Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

The UK's business policy since Brexit has been largely dictated by factors outside its control, in the hallways of Washington DC and Brussels. The UK is no longer the forcing function on EU business policy that it was before - it's quite frankly the other way around now.

On founder culture and aspirations, it might be fair to say that the social welfare net provided by the EU countries is generous enough that it discourages entrepreneurship, compared to say the US or China or even India. I won't fault the social net ever, but the fact of the matter is that a growing economy is necessary to facilitate a growing social net. But EU policy has been drafted to strongly favor the incumbents over the startups, to favor the Goliaths over the Davids - even if David happens to be a middle market company trying to make its mark. It's also why EU companies in that position strongly favor American partners instead of European ones - Goliaths don't want to innovate, but they want new innovation regulated so that it doesn't hurt their bottom line.

Another factor is that 10 years since Brexit, the EU still hasn't created a viable enough exit alternative that could replace the London of the 2010s. While it's much easier for an American company to go public, EU policy does not make it easy. Which is why founders look at acquisitions or PE as a much more viable route to exit.

> I could easily imagine a startup here developing the next generation of car control system and then selling the IP to one of those companies as the exit strategy.

That's already happening across the EU, and herein is why it's very difficult to create homegrown champions. American companies and Chinese companies are encouraged to control the entire vertical chain, it being a matter of policy in the latter. EU companies have to resort to licensing agreements and a potential future acquisition.

Most people call them windshield washer nozzles, or similar. But I find that they're about as useful for that job as I imagine that a monkey pissing on the window might be, so I find the other description -- while vulgar -- to be a better fit.

Anyway, they're heated on cold-weather E36s. IIRC, it's temperature-activated and independent of the defrost switch.

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It's supposed to go something like this on a ice-crusted day with an E36:

1. Find the door lock completely frozen and inoperable

2. Lift the outside door handle for a few seconds to engage the lock heater (!)

3. Succeed at unlocking car.

4. Get in. Start the car. Turn on the front and rear defrosters and the headlights. Retrieve the scrapey-thing

5. Back outside, start scraping.

6. Get tired of that and climb back inside.

7. Try the wipers to see how clear the windshield isn't.

8. Engage the monkey pissers, which are probably de-iced on their own by now and flowing freely

9. Grumble a bit at the results

10. Go to step 5