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Europe's Software Problem

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151–160 of 585 posts

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#151
post #99

Hot take: the problems here are cultural. Consider these data points: 1. The US is a country of migrants (ignoring the blight of slavery for now), whether those be those seeking a better life from Europe originally, later China and later still Central and South America. These are all people who uprooted whatever lives they had and legally or illegally migrated to the US. IMHO you still see echoes of this "pioneering"…

The Gold Rush show has very little to do with reality. It’s a scripted show that had the primary motivation of making money.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#152

Once again, proof that no good deed goes unpunished. It's a credit to Europe's social values that they find themselves prey to the profit-first institutions of Silicon Valley. And lest we forget, the world-changing beneficence of the internet and Linux originated from a Swiss lab and a Finn.

* the web, not the internet.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#153
post #119

Another "poor Europe, too scared, too insular, too antiquated" article. I wish my trends site still worked since this seems to be a bit of a theme recently. Something is out of whack about the priorities here. Yes America has FANGS and is at the cutting edge of slinging ads and casino style VC culture. But have you seen the state of US banking and payments infrastructure? Plaid is pretty much cutting edge for god's s…

> The US is so far behind in banking and actual useful technology it's quite funny. I see this said, and it was true two decades ago, but I’m not aware of any way it’s true now. What banking can you do in Europe that you can’t do in the US?

Instant bank transfers over SEPA for one, without third party payment processor involved.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#154
post #99

Hot take: the problems here are cultural. Consider these data points: 1. The US is a country of migrants (ignoring the blight of slavery for now), whether those be those seeking a better life from Europe originally, later China and later still Central and South America. These are all people who uprooted whatever lives they had and legally or illegally migrated to the US. IMHO you still see echoes of this "pioneering"…

>Being comfortable makes you less risk-averse, even lazy Do you mean more risk-averse? Anyway, to comment on this point. Non-Europeans, get quite a few things mixed up. >We all joke on here about Europe with its 6-8 weeks of vacation, 35 hour work weeks, universal health care and a year of maternity of leave to some extent. The bigger problem is two-fold and has to do with your second point: 1. Europeans have very se…

> Do you mean more risk-averse?

I do. Thanks. Corrected.

> Europeans have very set schedules

That's another way of describing conformity, in this case to cultural norms.

The best way I can describe it is like this: in the UK (and the US), the default position is that things are allowed unless they're specifically forbidden. In continental Europe, it's the reverse: everything is disallowed unless it's specifically permitted.

This was evident to me from the time that I lived in Germany and Switzerland at least.

Disruptive businesses aren't created by conformists.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#155
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could be that their scarcity of software developers in Germany that requires foreign work or alternatively foreigners ask a lower salary

The question needs to be asked here is: Why there is a shortage of developers in Germany, while people having access to free education? One reason is that I can be paid three times more in the US, and with the extra disposable income, I can live a better life, even without the legal protections. Second reason is that, why should the kids even bother studying computer science for 4-6 years to earn 3k per month? A plum…

A plumber needs formal education, at least in Germany. Three years of it, to be exact. And then some more to run his own shop.

Also, 100 an hour sounds great. That is without taken taxes, social security, operational costs, fix costs an so into account. Those plumbers getting wealthy are running their own shops, small legit enterprises.

Final note: Any decent developer job I know of pays at least 3k, net, after taxes, social and medical insurance,... Enough to live a comfortable live. One without student debt, I might add.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#156

I take offense at such massive overgeneralizations as "Europe lacks imagination." What it lacks is freely flowing funding such that risky enterprises can be funded even if 1 out of ten or 1 out of hundred actually are successful. This kills business models which cannot show any profit whatsoever, and a large portion of the remainder are killed by data regulations forbidding "alternate paths of monetization" (to put i…

> I take offense at such massive overgeneralizations...

Boy, you would make one offended American...

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In order to be innovative and compete, we need very flexible working laws, people with a big growth mindset, a less relaxing lifestyle and AMBITIOUS people. The US has those things and it's turning into a "third world country with a Gucci belt" (as someone put it) for everyone except the 1% and the indispensable knowledge worker class that can't be automated away or juiced dry for all the productivity they are capa…

>As a European, I can only hope that our culture doesn't degrade itself to that degree. The question is whether Europe will be able to maintain its wealth - which is the main thing that makes possible the luxury of having a more relaxed lifestyle - in the long term while falling behind economically. Most of Europe's wealth is based around old world economy.

European economies are very diverse and I‘m not concerned with wealth as the most successful countries with high living standards also have relatively low debt in comparison to gdp.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#158
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have LLCs?

There are equivalents ( https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsabilit%C3%A9_limit%C3%A... - in French) but country-specific, there's no a European common structure. But another benefit from LLCs in the USA might be the lighter paperwork and simpler taxes filing. Which we also have (in France at least, as entrepreneur individuel), but both don't intersect.

>there's no a European common structure.

There are European corporate entities nowadays. See SE[0], SCE[1] and SPE[2]. The SPE is what you'd call an LLC, GmbH, SARL etc.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societas_Europaea

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societas_cooperativa_Europaea

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societas_privata_Europaea

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#159

United States' platforms on Chinese hardware sounds like everybody's problem. Except for China which has both. To be honest, it would be nice for Europe to handle the platforms and for the United States to go back to radical innovation. The times of emacs, vi, Bell labs, Xerox and pushing the computing medium to the edge.

afaik china has their own google/facebook

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> I appreciate that child labor have been regulated out of the greedy hands of our capitalist overlords. Child labour ended because of capitalism. The increased income and power that begets then allowed for child labour laws to come in - it certainly didn't happen in pre-industrial societies or capitalists wouldn't have been able to employ them in the first place. Same goes for slavery, not only did economic pressure…

Capitalists didn't end child labor. In fact they opposed banning child labor. Had the governments not banned it, it would probably still be legal.
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