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Europe's Software Problem

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Re: Europe's Software Problem

#261

Post by petermcneeley »

qsort wrote: post #78
selfhoster11 wrote: post #12

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…

Not going to comment on anything else since "flexible working laws" and "less relaxing lifestyle" can mean anything, but "light a fire under their ass until they are forced to innovate" is unironically and unapologetically good. If there's one thing that consistently fosters innovation and progress it's competition. That's something that holds true everywhere. Software, industry, education, games, sports, you name it…

Isnt it actually all the pseudo monopolies that created all the innovations? Bell labs, Xerox park?

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#262

Post by mannerheim »

coryrc wrote: post #130
jpttsn wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Might this be a flip side of regulations that combat economic inequality? If so, the two should not be addressed as separate issues. But frontpage HN posts tend to be "Applauding Europes' long vacations and progressive taxes" and "Bemoaning Europe's lack of VCs with fuck…

Sweden has more billionaires per capita than the USA. Similar to the US, they also pay less in taxes than the middle class. I wonder if Sweden has higher funding than the rest of the continent?

> In the 2013 list, approximately 40 percent of Sweden’s billionaires are self-made while 60 percent inherited their wealth. In the United States, by contrast, 70 percent of billionaires are self-made while around 30 percent inherited their wealth. Once we exclude inherited wealth, the United States has around 1 self-made billionaire per million inhabitants compared to 0.6 for Sweden.

https://www.nationalreview.com/the-agenda/guest-post-tino-sa...

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#263

Post by xputer »

pwthornton wrote: post #193

Some of the stuff in this article may be fine, and trying to raise money is certainly harder in Europe, but I thought one of the biggest drags on Europe's tech industry is poor pay for engineers and other tech talent? In the U.S., going into a tech career can be one of the best ways to make a high salary quickly -- especially without needing an advanced degree. Without this incentive, you'll have a lot less people pu…

Exactly, the substantially higher salaries for tech workers in the US allows them to attract the best and brightest from all over the world.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#264

Post by adrian_b »

jiofih wrote: post #59
davidkunz wrote: post #8

>> typical clunky open source software What?

You don’t agree? A more substantial comment would be informative. Can you give us one example of a stellar open source UI you use daily?

Among user interfaces that I use daily, that of MS Windows Explorer has become, since many years, much worse than the user interface of most file managers available for Linux. The numerous extra mouse clicks that I need to do in Windows Explorer to navigate the file system or to perform any other task, compared to a non-stupid file manager, are extremely annoying.

The same can be said about MS Word, which has become much worse than LibreOffice, also since many years.

I have been using MS Word for 30 years, but recent versions frequently surprise me because when I have to search some command through its menus it never is where I would expect it.

With older versions of MS Word, I had no need for a manual or for a help command, because I could easily discover how to do anything that I had not done before.

With the newer versions of MS Word it is hard for me to discover how to do anything that I have done many times before, but not recently enough.

Even if I have used LibreOffice for much fewer years than MS Word, with it, like with the old MS Word versions, I never had difficulties to discover how to do something.

These days, I will never use willingly MS Windows Explorer or MS Word, instead of their open-source equivalents.

These are just some of the most obvious examples of commercial programs with a bad user interface, but there are many more.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#265

Post by eptcyka »

unknownOrigin wrote: post #256
fvdessen wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It goes far beyond that. If you are in Italy and want to expand to Germany you need to hire german speaking people and that means opening a Sales Office in Germany, and dealing with different labour regulations etc.

And just to add to this, from a certain level (revenue) that's not that high (and depends on idividual states) you need a presence (VAT registration) and a business bank account in the country you're selling your services/goods in, even if you're not actually located there. E.g. a medium sized online shop based in the Czech Republic that is shipping to Hungary. Now imagine this if you're shipping to many EU states...…

I don't believe that's the case.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#266

Post by jopsen »

eldaisfish wrote: post #60
zhdc1 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Europe wants to have its citizens (and companies) rely significantly on European-operated software, it has no choice but to develop better software, and to also offer that for free It already does. Look at the very large number of open source projects (like Linux) that originated or received substantial contributions from continental European volunteers. What Europe doesn't have is a strong VC infrastructure or…

what Europe also doesn't have is a true single market. It has fractured markets, each with a different language, different legal requirements and so on. For all the disagreements here, look at where people move. Only around 5% of EU citizens live and work in an [edit: EU] country other than their own and a large slice of that is people from the east moving west. Only a sliver is highly skilled work and the majority i…

Spot on!

Even with EU making travel easier, the language barriers, etc are really strong reasons why people prefer not to move far away.

When I lived in SF, people were from all over the US / world. There were very few native SF'ers to be found anywhere in tech.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#267

Post by jopsen »

cblconfederate wrote: post #93
MangoCoffee wrote: post #85

EU is not one market. its 27 markets with different language, history, culture, preferences...etc. is it even worth the time and efforts?

It is one market for google, facebook, apple etc. They all succeeded and there's no reason a successful EU company wouldn't become european and essentially global. But for this to happen u have to have companies that grow

It's not for Amazon...

And historically it's taken forever for streaming services, etc. to find their way.

Lol, I have HBO Nordic, as in they literally wrote a dedicated platform for serving HBO to Scandinavia!

If you start a tech company you start with customers in the US because the market is huge.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#268

Post by insert_coin »

Innovation requires instability. Europe decided long ago that life security and 'quality of life' was their goal, which is a worthy goal, but every decision you make means there is a path you didn't take.

You can't have everything.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#269

Post by pvaldes »

xeromal wrote: post #185
pjc50 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Europe is currently coasting along on the spoils of centuries of loot and plunder. A lavish, comfortable lifestyle was handed to the citizens of western europe Well, apart from the whole WW2 business. This is the trouble with generalisations across the continent, the closer you look the less well they fit. And if you look across a continent and back in time, the situation varies even further. Germany used to be "th…

WW2 could be taken as a benefit for Europe in the macro sense. * Influx of funding and loans from the US to rebuild * Able to rebuild legacy systems that were destroyed in the world (roads, buildings, new code standards, etc) * Reduced population means each individual is more valuable (See rising wages after plagues in the middle ages) * Increased interdependency to combat Russian and US pressures * The UN, NATO, etc

* And random effects over nature also, some negative, but other beneficial. The war submarines acting as a new top predator and the deploy of sea mines were a bless for fisheries, for example.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#270

Post by BitwiseFool »

raverbashing wrote: post #258
fvdessen wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It goes far beyond that. If you are in Italy and want to expand to Germany you need to hire german speaking people and that means opening a Sales Office in Germany, and dealing with different labour regulations etc.

> you need to hire german speaking people and that means opening a Sales Office in Germany No you don't need that. You can have your German speaking people move to Italy and work from there. That's the whole point of the EU. The same for VAT, you can register in one country and have that sent to multiple countries according to your sales. No presence needed

That's certainly an option, but moving to a different nation is a lot to ask for an employee. Despite both countries being in the EU it's still a massive change on an individual level.
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