NEVER compete on any meaningful level with Silicon Valley.
edit: spelling
Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley
#3I hope they get something out of it, lots of tech jobs in a nice and accessible area is a good thing for the whole web ecosystem and me personally.
Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley
#4Misleading title: This isn't Europe's plan to compete with SV, it's Europe's plan to stop being a complete mess.
Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley
#5Misleading. This proposal decreases EU competitiveness by INCREASING the VAT taxes on digital goods. Until now, companies often haven't have to charge VAT for customers residing in a different country from the providing company. Now, they'll always have to charge VAT!
> A single digital market could bring in €340 billion to European GDP
Not trying to help startups, trying to get more money by taxation. Way to continue to screw over tiny startups who are trying to compete with the US, EU!
Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley
#6I hope they get something out of it, lots of tech jobs in a nice and accessible area is a good thing for the whole web ecosystem and me personally.
Question: What places in Europe would someone recommend an ambitious EU techie with no ties to move to (and possibly settle)? I figure the country needs to have fairly good internet and a decent political climate at the very least.
Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley
#7Misleading. This proposal decreases EU competitiveness by INCREASING the VAT taxes on digital goods. Until now, companies often haven't have to charge VAT for customers residing in a different country from the providing company. Now, they'll always have to charge VAT! > A single digital market could bring in €340 billion to European GDP Not trying to help startups, trying to get more money by taxation. Way to continu…
On the other hand, they are creating a largest uniform digital goods landscape in the world with wealthiest customers. It they are successful we are bound to see quite a few new spotifys.
UPD: And VAT is smaller than e.g. 30% iTunes cut, which they can now regulate with a wave of hand.
Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley
#8I hope they get something out of it, lots of tech jobs in a nice and accessible area is a good thing for the whole web ecosystem and me personally.
Question: What places in Europe would someone recommend an ambitious EU techie with no ties to move to (and possibly settle)? I figure the country needs to have fairly good internet and a decent political climate at the very least.
Berlin seems to be the most 'happening' place at the moment
Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley
#9Misleading. This proposal decreases EU competitiveness by INCREASING the VAT taxes on digital goods. Until now, companies often haven't have to charge VAT for customers residing in a different country from the providing company. Now, they'll always have to charge VAT! > A single digital market could bring in €340 billion to European GDP Not trying to help startups, trying to get more money by taxation. Way to continu…
On the other hand, they are creating a largest uniform digital goods landscape in the world with wealthiest customers. It they are successful we are bound to see quite a few new spotifys. UPD: And VAT is smaller than e.g. 30% iTunes cut, which they can now regulate with a wave of hand.
Just adding more taxes does nothing to create a more uniform landscape.
For the Europeans, consider that Amazon & other US web companies got to charge 0% sales tax for almost their entire customer-base in the US, until they were far beyond the startup stage. For many of their US customers, they still get to charge 0%. That's what promoting small businesses looks like.
VAT adds tons of problems, especially for service or purely digital products. It's very regressive against smaller companies vs larger companies. Best thing that EU could do for small businesses is copy the US sales tax model and get rid of the VAT.
As the article says, this is about worshiping huge, old, post-IPO companies like "Google" and "Facebook", not small startups.
Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley
#10I think this is a fine example of a commission overestimating the amount of influence it can realistically bring to bear on technological advancement. Sure, removing barriers to competition should be a no brainer and differences between EU countries should be normalised.
Also, the next time someone says 'X is the next Silicon Valley' or 'X is Y's Silicon Valley' I'm going to throw myself off a cliff. How about instead of trying to emulate something successful and original, try to create something successful and original yourself?