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Europe's Software Problem

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471–480 of 585 posts

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it, though? I thought they are only required if the site is setting tracking cookies. Is that not straight forward enough?

No it's required for all types of tracking including but not exclusively cookies. Only days collection that is absolutely required to provide the service may be collected without consent and for that purpose only.

To put that slightly differently: warnings/popups are never needed unless you're taking data from your visitor which has nothing to do with the function(s) your offering the visitor.

The GDPR spells out when you're allowed to collect data; asking for consent is basically its emergency escape hatch. You only need to do that if there is absolutely no (functional) reason to get that data, but you want it anyway.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, very reasonable. Gdpr pop ups on nearly every site with dark patterns making it annoying to opt out. A resounding success.

Once again, those popups are illegal under GDPR. So yes, it's a failure of law enforcement, but doesn't make the law itself unreasonable.

If a law is realistically unenforceable then it’s unreasonable. A law that requires some agency in Europe to police all of the websites around the world is pretty fucking stupid.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#473
I think the European equivalents of faangs were killed in the dotcom bubble. These business models were probably considered "toxic" by investors in the 2000s because of dotcom trauma, which might have been worse in Europe?

We are left with US survivors in these particular cases.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#474

This problem will never get fixed. The author forgot to mention in depth the main reason why EU isn't even in the game: culture. 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. A lot of third world countries are years ahead of the whole EU continent in that aspect. I say this because I live in Europe for the q…

I am born EU and work here and would not want to leave. But you are corrct in the sense that there is little respect for software developers and the hard work they have to cope with.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck opening a bank account

I tried opening one in the US. That was not fun. What is the difference? As a Dutch person I had one in PT in 30 minutes. As a Dutch person opening in the US, AU and HK, it was a hell. What is the difference? If you are from those places, they won't know what you mean as it will be easy for this. As a Dutch person, you find it hard to get an account in the EU? Maybe if your info fails KYC, but otherwise it is trivial…

It’s only trivial as long as you have a single entity. Try adding a foundation, having foreign shareholders, different layers.

I’ve seen and heard of 9+ months, and a ton of paperwork

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#476
post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is an exaggeration while in the case of Germany it’s literal (though in Spain, a few towns were razed, and many were heavily shelled) People eating cats and rats off the streets is not an exaggeration however - there is abundant oral testimony to support that. The point is that the damage hardly justifies talking about economies who live off inherited wealth, in either case.

There is an old saying in Spain meaning "they scammed you": Te han dado gato por libre (They gave you cat -meal- as hare). So, yes. after the civil war and Francoist repression Spain was utterly crushed down.

The use of that expression goes back several centuries, it has nothing to do with the war.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#477

I'm a European, living in Europe, developing software. Lack of imagination is not our problem. It's so good that we supply our best talent to the US where it does extremely well revolutionizing AI, designing hardware for Apple, developing games, stream online music, etc. E.g. Amazon's CTO is Dutch. Basically the person that has been running AWS. The people and the education system are fine. Europe does have a few iss…

Given the small country issue, a better comparison would be Israel. It has a thriving startup scene while only having 10 million people.

As an Australian coming from a risk-averse culture like that in Europe, I would suggest that Israel differs in three ways. I observed these on an official Australian Ministerial trade mission to Israel.

1. The culture is risk taking, with failure an opportunity to try something else. There is no (or little) negative social or professional connotation with failure, unlike say Europe.

2. Thinking is global market first rather than local or regional market. The local market is tiny and there is no regional market.

3. Out-of-the box thinking is the norm and excellent. It’s in-the-box thinking that is problematic in Israel. In Europe the reverse is generally the case.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#478
As a European Software Product Manager in a as some would refer to as „old school company selling hardware/physical products“ (not electronic), I think the article misses to say that if we combine our hardware expertise with software we are very easily ahead of software only competitors.

Yes, we definitively need to overcome our software problem but we have unique assets, that if accessible only in combination europe can overcome that problem. Example: High end hardware equipment, chemicals etc. we failed to have the customer facing software platform but we‘ll get there and instead of selling ads we will create combination products. Think IKEA or VW etc

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you that inexperienced (lower paid) or young developers might find the US attractive if there weren't visa issues. The older better paid ones, maybe with families even, would probably still choose the social safety of Europe, the mix of people and ideas, the density of interesting places, cultural events, etc. I mainly reflected on the current trend I observered. Did not consider a sudden change in the U…

All European developers are lower paid compared to their US counterparts. Except maybe Swiss ones.

And as I said is not really something outright comparable. Housing is more expensive, no universal healthcare, etc.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might be an outlier but I went to a tiny middle America liberal arts university that you probably never heard of, and work for a SV startup. And I haven't heard the topic of where people went to school come up a single time.

You work for a Silicon Valley startup, but the above posters are mostly talking about people who run one.

> There's a set of something like ten schools from which Silicon Valley companies hire.

I responded to GP's comment about hiring. Ivy-like pedigree surely helps for any career path, but that's no different for SV or anywhere else.

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