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EU's Tusk warns of risks in rise of U.S. tech giants

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Re: EU's Tusk warns of risks in rise of U.S. tech giants

#61

Post by AtomicOrbital »

dfrage wrote: post #59
repolfx wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a long standing and complex trend. It's worth remembering that Silicon Valley got started way back in the 50s with Shockley's transistors. Then Microsoft in the 80s and Amazon, Google in the 1990s. What was going on in Europe during these times? For most of the 20th century continental Europe was a hotbed of dictators and extremists. The first half was dominated by two world wars that flattened everything. The s…

Exiting WWII Britain was fully competitive in computer technology, look particularly at the University of Manchester, home of the Williams Tube and many pioneering computers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_computers which Ferranti was barely able to move the needle in commercializing.

yes however Britain squeltched its own computer scientists and engineers, Tommy Flowers in particular, immediately after WWII due to false concerns of military secrecy

Re: EU's Tusk warns of risks in rise of U.S. tech giants

#62

Post by dfrage »

AtomicOrbital wrote: post #61
dfrage wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exiting WWII Britain was fully competitive in computer technology, look particularly at the University of Manchester, home of the Williams Tube and many pioneering computers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_computers which Ferranti was barely able to move the needle in commercializing.

yes however Britain squeltched its own computer scientists and engineers, Tommy Flowers in particular, immediately after WWII due to false concerns of military secrecy

That's not reflected by the historical record of the U.K.'s post war pioneering computers, which I provided just one link to.

Per Wikipedia Tommy Flowers couldn't get a bank loan because he couldn't cite his cryptoanalysis machines as proof he could do what he claimed he could do. "False concerns of military secrecy" when we were in an existential cold war with international socialism? That put so much of Europe under Soviet occupation?

Or the cited severe lack of funding mechanisms and other things necessary for commercial success, going all the way to the concept of doing stuff outside the aegis of the government which included the public University of Manchester? The latter could and did make numerous record breaking computers, going at least as far as the early 1960s Atlas, a competitive microsecond cycle supercomputer that was the first to page. But this didn't translate into commercial success.

Re: EU's Tusk warns of risks in rise of U.S. tech giants

#63

Post by repolfx »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #58
repolfx wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a long standing and complex trend. It's worth remembering that Silicon Valley got started way back in the 50s with Shockley's transistors. Then Microsoft in the 80s and Amazon, Google in the 1990s. What was going on in Europe during these times? For most of the 20th century continental Europe was a hotbed of dictators and extremists. The first half was dominated by two world wars that flattened everything. The s…

> The first half was dominated by two world wars that flattened everything [in Europe] . What about Japan's rise from a bombed out, defeated nation to a G7 economic power and world leader in electronics and automotives in the same time period?

Good question. I suspect it's like Germany and precision machinery/automotives.

Japan lost comprehensively enough to destroy any notion that their government was good, and had a huge US involvement in the rebuild. IOW they were rebuilt along US lines and, like Germany, benefited from the "loser's victory" in which they avoided a sharp turn towards big government.

During the same era the UK lost its own car manufacturing industry, with aggressive unions and general industrial malaise being the prime culprits.

Re: EU's Tusk warns of risks in rise of U.S. tech giants

#64

Post by repolfx »

dfrage wrote: post #59
repolfx wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a long standing and complex trend. It's worth remembering that Silicon Valley got started way back in the 50s with Shockley's transistors. Then Microsoft in the 80s and Amazon, Google in the 1990s. What was going on in Europe during these times? For most of the 20th century continental Europe was a hotbed of dictators and extremists. The first half was dominated by two world wars that flattened everything. The s…

Exiting WWII Britain was fully competitive in computer technology, look particularly at the University of Manchester, home of the Williams Tube and many pioneering computers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_computers which Ferranti was barely able to move the needle in commercializing.

The UK had a small but modern computer industry in the 1980s, via Acorn and the resulting ARM chips that are world-beating today. It also had firms like RIM, Sinclair etc.

Until ARM was sold to SoftBank it was the primary British high tech computer firm. Little known fact - ARM is one of the very few European tech firms that incentivised its employees with equity sharing. It was and still is standard for firms outside the USA to keep all equity for the founders and investors, with none for early employees.

It's hard to know to what extent Acorn struggled to compete with Apple because of Europe-specific factors vs just bad luck: Acorn computers were very slow to get FCC regulatory approval in the USA, and they had a failure in their supply chain at a critical moment that pushed Brits towards buying US computers instead. They sold 300k machines but could only get 30k from the factories. There were a few other problems that stalled their expansion, and all this was taking place in the context of a country going through a major recession as Thatcher ended a government policy of employment targeting to bring inflation under control (inflation hit 22% in 1980). In the end they never recovered - US firms grew too strong and outcompeted them, despite initially stronger technology. Given that Acorn and ARM showed the same cycle of former employees becoming entrepreneurs and investors themselves, it's possible if things had worked out a bit differently for Acorn it could have been the "British Apple" and seeded a British computer industry competitive with Silicon Valley. But - it didn't.

Re: EU's Tusk warns of risks in rise of U.S. tech giants

#65

Post by dfrage »

repolfx wrote: post #64
dfrage wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exiting WWII Britain was fully competitive in computer technology, look particularly at the University of Manchester, home of the Williams Tube and many pioneering computers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_computers which Ferranti was barely able to move the needle in commercializing.

The UK had a small but modern computer industry in the 1980s, via Acorn and the resulting ARM chips that are world-beating today. It also had firms like RIM, Sinclair etc. Until ARM was sold to SoftBank it was the primary British high tech computer firm. Little known fact - ARM is one of the very few European tech firms that incentivised its employees with equity sharing. It was and still is standard for firms outsid…

How much of Acorn even having a chance is consistent with your correct as far as I know history of the British economy, with socialism only being (partly) rolled back by Thatcher? I'd also note that Apple et. al. were also subject to similar macroeconomic headwinds, although our inflation rate's peak was "only" 15%.

Bad luck indeed, although looking at the details of e.g. the Acorn Electron which had that production bottleneck doesn't suggest they had significantly stronger technology at the time, pretty much all 6502 based stuff like their competition except for e.g. the also local Sinclair Research with its Z80 based systems. In the US market there was also the Z80 based and monstrously successful Tandy TRS-80, per Wikipedia significantly outselling the Apple II for a long period.

Tandy also had a huge retail network to sell its wares, it's Radio Shack stores were the place to buy random basic electronic stuff all over the USA. Per Wikipedia, in 1982 4,300 company stores and 2,000 independent franchises in towns not big enough for a company store. One reason I mention this is to ask, how big was it in the U.K. post-WWII until Thatcher? It became a very big thing the US in the 1950s, combining local capital and market focus with centralized and bulk product planning, technology, marketing, and often purchasing.

Hmmmm, Tandy also did a Motorola 6809 based "Color Computer" of some note, but its expensive/superior CPU prompted them to forgo things that made competing 6502 systems more popular, like built in sound and graphics for e.g. games. There was also a very American cottage industry style market in Z80 CP/M systems built around the S-100 bus.

Re: EU's Tusk warns of risks in rise of U.S. tech giants

#66

Post by m0zg »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #54
djohnston wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

god the pay cut is so real :( .. hopefully the experience makes up for it, temporarily

The "pay cut" is one-dimensional. In Europe I don't have student debt. In Europe I pay less for health care. In Europe I have more time of. In Europe I have better public infrastructure. In Europe I pay less for housing than the Valley. Of course you can validate those things differently, but only looking on salary tells little.

You don't pay that much less for healthcare. Remember, it's not the government that's paying for it, it's _you_ paying, with your taxes. The cost structure is different, that's true (European doctors also make a lot less, and US pharma companies subsidize non-US customers for some reason), but that doesn't matter with a typical US SWE salary.

And with a fat $200K+ paycheck student debt goes away in a few years, if you had it in the first place (substantial fraction of students receive financial assistance).

Best of both worlds: get your "free" degree in Europe, move to the US, make a killing. This, in short, is Tusk's problem.

Re: EU's Tusk warns of risks in rise of U.S. tech giants

#67

Post by rasz »

d33 wrote: post #53
rasz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For reference, _his party_ was pushing Article 13 in EU Parliament. September 12 everyone from PO voted for censorship: Michał Boni (PO) Jerzy Buzek (PO) Danuta Hübner (PO) Danuta Jazłowiecka (PO) Agnieszka Kozłowska-Rajewicz (PO) Barbara Kudrycka (PO) Janusz Lewandowski (PO) Elżbieta Łukacjiewska (PO) Jan Olbrycht (PO) Julia Pitera (PO) Marek Plura (PO) Dariusz Rosati (PO) Adam Szejnfeld (PO) Róża Thun Und Hohenstei…

I found it quite surprising and decided to double-check. This source doesn't seem to agree if I'm reading it right: https://saveyourinternet.eu/pl/ Could you let me know where you have this information from?

you are right, I was missing

  Danuta Jazłowiecka (PO)
so the final list is 7 for Article 13

Re: EU's Tusk warns of risks in rise of U.S. tech giants

#68

Post by johannes1234321 »

m0zg wrote: post #66
johannes1234321 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "pay cut" is one-dimensional. In Europe I don't have student debt. In Europe I pay less for health care. In Europe I have more time of. In Europe I have better public infrastructure. In Europe I pay less for housing than the Valley. Of course you can validate those things differently, but only looking on salary tells little.

You don't pay that much less for healthcare. Remember, it's not the government that's paying for it, it's _you_ paying, with your taxes. The cost structure is different, that's true (European doctors also make a lot less, and US pharma companies subsidize non-US customers for some reason), but that doesn't matter with a typical US SWE salary. And with a fat $200K+ paycheck student debt goes away in a few years, if yo…

> You don't pay that much less for healthcare. Remember, it's not the government that's paying for it, it's _you_ paying, with your taxes

Well, if I look at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_h... per capita is almost double to many European countries.

But even then comparison is hard, since treatments etc. differ.

> And with a fat $200K+ paycheck student debt goes away in a few years, if you had it in the first place (substantial fraction of students receive financial assistance).

If a European however, isntea dofnoayingnof debt has some money to invest there can be long term benefits (also Europeans often have better retirement funds)

All just to say that is complicated and comparison is hard. And true, it can financially be beneficial to get a good education in Europe and the go to make some money. Tusk's issue however is that digital world is important and US has a big leap and control.

Re: EU's Tusk warns of risks in rise of U.S. tech giants

#69

Post by m0zg »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #68
m0zg wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't pay that much less for healthcare. Remember, it's not the government that's paying for it, it's _you_ paying, with your taxes. The cost structure is different, that's true (European doctors also make a lot less, and US pharma companies subsidize non-US customers for some reason), but that doesn't matter with a typical US SWE salary. And with a fat $200K+ paycheck student debt goes away in a few years, if yo…

> You don't pay that much less for healthcare. Remember, it's not the government that's paying for it, it's _you_ paying, with your taxes Well, if I look at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_h... per capita is almost double to many European countries. But even then comparison is hard, since treatments etc. differ. > And with a fat $200K+ paycheck student debt goes away in a few years, if you…

Sure, but as a SWE you're making 3 times as much and paying half as much in taxes. You have to take that into account when deciding which is better for you economically, and it won't be in Europe's favor.

Re: EU's Tusk warns of risks in rise of U.S. tech giants

#70

Post by markdown »

andreilys wrote: post #34
markdown wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A similar case can be made for Chinese companies, many of whom are actively complicit in human rights violations Snowden showed us that US companies routinely do this, with FISA forcing them to participate just like the Chinese Govt does to Chinese companies. Also, US law only protects the human rights of US citizens, while non-citizens get their privacy invaded routinely (in contravention of Article 12 of the Univ…

US tech companies routinely aid the government in systematic ethnic cleansing [1]? Also last time I remember there being a showdown on privacy between Apple and the FBI, Apple refused their request to side-load software that would allow them to crack a terrorists phone. I can't imagine Huawei being able to refuse such a request from the Communist party. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/ethn…

> US tech companies routinely aid the government in systematic ethnic cleansing [1]?

Perhaps you're responding to the wrong comment. This thread is about the invasion of ones human right to privacy.

As for the other point, the public show by Apple is irrelevant... of course they publicly refuse to cooperate with the FBI. FISA warrants are secret though and in any case, would have no ability to refuse an order from a FISA court.

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