Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The European Social Stack

european.social

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 139 posts

Re: The European Social Stack

#81

Post by carlosjobim »

moffkalast wrote: post #28
jstummbillig wrote: post #19

Here is an idea for a EU product: Build something that is great, and make it so good, that everyone, including US citizens, will want to use it. Your ethics can still be great, but don't make me feel like your product won't be. If you have to market "Europe" or privacy it probably won't be.

Doesn't work. As soon as something great appears, US VCs immediately buy it and move it to the bay area. A fair few of the products you think are US grown probably aren't. If not, a competitor appears that is less constrained by regulations and can move faster, taking over most of the market instead.

You're not forced to sell, nobody is.

Re: The European Social Stack

#82

Post by storus »

"Europe has a strong ecosystem of social companies and a deep well of expertise in designing and operating social protocols." LOL

When you start writing something, pick something more believable. It just invalidates anything you write thereafter.

Re: The European Social Stack

#83

Post by csomar »

benrutter wrote: post #67
keiferski wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, basically no successful American social media company advertises itself as being American. And its users do not think of it as "an American company," they just think of it as its own thing.

That might be true for social media, but there are 100s of American brands that make a large point of being thought of as an "American company" or "American made" goods.

I think that's when selling inside America but I don't remember seeing any american company proudly advertising its product as "American". I'd wager that today they want to hide that fact.

Re: The European Social Stack

#84

Post by [deleted] »

Radle wrote: post #60
throwaway13337 wrote: post #10

Engagement metrics fed into recommendations algorithms are the paperclip maximizers that feed humanity's collective poison. Europe should do the one thing it knows how to do: regulate. For once, it is the answer. Do it only there. The rest of the dominos will fall. Making a european branded humanity poisoner is not the answer. Specifically, regulating against silent signals like watch time and comment count. Upvotes/…

We europeans can do more than regulate, your statement is just plain offensive. You would now that if you ever went to a proper school. Those unfortunately are not widely available on your side of the pond.

[deleted]

Re: The European Social Stack

#85

Post by Barrin92 »

jonstaab wrote: post #66

Time to coin a new term, I think: "openwashing". Europe is adopting open source and open protocols, not to promote individual sovereignty, but explicitly to protect European sovereignty from foreign influence. This is not what these technologies were built for; "promoting democracy" does not protect the rights of individuals. The technology listed is mostly federated, not radically open (like, for example, nostr). In…

>not to promote individual sovereignty, but explicitly to protect European sovereignty from foreign influence

good, what's wrong with that? Europe isn't a continent for Ayn Rand reading crypto bros obsessed with their individual sovereignty, collective responsibility has always been the basis of our social contract.

We're not a continent for internet libertarians, if that's what you're going for you might want move to some Peter Thiel VC funded micro-nation somewhere, we don't want nostr or 'radically open' we want social technologies that facilitate democracy, human dignity and being able to defend ourselves from nations that don't care about any of it. In the German constitution we have a concept for this Wehrhafte Demokratie, 'militant democracy', building democratic tools that are able of defeating its enemies, not individual escapism.

Re: The European Social Stack

#86

Post by vidarh »

vovavili wrote: post #78
vidarh wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having spent years working for a VC and having raised rounds from VC's in Europe multiple times over the last 26 years, that it doesn't exist is news to me.

I am not aware of anything on the level of YCombinator or Sequoia Capital over here in Europe.

That's a very different thing from VC not existing.

Re: The European Social Stack

#87

Post by vovavili »

benrutter wrote: post #67
keiferski wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, basically no successful American social media company advertises itself as being American. And its users do not think of it as "an American company," they just think of it as its own thing.

That might be true for social media, but there are 100s of American brands that make a large point of being thought of as an "American company" or "American made" goods.

This kind of messaging is overtly Republican-coded.

Re: The European Social Stack

#88

Post by MarceColl »

wilg wrote: post #64
Radle wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We europeans can do more than regulate, your statement is just plain offensive. You would now that if you ever went to a proper school. Those unfortunately are not widely available on your side of the pond.

https://www.statista.com/chart/30934/world-best-universities...

And yet my American ex-GF that went to one of these top universities with very good grades when she came to Barcelona to do a masters (in a lowly Spanish university) she was so far behind in knowledge compared to her peers she had to do a lot of work just to catch up.

I'm pretty sure most of these are just politics being played.

Re: The European Social Stack

#89

Post by tredre3 »

wilg wrote: post #61
deadbabe wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about wines, cheeses, olive oils

America has world-class wines, cheeses, and olive oils.

America can make those those just as well as the Europeans, that much is true. But world-class implies renowned and nobody outside of America wants those American products. Hell, Americans who care about quality in those categories will favor the European option (whether it's based on merits or not isn't relevant, it's just how it is, it just shows that world-class means nothing).

Re: The European Social Stack

#90

Post by vovavili »

rndm77be9f wrote: post #76
benrutter wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might be true for social media, but there are 100s of American brands that make a large point of being thought of as an "American company" or "American made" goods.

Does the average non-HN type in Europe hold comparable pan-European or even plain National Pride? I think here of the German national relationship with their own flag and feel skeptical of a comparison here.

From my observation both studying and working abroad in the Netherlands, France, Germany, Finland and Latvia, people almost always tend to cluster along ethnic or linguistic lines in another European country. This stays invariant even if the command of English is perfect. Pan-European national identity is very much non-existent, ethno-lingustic patriotism very much is alive.
Post reply on HN