Europe's Software Problem(berthub.eu)
berthub.eu
Europe's Software Problem
https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/europes-software-problem/
575 comments
I moved roughly 10 years ago to the US from europe. In my experience, raising small amounts of money is possible in Europe and not too hard. Once you need more money, it becomes extremely difficult or nearly impossible, unless you can spend all your time networking, which is not going to happen if you are busy building a product.
I would say that banking in Europe is much better developed than in the US. In the US, we still have checks and you need to pay for wire transfers (what???). Doing taxes in the US is 10 times more complicated than it is in Europe, and CPAs are only interested to doing them for you if you are a cookie cutter case and easy to make money off. Otherwise, good luck getting a call back. That doesn't happen in Europe. You hire an accountant, he does his job.
Entrepreneurship in the US is not easier than it is in Europe, IMHO. Raising money or scaling might be easier.
In my experience, I've been dealing with constant discrimination in the US. It is claimed that where you are from or what your social status is, doesn't matter, in silicon valley (or California in general). People are nice, they smile, but it's mostly fake. You remain a foreigner, who should still work for less pay than those who grew up locally and went to an ivy league school, even though you have the same credentials and graduated at a top school in Europe (in my case, I have an ivy league degree on top of that).
Raising money in the US? No different than in Europe, at least in my experience. Again, no network = no raise. And you will need to overcome the above discrimination or at least the idea that you might "go back" any time, even if you are a permanent resident.
All this sounds brutal, and maybe hard to take, but I just say it like it is, and I prefer to be honest and straightforward and share my first hand experience.
I would say that banking in Europe is much better developed than in the US. In the US, we still have checks and you need to pay for wire transfers (what???). Doing taxes in the US is 10 times more complicated than it is in Europe, and CPAs are only interested to doing them for you if you are a cookie cutter case and easy to make money off. Otherwise, good luck getting a call back. That doesn't happen in Europe. You hire an accountant, he does his job.
Entrepreneurship in the US is not easier than it is in Europe, IMHO. Raising money or scaling might be easier.
In my experience, I've been dealing with constant discrimination in the US. It is claimed that where you are from or what your social status is, doesn't matter, in silicon valley (or California in general). People are nice, they smile, but it's mostly fake. You remain a foreigner, who should still work for less pay than those who grew up locally and went to an ivy league school, even though you have the same credentials and graduated at a top school in Europe (in my case, I have an ivy league degree on top of that).
Raising money in the US? No different than in Europe, at least in my experience. Again, no network = no raise. And you will need to overcome the above discrimination or at least the idea that you might "go back" any time, even if you are a permanent resident.
All this sounds brutal, and maybe hard to take, but I just say it like it is, and I prefer to be honest and straightforward and share my first hand experience.
> You remain a foreigner, who should still work for less pay than those who grew up locally and went to an ivy league school, even though you have the same credentials and graduated at a top school in Europe (in my case, I have an ivy league degree on top of that).
Bingo. There's a set of something like ten schools from which Silicon Valley companies hire.
If you're not from one of those, you will be cordially invited to eat shit.
Bingo. There's a set of something like ten schools from which Silicon Valley companies hire.
If you're not from one of those, you will be cordially invited to eat shit.
May be true for hiring for entry level roles in same cases, but it is certainly untrue when you are hiring for positions with more than a couple years experience. I have literally never looked at anyone's college credentials unless I'm interviewing for an entry level role. I do not know, or care, where any of my coworkers went to school and I don't know anyone who does.
To be fair, we aren't a SV startup, but we've always had an equal engineering presence there (probably 120 engineers there now vs maybe 30 in 2018).
To be fair, we aren't a SV startup, but we've always had an equal engineering presence there (probably 120 engineers there now vs maybe 30 in 2018).
In my experience, at the FAANG I worked at, there was definitely an "approved" schools list for US candidates.
It completely blew my mind, to be honest (and I do see similar weirdnesses in the way US colleagues review CV's, so I don't think it's only a FAANG thing).
It completely blew my mind, to be honest (and I do see similar weirdnesses in the way US colleagues review CV's, so I don't think it's only a FAANG thing).
I'm in my 40s and have an ivy league degree from the bay area. I still get discriminated, and I have multiple succesfull products in the market and I'm a semi-celebrity in my niche. And I am still discriminated against.
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.
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.
But you grew up in the US. You are not a "foreigner".
Even if that's true (it is), I have almost never had a meaningful conversation with a coworker about where we got our degrees from. Maybe that's because the conversation usually stops after I share my no-name institution. And in my current role I don't remember degree pedigree coming up once in any conversation.
If there's any lesson to learn from this thread I guess it's that no amount or level of credentials can overcome cultural biases, racism, and discrimination.
If there's any lesson to learn from this thread I guess it's that no amount or level of credentials can overcome cultural biases, racism, and discrimination.
I believe the article means "lack of imagination from business", for which I'll strongly agree as a European who migrated a while ago. In my personal experience you have either wannapreneurs trying to break through with minimal budgets, or large investments in established companies. They don't seem to mix though, business people go for safer things than trying to build the next Google. Raising money for a prototype, even if it's making some money, is almost impossible or at the very best will land you with very bad terms.
> raising similar amounts of money in Europe is super hard
This.
I am European but live and work in US. Simply put, US wins hands down because they:
- have resources, read $$$$
- take risk
- have the right entrepreneurial mindset
Europe? let's just say they are not even close.
This.
I am European but live and work in US. Simply put, US wins hands down because they:
- have resources, read $$$$
- take risk
- have the right entrepreneurial mindset
Europe? let's just say they are not even close.
In Europe, everybody wants to be a manager because mere developers is not high enough status. In the US, a 45yo DB engineer is akin to highly skilled wizard.
True, this was also my experience before I moved to the US.
Generally speaking, in Europe, the technical career track simply don't exist. You are eventually forced to take the management career path. Eng are seen as the ones scrapping the floors.
In US, at big tech companies, you can stay on the tech career path and get to Principal, Architect, Distinguished Eng etc. At these levels, your voice is heard as much, if not more, as managers.
IC contributors and managers job titles are mapped to an internal company level. For instance, a Principal Eng usually map to a Director. You can easily tell where you are in the career ladder, regardless on the specific track you are on.
Generally speaking, in Europe, the technical career track simply don't exist. You are eventually forced to take the management career path. Eng are seen as the ones scrapping the floors.
In US, at big tech companies, you can stay on the tech career path and get to Principal, Architect, Distinguished Eng etc. At these levels, your voice is heard as much, if not more, as managers.
IC contributors and managers job titles are mapped to an internal company level. For instance, a Principal Eng usually map to a Director. You can easily tell where you are in the career ladder, regardless on the specific track you are on.
What country is that? Germany? France?
In Sweden it is the opposite because
In Sweden it is the opposite because
1) more responsibilities
2) salary increase too small (and taxes too high, you can end up in the wrong bracket)
3) flat hierarchy (Du reform)what do you mean by wrong bracket? According to wiki Sweden has progress tax income.
Yes, but depending on your yearly income there is another tax separate from the normal income tax (inkomskatt), if you earn more than 523 300 SEK you also need to pay "statlig inkomstskatt" at 20% for everything above that rate.
And previous year 2020 was the first tax year without värnskatt, an extra 5%, ie 25% total, for everything above 703 000 SEK. It was abolished 2019.
And previous year 2020 was the first tax year without värnskatt, an extra 5%, ie 25% total, for everything above 703 000 SEK. It was abolished 2019.
Oh my god, a $100k salary would be taxes at 42%, plus a 25% VAT on general spending, that's just insane...
In the UK you pay 60% on anything between 100K and 125K, then it goes back to 40%. Above 150K it goes to 45%. This is only the income tax. National insurance would be 2% at those income levels.
Not to be a dick but what's your source on that? I understood it to be 40% up to 150k, not 60% as per https://www.gov.uk/guidance/rates-and-thresholds-for-employe...
In the UK you don’t pay taxes on the first 12500£ you earn in a tax year. This is the income tax allowance.
For each 2£ you earn above 100K, your income tax allowance is reduced by 1£. At 125K, your allowance reaches 0. The result is that between 100K and 125K your marginal tax rate is 60%. At 125K it goes back to 40%.
For each 2£ you earn above 100K, your income tax allowance is reduced by 1£. At 125K, your allowance reaches 0. The result is that between 100K and 125K your marginal tax rate is 60%. At 125K it goes back to 40%.
Wow - thank you for this, TIL.
In Belgium, you can get to 50% tax on that 100K + 21% VAT on normal goods (6% on food).
The only "good" part is that even managers in the Nordics have the same work-life expectations as the workers. Of course there are some managers who take work home more than others but unless you are in the C-level you can tell anyone who tries to make you work more than the usual 37,5-40h a week to kindly fuck off.
Tbh this isn't my experience in the UK. Manager is just one path people take; others aim for tech lead, or principal engineer. I really don't see how 'status' comes into this.
Principal engineers practically didn’t exist in the UK until a few years ago. Even now, a principal engineer would unlikely get any further promotions and pay rises, while an engineering manager could potentially become the CTO.
The status is usually reflected in the pay check. Managers tend to be payed more compared to Eng.
Yep.. you get paid shit as a dev here unless you run your own business.. has always been like that, will always be like that. Europe will never be big in software.
We have nice livable cities, and we have old cultures, that’s about all what’s good here
> Europe will never be big in software.
After the Bay Area, NYC and Beijing, London has the most startup funding of any city in the world, and the UK as a whole has the 3rd highest number of unicorns, after the US and China.
Parts of Europe are doing badly, others are doing ok (but could do better!).
After the Bay Area, NYC and Beijing, London has the most startup funding of any city in the world, and the UK as a whole has the 3rd highest number of unicorns, after the US and China.
Parts of Europe are doing badly, others are doing ok (but could do better!).
Yeah, the UK isn’t really Europe...
Hope you moved as if I were you (reading all your comments here) I would not want to live here, and then in NL no less where I was born and people seem to like internationally. But if you dislike it so much I am not sure why you did not move to the US yet? Or even the UK which is a stepping stone but easier to get to.
I did, now makes probably 5x what I'd make in Europe.
Developers are the modern bricklayers that just sit by the computer and find what to copy and paste from stackoverflow.
I feel like I'm fixing your software right now.
Yes, that is what lazy, crap developers do
Yeah I moved to Asia from Europe, and I dont think it's the lack of imagination that make us so slow, inefficient, unable to compete abroad etc. Or else here in China we'd still be cutting wood and milking cow: there's very little "imagination".
But the systems are built differently, usually turned specifically to succeed fast and loud at the cost of individual comfort. For instance, where I come from in France, you would keep a useless, even toxic, employee for months for fear of the firing trial, but where I am now we can all be dismissed arbitrarily with a month notice, and that makes the hiring very different: people have a strict behavior feedback loop, where they need to change to stay somewhere, companies have no pressure on lowering hiring because of legal issues, employees can always always find better.
This turns a population of mild puppies into a fastly rotating workforce cross pollinating at light speed and I admit I think Europe can never win against people who built such systems. It's just not the same game anymore.
But the systems are built differently, usually turned specifically to succeed fast and loud at the cost of individual comfort. For instance, where I come from in France, you would keep a useless, even toxic, employee for months for fear of the firing trial, but where I am now we can all be dismissed arbitrarily with a month notice, and that makes the hiring very different: people have a strict behavior feedback loop, where they need to change to stay somewhere, companies have no pressure on lowering hiring because of legal issues, employees can always always find better.
This turns a population of mild puppies into a fastly rotating workforce cross pollinating at light speed and I admit I think Europe can never win against people who built such systems. It's just not the same game anymore.
My favorite European tech company is Atmel (Norway), which developed the AVR-8 microcontroller which is in the original Arduino (Italian).
Particularly, Atmel made the last 8-bit microprocessor which was just a bit more carefully thought out than everything else on the market and carefully positioned to give a lot of bang per buck.
Atmel got bought by Microchip (San Jose, USA)
Today when I think of Europe I think of those annoying popups which (I think) were a "normalization of deviance" for annoying and harassing UI elements on web sites... I mean, this one is required, virtuous, etc. so it is OK to nag people to get their email address, open a new window every time you click on a search result (Bing) so you'll accidentally click on an ad when handling way too many tabs
There was something anti-user about the GDPR popup that "broke the dam" for other bad practices, as well meaning as it is. It might pour sand into the wheels of the data economy, but it made it impossible to be an advocate of the user in most organizations. (e.g. if you can't reject that one, what can you reject?)
Particularly, Atmel made the last 8-bit microprocessor which was just a bit more carefully thought out than everything else on the market and carefully positioned to give a lot of bang per buck.
Atmel got bought by Microchip (San Jose, USA)
Today when I think of Europe I think of those annoying popups which (I think) were a "normalization of deviance" for annoying and harassing UI elements on web sites... I mean, this one is required, virtuous, etc. so it is OK to nag people to get their email address, open a new window every time you click on a search result (Bing) so you'll accidentally click on an ad when handling way too many tabs
There was something anti-user about the GDPR popup that "broke the dam" for other bad practices, as well meaning as it is. It might pour sand into the wheels of the data economy, but it made it impossible to be an advocate of the user in most organizations. (e.g. if you can't reject that one, what can you reject?)
Unless I'm mistaken Amtel was founded in the US. However the AVR was developed in Norway.
> Atmel Corporation was founded in 1984 by George Perlegos, a Greek-American computer scientist. Atmel was an acronym for “advanced technology for memory and logic”.
> In 1996, Atmel formed a design team in Trondheim, Norway to develop the Atmel AVR line of RISC microcontrollers. This team combined technology of former students at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology with Atmel's expertise in flash memory. ..The AVR chip is the basis of most Arduino open-source development boards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmel
> In 1996, Atmel formed a design team in Trondheim, Norway to develop the Atmel AVR line of RISC microcontrollers. This team combined technology of former students at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology with Atmel's expertise in flash memory. ..The AVR chip is the basis of most Arduino open-source development boards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmel
My brain also tried to automatically correct the spelling to a more famous(at least in my mind) name, m <-> t.
*sigh, this is the the magic of Branding...
*sigh, this is the the magic of Branding...
[deleted]
The absolute vast majority of "GDPR popups" are actually illegal under GDPR.
Unfortunately, law enforcement has been asleep at the wheel.
Unfortunately, law enforcement has been asleep at the wheel.
Unfortunately the law was so bad even its creators can’t implement/understand/respect it.
The law is very straightforward and can be quite easily implemented by anyone. Notable exceptions are finance institutions where GDPR is superseded by relevant financial laws of each country.
There are explainers, compliance checklists, whatever you want to implement it. It was three years before it went in effect, and it's been 3 years since it went into effect. If you don't understand it by now, you definitely don't deserve to be handling personal data.
There are explainers, compliance checklists, whatever you want to implement it. It was three years before it went in effect, and it's been 3 years since it went into effect. If you don't understand it by now, you definitely don't deserve to be handling personal data.
The only straightforward thing about this law is how ignorant were its creators.
The cost of implementing it was in the billions. The human time cost paid for all those damn cookie popups we keep having to click on is probably already in the thousands of life-times wasted, and it keeps on growing.
The cost of implementing it was in the billions. The human time cost paid for all those damn cookie popups we keep having to click on is probably already in the thousands of life-times wasted, and it keeps on growing.
> The cost of implementing it was in the billions.
Cry me a river. If you was careless with users' data, who cares?
> The human time cost paid for all those damn cookie popups we keep having to click on is probably already in the thousands of life-times wasted, and it keeps on growing.
Ah yes, and the problem is the law that protects users' data, and not the companies who couldn't care less about privacy.
Cry me a river. If you was careless with users' data, who cares?
> The human time cost paid for all those damn cookie popups we keep having to click on is probably already in the thousands of life-times wasted, and it keeps on growing.
Ah yes, and the problem is the law that protects users' data, and not the companies who couldn't care less about privacy.
The very https://gdpr.eu/ website has a cookie banner!!!
When everybody breaks a law, including its creators, it's the law that is broken.
When everybody breaks a law, including its creators, it's the law that is broken.
Cookie banners are fine when done appropriately.
The one on https://gdpr.eu/ is very well done. It does not break the law.
It's an example of excellence others should follow. Unintrusive. As easy to opt out as to opt in. Clear buttons, simple language. Clear text. If you prefer to ignore the banner that's fine too. On desktop it's unintrusive and you can just ignore it. I tried scrolling, it just stays out of the way. Each button is clear: "Ok", "No", "Privacy policy". Perfect. (It could be better on mobile for size, but it's still easy to click away.)
No dark patterns, dirty tricks, misleading controls, no "yes means no" controls, no "visit our 1000 partner sites to opt out" insanity, no other dirty tricks. You will not "accidentally" end up tracked when you didn't want to be. You will not be misled into believing a 70% screen size, deliberately slow panel is required.
Panels on other sites are deliberately slow and harder to opt out of. They want you to be annoyed. That's because they want you to believe the GDPR requires stupid, slow, large, intrusive, complicated banners. So that you will tell everyone how bad the GDPR is. But the GDPR doesn't require those things. In fact, when you see a banner that says "due to the GDPR we must..." it is often a straight up lie, and parts of the banner are against the law, not required by it.
https://gdpr.eu/ - thanks for highlighting that great example. I will take that as inspiration next time I need a good quality, sleek, fast, easy, compliant and user-friendly banner.
Such banners are not required, though. My sites don't have cookie banners and that's fine. They don't track users against the expectations of the users. My sites do have optional logins, user identification, and use cookies for those things, but logins don't require cookie banners because people expect their identity to be tracked by the act of logging in. And, importantly, their identity used only for what users would expect. My sites do have basic request logging and monitoring too, as you would expect for security and ops, but again those don't require cookie banners if they are done respectfully.
The one on https://gdpr.eu/ is very well done. It does not break the law.
It's an example of excellence others should follow. Unintrusive. As easy to opt out as to opt in. Clear buttons, simple language. Clear text. If you prefer to ignore the banner that's fine too. On desktop it's unintrusive and you can just ignore it. I tried scrolling, it just stays out of the way. Each button is clear: "Ok", "No", "Privacy policy". Perfect. (It could be better on mobile for size, but it's still easy to click away.)
No dark patterns, dirty tricks, misleading controls, no "yes means no" controls, no "visit our 1000 partner sites to opt out" insanity, no other dirty tricks. You will not "accidentally" end up tracked when you didn't want to be. You will not be misled into believing a 70% screen size, deliberately slow panel is required.
Panels on other sites are deliberately slow and harder to opt out of. They want you to be annoyed. That's because they want you to believe the GDPR requires stupid, slow, large, intrusive, complicated banners. So that you will tell everyone how bad the GDPR is. But the GDPR doesn't require those things. In fact, when you see a banner that says "due to the GDPR we must..." it is often a straight up lie, and parts of the banner are against the law, not required by it.
https://gdpr.eu/ - thanks for highlighting that great example. I will take that as inspiration next time I need a good quality, sleek, fast, easy, compliant and user-friendly banner.
Such banners are not required, though. My sites don't have cookie banners and that's fine. They don't track users against the expectations of the users. My sites do have optional logins, user identification, and use cookies for those things, but logins don't require cookie banners because people expect their identity to be tracked by the act of logging in. And, importantly, their identity used only for what users would expect. My sites do have basic request logging and monitoring too, as you would expect for security and ops, but again those don't require cookie banners if they are done respectfully.
Unfortunately the gdpr.eu website is not official. Worse, its cookie banner is illegal under GDPR.
Check out https://ico.org.uk/ for a correct implementation. And cry...
Cookie banners ARE required for something as simple as logs analytics. That is the spirit of the GDPR and it is what makes it a broken law.
Check out https://ico.org.uk/ for a correct implementation. And cry...
Cookie banners ARE required for something as simple as logs analytics. That is the spirit of the GDPR and it is what makes it a broken law.
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.
Law is reasonable then. You track your user, you notify them . I fail to see the problem.
Then again, I am not running shady websites and selling user data
Then again, I am not running shady websites and selling user data
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.
> If a law is realistically unenforceable then it’s unreasonable.
It is enforceable, and there have already been fines.
> A law that requires some agency in Europe to police all of the websites
No, they are not going to police every website in the world.
Once again, if it 6 years later you still couldn't read and understand a rather reasonably written law with multiple explanations and examples, you are a part of the problem.
It is enforceable, and there have already been fines.
> A law that requires some agency in Europe to police all of the websites
No, they are not going to police every website in the world.
Once again, if it 6 years later you still couldn't read and understand a rather reasonably written law with multiple explanations and examples, you are a part of the problem.
> Once again, if it 6 years later you still couldn't read and understand a rather reasonably written law with multiple explanations and examples, you are a part of the problem.
It’s not reasonable if it’s written in a way that’s so easy to misinterpret.
People still don’t understand - shit law.
OR
People do understand and implement bad pop-ups and EU doesn’t enforce - shit law.
A law that is not enforced or has been written in a way that isn’t reasonable to enforce is absolutely a shitty law. Pie in the sky laws that have no teeth are worse than no law at all. It just gives room for lots of selective enforcement which is a great way to encourage corruption and shakedown schemes.
It’s not reasonable if it’s written in a way that’s so easy to misinterpret.
People still don’t understand - shit law.
OR
People do understand and implement bad pop-ups and EU doesn’t enforce - shit law.
A law that is not enforced or has been written in a way that isn’t reasonable to enforce is absolutely a shitty law. Pie in the sky laws that have no teeth are worse than no law at all. It just gives room for lots of selective enforcement which is a great way to encourage corruption and shakedown schemes.
After 6 years, Google itself (which has all the lawyers and engineers it needs) has resorted to the same f-ing ugly cookie popup everyone else is using.
The problem is the law. It's a crappy law.
The problem is the law. It's a crappy law.
It should be opt in actually as per GDPR. But I agree they should police that a lot more.
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.
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.
GDPR doesn't spell out anything. It's the most vague f-ing BS I have ever seen. There are no definitions, no guidelines.
6 years later there is no consensus on simple questions like website analytics which is probably the most common usage scenario for the kind of data GDPR covers.
This law is beyond bad.
6 years later there is no consensus on simple questions like website analytics which is probably the most common usage scenario for the kind of data GDPR covers.
This law is beyond bad.
> There are no definitions, no guidelines.
There are both definitions and guidelines. You just didn't even care to read it.
For example, cookies: https://gdpr.eu/cookies/
Popups: https://gdpr.eu/recital-32-conditions-for-consent/
=== start quote ===
Consent should be given by a clear affirmative act establishing a freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject’s agreement to the processing of personal data
...
Silence, pre-ticked boxes or inactivity should not therefore constitute consent.
=== end quote ===
> there is no consensus on simple questions like website analytics which is probably the most common usage scenario for the kind of data GDPR covers.
The consensus is there. And it's spelled clearly in the law.
There are both definitions and guidelines. You just didn't even care to read it.
For example, cookies: https://gdpr.eu/cookies/
Popups: https://gdpr.eu/recital-32-conditions-for-consent/
=== start quote ===
Consent should be given by a clear affirmative act establishing a freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject’s agreement to the processing of personal data
...
Silence, pre-ticked boxes or inactivity should not therefore constitute consent.
=== end quote ===
> there is no consensus on simple questions like website analytics which is probably the most common usage scenario for the kind of data GDPR covers.
The consensus is there. And it's spelled clearly in the law.
Please tell me the consensus and guideline for website analytics.
Please tell me the consensus and guideline on how to store the rejection for using cookies so I don't ask the website visitor every time he visits.
Please tell me the consensus and guideline on what "legitimate purposes" are. With examples per industry please.
And most of all, please tell me the consensus and guideline for cookie banners and popups, considering they are used on the EU's websites themselves.
Please tell me the consensus and guideline on how to store the rejection for using cookies so I don't ask the website visitor every time he visits.
Please tell me the consensus and guideline on what "legitimate purposes" are. With examples per industry please.
And most of all, please tell me the consensus and guideline for cookie banners and popups, considering they are used on the EU's websites themselves.
> Please tell me the consensus and guideline for website analytics.
Literally described in one of the links.
> Please tell me the consensus and guideline on how to store the rejection for using cookies
You can use a cookie for that. If it's for a logged-in user, you can store that in the user profile.
> Please tell me the consensus and guideline on what "legitimate purposes" are.
Text in one of the links literally contains a link to further reading on legitimate interest.
> And most of all, please tell me the consensus and guideline for cookie banners and popups
Literally described in both links.
Once again. It's painfully clear that you never bothered to read and understand anything about the law in the past 6 years. Your clueless questions about "why does gdpr and europa sites have cookie banners" only serve as further proof.
Literally described in one of the links.
> Please tell me the consensus and guideline on how to store the rejection for using cookies
You can use a cookie for that. If it's for a logged-in user, you can store that in the user profile.
> Please tell me the consensus and guideline on what "legitimate purposes" are.
Text in one of the links literally contains a link to further reading on legitimate interest.
> And most of all, please tell me the consensus and guideline for cookie banners and popups
Literally described in both links.
Once again. It's painfully clear that you never bothered to read and understand anything about the law in the past 6 years. Your clueless questions about "why does gdpr and europa sites have cookie banners" only serve as further proof.
> Literally described in one of the links.
The https://gdpr.eu/ website is not official. Its description of "analytics cookies" cannot be found anywhere in the actual GDPR & Co regulations.
> You can use a cookie for that.
Use a cookie to store the literal "No cookies" preference? Great example of the contradictory and irrational text of the GDPR.
> Text in one of the links literally contains a link to further reading on legitimate interest.
More vague and contradictory BS.
> Literally described in both links.
Too bad that description is not actually valid and if you'll actually check the GDPR text (not the non-official gdpr.eu website) you'll find no such descriptions.
Moreover, the cookie banner on both websites is actually illegal under GDPR. Check out https://ico.org.uk/ for a correct (but horrifying) implementation.
You are correct, I am not an every-day GDPR expert. I only encounter it when implementing on various websites and there only for analytics - no ads or anything more.
But its requirements were always for the worse. Because of its vague and contradictory definitions everybody (including me) adopted the safest implementation and thus the current web of cookie banners and popups was born. I hope you are happy with it, it solves nothing but it makes everybody's life worse.
The https://gdpr.eu/ website is not official. Its description of "analytics cookies" cannot be found anywhere in the actual GDPR & Co regulations.
> You can use a cookie for that.
Use a cookie to store the literal "No cookies" preference? Great example of the contradictory and irrational text of the GDPR.
> Text in one of the links literally contains a link to further reading on legitimate interest.
More vague and contradictory BS.
> Literally described in both links.
Too bad that description is not actually valid and if you'll actually check the GDPR text (not the non-official gdpr.eu website) you'll find no such descriptions.
Moreover, the cookie banner on both websites is actually illegal under GDPR. Check out https://ico.org.uk/ for a correct (but horrifying) implementation.
You are correct, I am not an every-day GDPR expert. I only encounter it when implementing on various websites and there only for analytics - no ads or anything more.
But its requirements were always for the worse. Because of its vague and contradictory definitions everybody (including me) adopted the safest implementation and thus the current web of cookie banners and popups was born. I hope you are happy with it, it solves nothing but it makes everybody's life worse.
gdpr.eu is not official. This has been mentioned on HN dozens of times.
There's the law, you complain that it's badly written, that it's impossible to understand, that it's impossible to implement. Even though it has multiple recitals to explain things. Because you've never read it and never tried to understand it.
There are multiple guides and explanations for the law. You complain that those are not official.
One thing is definitely clear: 6 years later it's not a problem with the law. It's the problem with you and other people like you who diss GDPR without taking a single step to understand it.
There are multiple guides and explanations for the law. You complain that those are not official.
One thing is definitely clear: 6 years later it's not a problem with the law. It's the problem with you and other people like you who diss GDPR without taking a single step to understand it.
I do what now?
Given the small country issue, a better comparison would be Israel. It has a thriving startup scene while only having 10 million people.
I'm working for a thriving startup in a European country of 11 million people. We had 100% growth per year until we had basically everybody in our own country and then it got massively harder. If we had started in the USA, we would have reached that point being 30x bigger, making billions of dollars, and much better prepared to conquer foreign markets.
So maybe Israel is doing quite well, but I know from experience that it would also do massively better if it had the size of the USA.
So maybe Israel is doing quite well, but I know from experience that it would also do massively better if it had the size of the USA.
Most of the super successful companies in Israel are either doing things for the state or working for American corporations (or the American government).
Yeah, in general any successful EU/Europe startups target the American market, because Americans are typically richer, and the market is huuuuuuuggggge (relative to European countries, at least).
Or you would have failed. Downside to a bigger market is more competition.
Most Israeli startups target the US anyway. The R&D center is in Israel while sales/marketing are in the US HQ.
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.
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.
Israel is a bit special because of the strong military and economic ties it has with the US and the shared strategic goals in the region. Simply put, that Iron Dome we saw in action a few weeks ago involved a lot of US built hardware and support, lots of high tech stuff from Israeli companies also selling to the US, etc. There are many billions involved with that stuff. That means Israeli companies tend to be extremely well funded (with US and Israeli defense money) and produce many equally well funded spin offs. A lot of these startups bootstrap straight out of the IDF even.
Also, Israel has a large jewish community in the US involved with the financial sector that wields quite a bit of political power. And Israel uses English as a second language inside Israel, and is culturally closely aligned with the US.
Also, Israel has a large jewish community in the US involved with the financial sector that wields quite a bit of political power. And Israel uses English as a second language inside Israel, and is culturally closely aligned with the US.
Israeli companies having funding up the wazoo, especially those that have products with military/security applications.
> Lack of imagination is not our problem.
Perhaps not in developers, but it is where it matters: most upper and middle managers. There's an incredibly conservative, risk-averse attitude. If you're risk-averse, all you see are cost centres, not investment opportunities, pivots and new revenue sources. This has a knock-on effect on the requirements for SaaS vendors.
You have a point about a heterogeneous markets and legal systems. What you're possibly also missing is Europe has a huge public sector compared to the US. That sector doesn't tend to focus on innovation at all, unless it's part of the war machine.
Perhaps not in developers, but it is where it matters: most upper and middle managers. There's an incredibly conservative, risk-averse attitude. If you're risk-averse, all you see are cost centres, not investment opportunities, pivots and new revenue sources. This has a knock-on effect on the requirements for SaaS vendors.
You have a point about a heterogeneous markets and legal systems. What you're possibly also missing is Europe has a huge public sector compared to the US. That sector doesn't tend to focus on innovation at all, unless it's part of the war machine.
A second reason is simply that the US as a big homogeneous market is a nice one to tackle for European companies as well. And often that means having a (big) presence in the US. The EU is basically many markets unified by really complex rules, bureaucracy, etc. There is free traffic of people but companies have a harder time dealing with local variations in legislation, hurdles for billing and taxation (e.g. VAT), banking, bureaucracy, etc.
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.
Our software essentially is for registering and sending some official forms to the government. We're based in Norway but couldn't get access to Danish governmental systems for testing our because we had no physical presence in Denmark.
We couldn't just set up a PO box and get an org. number, apparently that wasn't enough.
So far one of our customers have been kind enough to lend us their credentials for testing, but yeah would have been nice to have our own.
In Sweden we spent almost two years after being done getting our software released there, as the officials required that the main UI was approved by them and it involved a ton of back-and-forth.
Not just that, but each major version change that altered the main UI would also have to be approved...
The Finnish are quite decent at spending money on their government IT systems it seems, so they're more up to date. However not all documentation is in English and while your average Norwegian can read Danish and Swedish just fine, Finnish is something else entirely.
And of course all the Scandinavian governments have completely different systems for this, even though the forms are essentially the same across the countries, so zero code sharing there. Heck the Danish even have two completely different systems depending on which form you send.
We're just dealing with the Scandinavian countries, I'm sure it's similar in the other EU countries.
We couldn't just set up a PO box and get an org. number, apparently that wasn't enough.
So far one of our customers have been kind enough to lend us their credentials for testing, but yeah would have been nice to have our own.
In Sweden we spent almost two years after being done getting our software released there, as the officials required that the main UI was approved by them and it involved a ton of back-and-forth.
Not just that, but each major version change that altered the main UI would also have to be approved...
The Finnish are quite decent at spending money on their government IT systems it seems, so they're more up to date. However not all documentation is in English and while your average Norwegian can read Danish and Swedish just fine, Finnish is something else entirely.
And of course all the Scandinavian governments have completely different systems for this, even though the forms are essentially the same across the countries, so zero code sharing there. Heck the Danish even have two completely different systems depending on which form you send.
We're just dealing with the Scandinavian countries, I'm sure it's similar in the other EU countries.
If you need a Finnish-speaking person in Norway to help you with the Finnish documentation, shoot me a reply. I'm on the lookout for things on the side to do along with my main job.
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... not great.
Might have been true at some point, but nowdays even smaller payments are easy to send between EU banks. VAT payment is done in your home country, and you can deduct the VAT. The social aspect is harder; the amount of work to get a consistent revenue stream from another EU country can be enormous compared to doing buisness in another city in your own country.
There are people who specialize in sales between EU states, but for a small team without capital it was hard. That said most of the 100+ tech companies I know of have offices around EU to get talent from other countries.
There are people who specialize in sales between EU states, but for a small team without capital it was hard. That said most of the 100+ tech companies I know of have offices around EU to get talent from other countries.
Plain incorrect for consumer VAT. You have to charge VAT based on the origin of your customer. Different percentages, different ways to figure out the origin of your customer. For businesses you can do reverse VAT, and you’ll have to ask and check that.
Bank payments are easy yes, but credit cards are not ubiquitous, online payments are different in all countries, direct debit is not always supported across countries.
Bank payments are easy yes, but credit cards are not ubiquitous, online payments are different in all countries, direct debit is not always supported across countries.
When trading between EU countries, although you have to calculate and charge VAT based on the location of your consumer customers, if your business only does a small amount[1] of goods trade with various EU countries, or if it's supplying services[2], or if it's supplying online services[3], or if it's supplying goods or services to other businesses[4], it isn't necessary to have a company presence in each individual country.
So for businesses expanding into new EU countries it's not as onerous as needing a local presence would be.
(Disclaimer: I'm not an accountant and may be wrong. I'll take it on the chin if so. This is just my understanding, having needed to look this stuff up occasionally.)
[1] https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/taxation/vat/cross-bor...
[2] https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/taxation/vat/cross-bor...
[3] https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/taxation/vat/vat-digit...
[4] https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/taxation/vat/cross-bor...
So for businesses expanding into new EU countries it's not as onerous as needing a local presence would be.
(Disclaimer: I'm not an accountant and may be wrong. I'll take it on the chin if so. This is just my understanding, having needed to look this stuff up occasionally.)
[1] https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/taxation/vat/cross-bor...
[2] https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/taxation/vat/cross-bor...
[3] https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/taxation/vat/vat-digit...
[4] https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/taxation/vat/cross-bor...
I do not see these things as a big problem though, payments are is a service we buy for our own country as well. The same service provider doesn't work everywhere but for us that is not a problem.
Can attest to this. We maintain different sales channels for all EU countries.
I don't believe that's the case.
> 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.
Alza (CZ) is slightly bigger than a medium sized online shop and they are using CZ VAT ID intentionally for intracomunitary B2B sales, even though they do have physical presence in other countries.
Alza (CZ) is slightly bigger than a medium sized online shop and they are using CZ VAT ID intentionally for intracomunitary B2B sales, even though they do have physical presence in other countries.
none of this is true.
this is wrong, at least according to my experience living in Germany 10 years ago
> 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
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
As EUropean living in a different country for work, is not that easy at all. Try to do your taxes in Swedish or German or French.. Or try to have a social life with people that while could speak English will probably switch to their own language when in more than 2-3 person. Yes of course you can learn the language, but dont think you can be proficient in a couple of year, especially if working 40h/week, and still you will be proficient in a country at max
> will probably switch to their own language when in more than 2-3 person.
That's just rude and why would you want to socialise with such people. I had some great experiences and even when I was the only person not speaking the local language, everyone spoke English in my presence. There is plenty of people that have standards and if you cannot find them at a given time, just focus on something else.
That's just rude and why would you want to socialise with such people. I had some great experiences and even when I was the only person not speaking the local language, everyone spoke English in my presence. There is plenty of people that have standards and if you cannot find them at a given time, just focus on something else.
Isn't it a bit much to expect everyone to accommodate you? What if some don't speak English?
It could be rude but not necessarily. Context matters
It could be rude but not necessarily. Context matters
[deleted]
> That's just rude and why would you want to socialise with such people.
Well, tough luck. Welcome to Germany. Living and working in Germany? Learn German. This is the treatment I’ve got and frankly, that’s okay!
Well, tough luck. Welcome to Germany. Living and working in Germany? Learn German. This is the treatment I’ve got and frankly, that’s okay!
> I had some great experiences and even when I was the only person not speaking the local language, everyone spoke English in my presence
That's kinda rude if non-English speaking people join the conversation.
That's kinda rude if non-English speaking people join the conversation.
Been there, done that, it takes some work but it's not such a hurdle.
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.
Yeah, Just imagine sending kids to a school in a totally different language.
The kids learn the fastest.
(though it's good to have them study a bit before. But with Youtube, Duolingo, etc it's not that hard)
(though it's good to have them study a bit before. But with Youtube, Duolingo, etc it's not that hard)
True. But I think the problems are more nuanced. It is just harder to scale across EU than US. You'll need localization, marketing, customer support separately set up for different languages/countries.
As a data point, per user support costs (financial and other) are often much larger for European customers compared to the US or Asia. In my experience, it tends to be lower bump for consumer. Once you get into B2B or enterprise, European customers are significantly costlier to support than US equivalent.
It's a combination of requirements specific to markets (EU mandates like GDPR are easier train a support team on and build an escalation process), cultural expectations around handholding, not wanting to hear no for an answer unless it is delivered by an exec (and EU support teams inconsistently delivering the same message that a US would because they fear the response), and general language barriers.
In some ways, it is better to deliver arguably lower-quality support via the US with special treatment for a few key customers just to avoid having to setup support in Europe. Once you invest, you have to go all-in.
It's a combination of requirements specific to markets (EU mandates like GDPR are easier train a support team on and build an escalation process), cultural expectations around handholding, not wanting to hear no for an answer unless it is delivered by an exec (and EU support teams inconsistently delivering the same message that a US would because they fear the response), and general language barriers.
In some ways, it is better to deliver arguably lower-quality support via the US with special treatment for a few key customers just to avoid having to setup support in Europe. Once you invest, you have to go all-in.
as a european, this has not been my experience at all.
> It's a combination of requirements specific to markets (EU mandates like GDPR are easier train a support team on and build an escalation process), cultural expectations around handholding, not wanting to hear no for an answer unless it is delivered by an exec.
in my opinion, very little european teams (mostly italian, czech and german teams) care about hearing the answer from an executive. Also, what do you mean about handholding?
> It's a combination of requirements specific to markets (EU mandates like GDPR are easier train a support team on and build an escalation process), cultural expectations around handholding, not wanting to hear no for an answer unless it is delivered by an exec.
in my opinion, very little european teams (mostly italian, czech and german teams) care about hearing the answer from an executive. Also, what do you mean about handholding?
> 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
But that’s just a rephrasing of the same problem. If all of the top creative talent is leaving then Europe has a talent problem.
Europe needs to make it attractive to innovate there. It will let the locals stay and, if it’s working well, attract people from all over the world.
The language barriers are a lame excuse. It’s 100% all of the bureaucracy and anti-business experimenting mindset.
But that’s just a rephrasing of the same problem. If all of the top creative talent is leaving then Europe has a talent problem.
Europe needs to make it attractive to innovate there. It will let the locals stay and, if it’s working well, attract people from all over the world.
The language barriers are a lame excuse. It’s 100% all of the bureaucracy and anti-business experimenting mindset.
Probably it is harder to scale startups in Europe vs the US. But is that something nations should optimize for?
And if so, what priority should be given to "ease of rapid growth for startups" vs many other issues that determine economic growth and a population's well being?
Also, how much of the problem is due to the issues you raise vs other factors such amount of money spent in R&D? The US has a huge amount of "defense spending" but in fact a lot of that is dedicated to funding research in Universities and direct job creation. Maybe Europe just needs more research Universities, more labs and more state investment into technology. The recent Moderna breakthrough was in part due to a $25 million DARPA investment into the RNA vaccine idea.
As for the issues you mention; solving bureaucratic issues would make things more efficient, and it is definitely desirable. However, I would argue that a heterogeneous market (in terms of language and culture) is more of an advantage than a liability.
Having many cultures and languages could be akin to having biodiversity. Different outlooks in life, different ways of expressing ideas, different ways of thinking can contribute to the development of culture and technology. Look at the Galapago effect that languages had in early computing. The Japanese were able to develop their own vision of "computing" and came up with their own innovations due in part that early western computers couldn't handle Japanese.
Languages and cultures can serve as natural protectionist barriers that allow for each region to develop their own home industries, allowing them to catch up to the world while retaining significant chunks of new wealth creation for their own. Yes, wealth creation is good, but its also important to look at how wealth is distributed. Very unequal societies can break down and lose their cohesion. Cohesion and trust are important features of rich countries. Perhaps many of the issues the US dealing with is because of the huge level of inequalities it has.
Finally, is translation and localization really that hard? Is it that expensive to hire some sales & marketing staff in new markets where you could be making tons of money? I bet translation costs and such are less than a percentage of what Google spent expanding its search engine.
And if so, what priority should be given to "ease of rapid growth for startups" vs many other issues that determine economic growth and a population's well being?
Also, how much of the problem is due to the issues you raise vs other factors such amount of money spent in R&D? The US has a huge amount of "defense spending" but in fact a lot of that is dedicated to funding research in Universities and direct job creation. Maybe Europe just needs more research Universities, more labs and more state investment into technology. The recent Moderna breakthrough was in part due to a $25 million DARPA investment into the RNA vaccine idea.
As for the issues you mention; solving bureaucratic issues would make things more efficient, and it is definitely desirable. However, I would argue that a heterogeneous market (in terms of language and culture) is more of an advantage than a liability.
Having many cultures and languages could be akin to having biodiversity. Different outlooks in life, different ways of expressing ideas, different ways of thinking can contribute to the development of culture and technology. Look at the Galapago effect that languages had in early computing. The Japanese were able to develop their own vision of "computing" and came up with their own innovations due in part that early western computers couldn't handle Japanese.
Languages and cultures can serve as natural protectionist barriers that allow for each region to develop their own home industries, allowing them to catch up to the world while retaining significant chunks of new wealth creation for their own. Yes, wealth creation is good, but its also important to look at how wealth is distributed. Very unequal societies can break down and lose their cohesion. Cohesion and trust are important features of rich countries. Perhaps many of the issues the US dealing with is because of the huge level of inequalities it has.
Finally, is translation and localization really that hard? Is it that expensive to hire some sales & marketing staff in new markets where you could be making tons of money? I bet translation costs and such are less than a percentage of what Google spent expanding its search engine.
> Finally, is translation and localization really that hard? Is it that expensive to hire some sales & marketing staff in new markets where you could be making tons of money?
Generally, successful technology businesses have low marginal cost to serve new customers. You pay some amount X, to setup in a market and then can scale out relatively cheaply.
The US is great because you pay X once, and then scale quite a lot. Each European country requires that you pay X (or maybe X/4), but it essentially acts as a tax which reduces margins.
Languages/cultures are hard, yo.
Generally, successful technology businesses have low marginal cost to serve new customers. You pay some amount X, to setup in a market and then can scale out relatively cheaply.
The US is great because you pay X once, and then scale quite a lot. Each European country requires that you pay X (or maybe X/4), but it essentially acts as a tax which reduces margins.
Languages/cultures are hard, yo.
> Lack of imagination is not our problem. It's so good that we supply our best talent to the US
Isn’t that the point? Europeans individually are creative but there’s not a reward system in place for them, thus they flee to the US.
Sort of like European basketballers coming to the US or the opposite with soccer players.
Isn’t that the point? Europeans individually are creative but there’s not a reward system in place for them, thus they flee to the US.
Sort of like European basketballers coming to the US or the opposite with soccer players.
While all this is true, a huge reason is also the lack of available funding. This is the worst problem imo.
Founders of Stripe are Irish
European bureaucracy is deadlier for businesses than cobra's venom.
I take offense at such massive overgeneralizations as "Europe lacks imagination."
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. This kills business models which cannot show any profit whatsoever, and a large portion of the remainder are killed by data regulations forbidding "alternate paths of monetization" (to put it charitably.)
Rather, a problem is that once a European project becomes successful enough, it soon becomes an American project, either by acquisition or by moving to where the investment money is.
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. This kills business models which cannot show any profit whatsoever, and a large portion of the remainder are killed by data regulations forbidding "alternate paths of monetization" (to put it charitably.)
Rather, a problem is that once a European project becomes successful enough, it soon becomes an American project, either by acquisition or by moving to where the investment money is.
The reason the US has freely flowing funding is because the VC has an immense amount of cash from the previous generations of successful Unicorns. So why was it (and still is) easier to raise unicorns in the USA ?
The thing that separate the internet economy with the traditional is the massive network effects that makes it a winner take all game. And at that game the USA has a massive home advantage with a huge cultural, legal and financially unified market. In Europe you start in a small country then face big barriers to expand out of it, which slows growth enough that you never get to get competitive by the time the much better funded American competitor comes to crush you.
And then it's game over, because you only get one shot at being the monopoly. Once you have a Facebook, you can't have a second one, even with all the VC cash, talent & creativity in the world. Notice that the USA did not succeed in building a competitor to Google, Youtube, Facebook, or Amazon, so how could Europe, or anybody else ?
Well the Chinese and the Russian could, by banning American monopolies from their own markets, which let them built monopolies on their own, & then attempt to conquer the rest of the world with them.
The USA is perfectly aware of this dynamic because faced with TikTok, their first reflex was to try to ban them.
And that's what Europe should do, ban American Monopolies. If we would ban facebook, instagram, youtube, etc, we'd have solid equivalents in a year, and from there enough cash flow to fund a next generation of startups.
The thing that separate the internet economy with the traditional is the massive network effects that makes it a winner take all game. And at that game the USA has a massive home advantage with a huge cultural, legal and financially unified market. In Europe you start in a small country then face big barriers to expand out of it, which slows growth enough that you never get to get competitive by the time the much better funded American competitor comes to crush you.
And then it's game over, because you only get one shot at being the monopoly. Once you have a Facebook, you can't have a second one, even with all the VC cash, talent & creativity in the world. Notice that the USA did not succeed in building a competitor to Google, Youtube, Facebook, or Amazon, so how could Europe, or anybody else ?
Well the Chinese and the Russian could, by banning American monopolies from their own markets, which let them built monopolies on their own, & then attempt to conquer the rest of the world with them.
The USA is perfectly aware of this dynamic because faced with TikTok, their first reflex was to try to ban them.
And that's what Europe should do, ban American Monopolies. If we would ban facebook, instagram, youtube, etc, we'd have solid equivalents in a year, and from there enough cash flow to fund a next generation of startups.
> Once you have a Facebook, you can't have a second one, even with all the VC cash, talent & creativity in the world.
That's not how it works, just look at MySpace. Even sites with a lot of market share are sometimes overtaken by a competitor.
The best alternative to Facebook in a fragmented market like Europe is federation across multiple social "hosting" sites with a regional focus, based on standards that are either in place already or being worked on. This can exploit even stronger platform effects than a conventional one-size-fits-all solution like Facebook.
Google and YT are in a different position since they're actually solving hard resource problems (Video streaming at scale is hard; building a usable crawl of the Web is also hard); much of their success comes from addressing these in a way that is compelling for users.
That's not how it works, just look at MySpace. Even sites with a lot of market share are sometimes overtaken by a competitor.
The best alternative to Facebook in a fragmented market like Europe is federation across multiple social "hosting" sites with a regional focus, based on standards that are either in place already or being worked on. This can exploit even stronger platform effects than a conventional one-size-fits-all solution like Facebook.
Google and YT are in a different position since they're actually solving hard resource problems (Video streaming at scale is hard; building a usable crawl of the Web is also hard); much of their success comes from addressing these in a way that is compelling for users.
>That's not how it works, just look at MySpace.
It recently blew my mind to learn just how small MySpace was. Peak user count was ~75.9 million, total. Facebook has ~2.85 billion active users.
It recently blew my mind to learn just how small MySpace was. Peak user count was ~75.9 million, total. Facebook has ~2.85 billion active users.
> The reason the US has freely flowing funding is because the VC has an immense amount of cash from the previous generations of successful Unicorns. So why was it (and still is) easier to raise unicorns in the USA ?
You're ignoring that all of this money initially came from massive investment by the Defense Advanced Projects Administration (DARPA) which funded the semiconductor industry in its infancy, which funded the creation of the Internet, which funded the creation of mainframes, which funded the creation of personal computers, and continues to provide massive funding to tech companies. Heck, their decision to choose Microsoft DOS over IBM OS/2 for the US DOD literally solidified its rise as the dominant operating system. It's requirement that all parts must be multi-source-able is why AMD and Via were created as additional manufacturers of x86 processors. But it also funded PowerPC and even provided significant funding to ARM.
Sure, we don't have much socialism here (USDA farm "subsidies" not included), but we do have very strong, protectionist-welfare capitalism.
So you had the combined might of the US government founding the creation of the computing industry. That let companies take massive risks which left tons of people making tons of money before private VC even really became interested. The IPOs of the original tech companies funded the creation of half of the current major VC funds.
You're ignoring that all of this money initially came from massive investment by the Defense Advanced Projects Administration (DARPA) which funded the semiconductor industry in its infancy, which funded the creation of the Internet, which funded the creation of mainframes, which funded the creation of personal computers, and continues to provide massive funding to tech companies. Heck, their decision to choose Microsoft DOS over IBM OS/2 for the US DOD literally solidified its rise as the dominant operating system. It's requirement that all parts must be multi-source-able is why AMD and Via were created as additional manufacturers of x86 processors. But it also funded PowerPC and even provided significant funding to ARM.
Sure, we don't have much socialism here (USDA farm "subsidies" not included), but we do have very strong, protectionist-welfare capitalism.
So you had the combined might of the US government founding the creation of the computing industry. That let companies take massive risks which left tons of people making tons of money before private VC even really became interested. The IPOs of the original tech companies funded the creation of half of the current major VC funds.
I see this comment often and it strikes me as conspiracy nonsense.
For example, AMD was founded within a year of Intel - years before either manufactured a CPU. You're blurring lines with antitrust lawsuits in the 90s.
Now if you want to talk about the Federal government single handedly propping up the market for semiconductors until the end of the Apollo program, that's a different story and includes more players than DARPA.
For example, AMD was founded within a year of Intel - years before either manufactured a CPU. You're blurring lines with antitrust lawsuits in the 90s.
Now if you want to talk about the Federal government single handedly propping up the market for semiconductors until the end of the Apollo program, that's a different story and includes more players than DARPA.
Europe, at least Sweden, used to have this approach for the traditional industry, e.g. companies like Ericsson, SAAB, Volvo, is/was all heavily involved in the Swedish defense industry with government backing and at the same time they sold consumer products.
Perhaps the ending of the cold war ended this policy, thus a boom of new companies never took place.
Perhaps the ending of the cold war ended this policy, thus a boom of new companies never took place.
Apple was funded by DARPA? I don't think so.
Apple was a zombie before Steve Jobs was rehired. Also, it was initially funded by Mike Markkula who was from Intel which was a company founded with DOD and DARPA backing.
I guess that means that since my father was in the military, I owe everything to the military. Right?
> Well the Chinese and the Russian could, by banning American monopolies from their own markets, which let them built monopolies on their own, & then attempt to conquer the rest of the world with them.
Russia didn't ban American monopolies, they were outcompeted fair and square by the more focused local companies. For some time, at least. It took years for Google to catch up with Yandex in search quality in Russian language, and Facebook's clone is imo still better than Facebook itself in every way, no wonder it's still more popular there.
Russia didn't ban American monopolies, they were outcompeted fair and square by the more focused local companies. For some time, at least. It took years for Google to catch up with Yandex in search quality in Russian language, and Facebook's clone is imo still better than Facebook itself in every way, no wonder it's still more popular there.
need to clear up the misconception here: China is not simply banning US companies.
With social media and internet content products, there is Chinese law "Measures on the Administration of Internet Information Services". Whether one agrees with the provisions in this law is another story. Lets just talk about purely from a commerce perspective. This law is applied equally to everyone, whether it is a Chinese company or US company. If Google, Facebook and anyone else, want to have a specific product operate in Chinese market, that product need to be compliant to local laws. They will be able to operate if they are in accordance to the law. And many US companies do comply with Chinese laws and have products present in China, such as Microsoft (office365, Azure, Bing, Linkedin etc), Amazon(AWS, Amazon.com, Kindle), Airbnb, Apple (Icloud, app store etc). This law concerns with Internet Information services. There are other digital products too. Database services are very much available in China, Oracle DBs has a dominating market share in China. Adobe, Autodesk, etc. Even for Facebook and Google, I believe they have business operations in China. I know Google have ad sales in China, and have significant revenue. By adhering to this law, the internet information product could have significant differences from the product operating in another country, resulting in companies make two versions of the product, one for international, one for china's market. So Bytedance having douying for China and tiktok for international, is not different from Microsoft having Linkedin China and Linkedin international, or Bing China, Bing international, or Amazon.com China or Amazon.com international. From a pure commerce standpoint, this law is non-discriminatory. Whether its company headquartered in China or foreign, anyone have to do the same thing according to the law. It does not provide any advantages for Chinese over foreign companies. Also how do you define what is Chinese/Foregin company? Bytedance is registered in Cayman Islands and 40% is owned by foreign investors. Maybe you could have Chinese nationals running a company in another country and tried to offer a product in China. For running a product in China, both cases is the same, comply to Chinese laws and regulation then the product can operate in China.
The appearance that Chinese companies have advantages over foreign companies comes from a combination of factors: local culture, understanding of the market, much much faster and fierce competition (If speed and competition in international market is 2, in China its 10. For example, Uber left China's market not because of regulatory, regulatory was equal to Didi and uber at the time, but Uber and Didi was locked into extremely heated competition at that time, both sides were pouring money down the drain. It was most likely a business decision. Alibaba's taobao vs Amazon.com, taobao was very competitive and played to the Chinese culture advantage very well. Taobao created 11/11 singles day in 2009 and hit a cord with Chinese people, even becoming a cultural phenomenon). But let say if Google/Facebook funded a team in China to create a targeted product for the Chinese market, they could have a a significant presence in the market.
The appearance that Chinese companies have advantages over foreign companies comes from a combination of factors: local culture, understanding of the market, much much faster and fierce competition (If speed and competition in international market is 2, in China its 10. For example, Uber left China's market not because of regulatory, regulatory was equal to Didi and uber at the time, but Uber and Didi was locked into extremely heated competition at that time, both sides were pouring money down the drain. It was most likely a business decision. Alibaba's taobao vs Amazon.com, taobao was very competitive and played to the Chinese culture advantage very well. Taobao created 11/11 singles day in 2009 and hit a cord with Chinese people, even becoming a cultural phenomenon). But let say if Google/Facebook funded a team in China to create a targeted product for the Chinese market, they could have a a significant presence in the market.
As another comment pointed out, the small countries vs US Network effects excuse doesn't really fare well when you look at the successful startup environment of Israel.
The USA is perfectly aware of this dynamic because faced with TikTok, their first reflex was to try to ban them.
And this take is just hot garbage.
The USA is perfectly aware of this dynamic because faced with TikTok, their first reflex was to try to ban them.
And this take is just hot garbage.
How many unicorns are from Israel, though?
Israel should be lauded for managing to be an intensely vibrant and high-tech country, and European countries should try to learn from that, but even that is apparently not quite sufficient. So I think GP has a point.
Israel should be lauded for managing to be an intensely vibrant and high-tech country, and European countries should try to learn from that, but even that is apparently not quite sufficient. So I think GP has a point.
Annoyingly, that list includes companies with Israeli founders that aren’t companies founded in Israel (e.g., WeWork). There’s no need to do that though, there are plenty of Israeli companies! (Oh, I see they have a pie chart of companies in Israel and it’s about 25% by value)
It’s also too bad that it excludes public companies or large exits (e.g., Wix and Waze) since those are even better retorts to the “can’t build companies” claim.
It’s also too bad that it excludes public companies or large exits (e.g., Wix and Waze) since those are even better retorts to the “can’t build companies” claim.
None. But they have tons of startups that provide services to the military-industrial complex which is why they're so successful. They copied the USA's SBIR system but provide much bigger grants.
> 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 you money".
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 you money".
It could well be the opposite.
For example free education improves a software company's hiring prospects as there are lots of employee candidates available with good education. In some countries social mobility is a real thing. As a practical counter example, Sweden has massive taxation and something like most billionaires per capita and a very vibrant software and startup scene.
One could actually do some kind of survey what happens to European software companies. Take for example this one started by three Danish guys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borland
For example free education improves a software company's hiring prospects as there are lots of employee candidates available with good education. In some countries social mobility is a real thing. As a practical counter example, Sweden has massive taxation and something like most billionaires per capita and a very vibrant software and startup scene.
One could actually do some kind of survey what happens to European software companies. Take for example this one started by three Danish guys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borland
Sweden has failed to build almost any new big company since the last 100 years. Just look at OMX30 (30 most traded companies at Stockholm stock exchange). Almost all of them are companies older than 100 years.
Simplified, many great old successes (old money, i.e the billionaires) and many new promising, but few in-between.
Simplified, many great old successes (old money, i.e the billionaires) and many new promising, but few in-between.
Sweden does not have the highest billionaires per capita. Hong Kong, Monaco, Switzerland all have higher rates for example. There are several additional places as well.
Is Borland actually a European company? It looks like it was started in California and has a headquarters in Texas. It is now owned by a company in the UK, but it doesnt really seem European to me.
Is Borland actually a European company? It looks like it was started in California and has a headquarters in Texas. It is now owned by a company in the UK, but it doesnt really seem European to me.
From the wikipedia article:
> Borland Ltd. was founded in August 1981 by three Danish citizens, Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, and Mogens Glad, to develop [...] However, response to the company's products at the CP/M-82 show in San Francisco showed that a U.S. company would be needed to reach the American market. They met Philippe Kahn, who had just moved to Silicon Valley...
So yes, Borland is a US company, but founded by 3 Danish folks. That might indicate that Europe doesn't lack innovation or talent, but a large unified market with high purchasing power.
> Borland Ltd. was founded in August 1981 by three Danish citizens, Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, and Mogens Glad, to develop [...] However, response to the company's products at the CP/M-82 show in San Francisco showed that a U.S. company would be needed to reach the American market. They met Philippe Kahn, who had just moved to Silicon Valley...
So yes, Borland is a US company, but founded by 3 Danish folks. That might indicate that Europe doesn't lack innovation or talent, but a large unified market with high purchasing power.
Well in 1981 if you wanted to sell stuff for personal computers you would have to be in the Valley. No question about it.
I'd say it would have been hard to sell anything that specific even elsewhere in the US at the time.
I'd say it would have been hard to sell anything that specific even elsewhere in the US at the time.
You could have been in NY near NYC too. But yes, at the time, you were either in the valley or by NYC if you were starting a personal computer related business.
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?
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...
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-agenda/guest-post-tino-sa...
50% of all wealth in the United States is inherited by the top 5% wealthiest families.
60% of all wealth in the United States is inherited.
60% of all wealth in the United States is inherited.
Not particularly relevant. A significant chunk of that inherited wealth comes in the form of housing. The US has a total wealth of $105t, $36.2t of that is housing, which then ends up getting inherited by homeowners' children.
We're talking about how billionaires make their wealth as a proxy for entrepreneurship. It makes no sense to talk about how many billionaires Sweden has as a measure for their entrepreneurship if most of them inherited their wealth.
We're talking about how billionaires make their wealth as a proxy for entrepreneurship. It makes no sense to talk about how many billionaires Sweden has as a measure for their entrepreneurship if most of them inherited their wealth.
> > 50% of all wealth in the United States is inherited by the top 5% wealthiest families.
> Not particularly relevant. A significant chunk of that inherited wealth comes in the form of housing. The US has a total wealth of $105t, $36.2t of that is housing, which then ends up getting inherited by homeowners' children.
Feels utterly relevant; what's irrelevant is your fact that much of US wealth is bound up in housing: The top 5% wealthiest families are hardly likely to live in 50% of all housing.
> Not particularly relevant. A significant chunk of that inherited wealth comes in the form of housing. The US has a total wealth of $105t, $36.2t of that is housing, which then ends up getting inherited by homeowners' children.
Feels utterly relevant; what's irrelevant is your fact that much of US wealth is bound up in housing: The top 5% wealthiest families are hardly likely to live in 50% of all housing.
Gates/Allen/Bezos/Jobs/Ellison/Google/Netflix/etc did not inherit their wealth.
Of the top 15, 5 inherited. You are right that billionaires are less likely to have inherited wealth.
...but they are still extremely likely to come from families with very strong political connections. Wealth is the byproduct.
Sweden has higher funding per capita, but does not answer why it became this way.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1071105/value-of-investm...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1071105/value-of-investm...
Almost all of them are old people outside of tech
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Swedish_billionaires_b...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Swedish_billionaires_b...
Overall, little of Europe's VC goes into the kind of things we talk about on this site. But if levels are much smaller than the USA it just produces another burden. Looking at these numbers, if I was going to get funding I would try Sweden before France.
Sweden is unusual in that way. You often hear about that it's one of the countries with the most equal income distribution but at the same time it has one of the highest wealth inequalities. Basically it's hard to make any money by working you have to own things.
While it may seem connected, it isn’t. Just look at history. America has been infamous as a country of get-rich-fast people almost since it was founded. Long before progressive taxes and social welfare. It is a cultural difference.
This was at a time when the US was actually more egalitarian than Europe.
This was at a time when the US was actually more egalitarian than Europe.
Some parts are probably cultural. The type of economy that the article is describing, rent-seeking, doesn't feel like it culturally could work in Europe when trying to build something large like Google or Facebook, that is at least my subjective feeling.
That is why I'm somewhat skeptical against the article's proposition, offer it for free and then later come up with a scheme to extort users. I think there are other steps that can be taken first.
That is why I'm somewhat skeptical against the article's proposition, offer it for free and then later come up with a scheme to extort users. I think there are other steps that can be taken first.
Maybe, but I might need actual evidence as to that being the case.
Evidence is hard: a double blind randomized control trial would be unrealistic and at a high level there would be innumerable confounders.
However, the mechanism seems simple:
1. Regulation is designed to combat inequality
2. Lower inequality is achieved thanks to this regulation
3. As inequality is lower, fewer people have spare capital for risky investments
Meanwhile, if this mechanism doesn’t work as above, that might imply we don’t (yet) have an effective way to regulate inequality down.
However, the mechanism seems simple:
1. Regulation is designed to combat inequality
2. Lower inequality is achieved thanks to this regulation
3. As inequality is lower, fewer people have spare capital for risky investments
Meanwhile, if this mechanism doesn’t work as above, that might imply we don’t (yet) have an effective way to regulate inequality down.
>risky enterprises can be funded even if 1 out of ten or 1 out of hundred actually are successful
correct me if i'm wrong, Europe is dominated by legacy business/banks that normally won't take such risk. legacy business like BMW. European and Asian want to see you have some success or already making money before they invest. while American will throw money into something that just an idea.
correct me if i'm wrong, Europe is dominated by legacy business/banks that normally won't take such risk. legacy business like BMW. European and Asian want to see you have some success or already making money before they invest. while American will throw money into something that just an idea.
The entire culture is based around "legacy" and "experience". Truth is, Europeans are extremely risk-averse and favor legacy, with grants, laws and such reflecting that.
That said, Europeans will throw money at an "idea", as long as that idea is approved by peers. They'll even die with that idea, once invested.
It's dominated by businesses where network effects are not in play; commodities, specialist equipment, medicine, biotech, hardware, etc. If there's a cultural, legal, or network element to the business, then the fragmentation of the European market puts it at a massive disadvantage. Investor knows it and thus avoid investing in those sectors because they don't want to fight uphill battles
Three problem is, these institutional investors lack the ability to evaluate risk:reward on entrepreneurial projects.
And I take a bit offense with selective quotes, because the original:
" For one, we lack the imagination and vision to launch something without knowing how it might eventually make money. "
tells a different message, than just
"Europe lacks imagination."
" For one, we lack the imagination and vision to launch something without knowing how it might eventually make money. "
tells a different message, than just
"Europe lacks imagination."
> Rather, a problem is that once a European project becomes successful enough, it soon becomes an American project, either by acquisition or by moving to where the investment money is.
That's not a problem, that's the solution. There's some other problems causing the need for this solution.
That's not a problem, that's the solution. There's some other problems causing the need for this solution.
> I take offense at such massive overgeneralizations as "Europe lacks imagination."
It also strikes me as really inaccurate. If anything, a lot of Europeans value creativity and cultural interests over raw productivity or money.
It also strikes me as really inaccurate. If anything, a lot of Europeans value creativity and cultural interests over raw productivity or money.
In some countries, if your startup fails you're legally obliged to pay back all money that was invested in it, and you won't be able to start another until you've done so.
Which countries? I've never heard of this, sounds insane!
... it's not the case in the US ? Wtf
It's not a loan from a bank. It's an investment, and the nature of investments are that some fail.
It's pretty wild that founders would need to pay back this money. That would have a massive drag on any risk taking or innovation.
The entire point of venture capital and similar funding mechanisms is that in exchange for a potential massive return on investment, funders are willing to lose everything.
It's pretty wild that founders would need to pay back this money. That would have a massive drag on any risk taking or innovation.
The entire point of venture capital and similar funding mechanisms is that in exchange for a potential massive return on investment, funders are willing to lose everything.
It depends on what kind of company you start. One with limited liability often requires more upfront investment.
Which countries?
[deleted]
> 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.
Or that people pay great % in tax and they cannot afford to save their own money to start a business. They need to apply for government grants instead (which people who decided about them can be corrupt) or share their business with someone from the start. That's a buzz killer.
Funnily big corporation are free to avoid tax as they please, because the high earners won't even turn to the streets to protest so they can be taxed through the nose.
Or that people pay great % in tax and they cannot afford to save their own money to start a business. They need to apply for government grants instead (which people who decided about them can be corrupt) or share their business with someone from the start. That's a buzz killer.
Funnily big corporation are free to avoid tax as they please, because the high earners won't even turn to the streets to protest so they can be taxed through the nose.
> I take offense at such massive overgeneralizations...
Boy, you would make one offended American...
Boy, you would make one offended American...
[deleted]
> I take offence at such massive overgeneralizations as "Europe lacks imagination."
Why then did Airbus put their VC arm [1] right slap-bang in the middle of Silicon Valley?
Note. In this case, its Europe bringing/managing the capital - they are choosing - all by themselves - where to find the talent.
[1] https://airbusventures.vc/
Why then did Airbus put their VC arm [1] right slap-bang in the middle of Silicon Valley?
Note. In this case, its Europe bringing/managing the capital - they are choosing - all by themselves - where to find the talent.
[1] https://airbusventures.vc/
.. and if you look at the list of companies, it looks fairly global. Some, but far from all of them, are in SV.
You'd have to ask them, but I'd posit that it's simply because SV is where all the meetings are.
You'd have to ask them, but I'd posit that it's simply because SV is where all the meetings are.
Not to mention a lot of very skilled European engineers move to US (sometimes Canada). It's easy to brag about talent when being on the receiving side of the brain drain.
Large US companies to have offices over the world.
It's extremely common to siphon the most promising projects or ideas to the HQ. Keep the golden egg hen close to home.
Once the project becomes successful people will ignore or quickly forget where the idea came from.
It's extremely common to siphon the most promising projects or ideas to the HQ. Keep the golden egg hen close to home.
Once the project becomes successful people will ignore or quickly forget where the idea came from.
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 quality of life, come from a third world country, and I see how kids and adults are spoiled here. Much of what they have was just given to them. At least for the strong countries in west EU, lifestyle is very relaxed and any ambitious is frowned upon, it is extremely demotivating, not to mention bureaucracy. Corporations and regulations will just drive your small company out of the market no matter what.
I find for me more likely to save some money, move to my country and create my own business and sell in Europe. People here are too lazy to compete in the fast world we live in, there in my country there is so many skilled people, so little capital, here is the reverse. Good amount of capital and foreigners working in tech. For instance, I live in Berlin and almost all the "working people" from tech companies here are foreigners. Germans are generally the executives and/or management. It is quite rare to find a german software developer on Startups.
I personally think(my opinion, not the ultimate truth)... that Europe is definitely a very interesting market for companies to come here and sell their stuff, but not to make it.
Instead I think Europe should focus on its strengths, which is healthy market regulations, creating a good playing field for companies from above, rather on its weaknesses. It should also figure out a way to keep part of the profits inside the continent to benefits its inhabitants.
More important than competing is to know where and when to compete.
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 quality of life, come from a third world country, and I see how kids and adults are spoiled here. Much of what they have was just given to them. At least for the strong countries in west EU, lifestyle is very relaxed and any ambitious is frowned upon, it is extremely demotivating, not to mention bureaucracy. Corporations and regulations will just drive your small company out of the market no matter what.
I find for me more likely to save some money, move to my country and create my own business and sell in Europe. People here are too lazy to compete in the fast world we live in, there in my country there is so many skilled people, so little capital, here is the reverse. Good amount of capital and foreigners working in tech. For instance, I live in Berlin and almost all the "working people" from tech companies here are foreigners. Germans are generally the executives and/or management. It is quite rare to find a german software developer on Startups.
I personally think(my opinion, not the ultimate truth)... that Europe is definitely a very interesting market for companies to come here and sell their stuff, but not to make it.
Instead I think Europe should focus on its strengths, which is healthy market regulations, creating a good playing field for companies from above, rather on its weaknesses. It should also figure out a way to keep part of the profits inside the continent to benefits its inhabitants.
More important than competing is to know where and when to compete.
> 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 capable of.
"Flexible working laws" and "less relaxing lifestyle" to me translates as "light a fire under their ass until they are forced to innovate", while "big growth mindset" and "ambitious people" translate as "hustle culture", which I consider toxic in its very nature.
As a European, I can only hope that our culture doesn't degrade itself to that degree.
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 capable of.
"Flexible working laws" and "less relaxing lifestyle" to me translates as "light a fire under their ass until they are forced to innovate", while "big growth mindset" and "ambitious people" translate as "hustle culture", which I consider toxic in its very nature.
As a European, I can only hope that our culture doesn't degrade itself to that degree.
> The US has those things and it's turning into a "third world country with a Gucci belt"
I get the distinct impression that people who liken the US to a third world country are from one particular spot on the political spectrum. This seems like political rhetoric, not a summary of some level-headed analysis. Inequality, crime, etc in the US are certainly problems, but that seems like a low bar for the "third world country" label (with or without the 'gucci belt' modifier). At best it's unhelpful, but I think it's probably just inaccurate considering how many people from actual second and third world countries are risking their very lives to get in, not to mention divisive.
I get the distinct impression that people who liken the US to a third world country are from one particular spot on the political spectrum. This seems like political rhetoric, not a summary of some level-headed analysis. Inequality, crime, etc in the US are certainly problems, but that seems like a low bar for the "third world country" label (with or without the 'gucci belt' modifier). At best it's unhelpful, but I think it's probably just inaccurate considering how many people from actual second and third world countries are risking their very lives to get in, not to mention divisive.
Generally I define a 3rd world country as a place that has a lot of inequality, corruption across the board, poor to no worker protection, failing and antiquated infrastructure, no free access to health care, high incarceration rate, persecution of journalists, a large working poor population with no ability to move up the social ladder, etc.
Which one of those does the US not have?
Which one of those does the US not have?
The US has worker protections and social mobility, so you're flat-out wrong on two of your points. And actually the US has free access to health care via a variety of programs, it's just not universal, but I'll concede that's being pedantic.
Every country is going to have inequality, corruption, antiquated infrastructure, and persecution of journalists, so those are meaningless unless you provide some sort of comparison point.
"High" incarceration is at least attempting to articulate a comparison but only because I actually know the numbers there.
Every country is going to have inequality, corruption, antiquated infrastructure, and persecution of journalists, so those are meaningless unless you provide some sort of comparison point.
"High" incarceration is at least attempting to articulate a comparison but only because I actually know the numbers there.
Comparing all of these points against Western Europe, the US is objectively behind. There's your point of comparison. Western Europe has far more expansive worker protections (just look at "right-to-work" states, you can get fired for any reason whatsoever), far more encompassing free healthcare (not just for the poor and older individuals, Medicare and Medicaid is what you're referring to I presume right? There are no other programs for free healthcare in the US), far freer press (according to the World Press Freedom Index, the US is 44th, most Western European states are higher), infrastructure is not crumbling in Western Europe in the same way it is in the US, far lower inequality (this is obvious, check any inequality index), less corruption, on what point exactly of these is the US better than Western Europe?
Being behind first world countries in a few cherry picked regards doesn’t make one a third world country.
a) how are these regards cherry-picked?
b) it doesn't no, you are right. However the "third world country with a gucci belt" phrase is intentionally tongue-in-cheek and used to call attention to the fact that the US is behind other first-world countries in many different important ways, which it is. Personally I consider healthcare, worker rights, and infrastructure pretty key issues of extremely high importance, and I'm not sure how it's possible to see it otherwise.
They are important, but ignoring every contrary indicator (per capita GDP, life expectancy, quality of life, etc) in order to exaggerate the extent to which the US lags other nations is the very definition of cherry picking. The US is squarely a first-world country even if it lags various countries other first world countries in certain regards. No doubt this “third world country” business is hyperbole for many people who invoke it (although I think there are many who invoke it who sincerely believe it or just have no moral scruples whatsoever), I’m just saying such rhetoric is unhelpful at best and probably divisive and misleading.
Out of those three examples you gave, Western Europe still wins on 2/3 (higher life expectancy, higher quality of life). Granted the second is subjective somewhat, but I believe most would agree. The first is objectively lower in the US compared to Western Europe, you can check the statistics. Per capita GDP is only high in the US due to massive wealth inequality and a ridiculous concentration of billionaires. It's not "ignoring every contrary indicator", it's that most of the indicators that are used to support the idea that the US is "better" (e.g. per capita GDP) are fundamentally flawed in different ways, and don't amount to a proper comparison of the quality of life.
For the third time now, being behind (some parts of) Europe doesn’t make a country “third world”. Also, I agree that GDP is imperfect—no one is claiming any indicator is perfect. However, the median US adult also has more wealth than the median European adult, and that figure isn’t skewed by billionaires. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_...
The US does not have much corruption. It is present, obviously, but you probably don't realize what corruption is like in "real" 3rd world countries.
About the infrastructure, the one in the US is comparable to that of most rich countries. If you cherry-pick, sure you are going to find something.
Health care in the US is problematic but I think the best indicator of quality is life expectancy, and the US is high tier.
And you think journalists are persecuted? The US is one of the most free country in that regard, more than Europe and much more than in Asia. In "real" 3rd world countries, they get killed, tortured, and all sorts of fun things if they disagree with the local ruler.
Climbing the social ladder is far from impossible in the US. It is hard, but it is hard everywhere, the ones on top of the ladder never want to let go, but at least, in the US, there is no rule officially preventing it like castes in India.
Worker protection could be better but it is no nonexistent either. At least, there are contracts that mean something, safety standards, etc...
Incarceration rate is not necessarily the sign of a third world country. In the worst places, there are no prisons to keep criminals locked in, and they are out to get you.
About the infrastructure, the one in the US is comparable to that of most rich countries. If you cherry-pick, sure you are going to find something.
Health care in the US is problematic but I think the best indicator of quality is life expectancy, and the US is high tier.
And you think journalists are persecuted? The US is one of the most free country in that regard, more than Europe and much more than in Asia. In "real" 3rd world countries, they get killed, tortured, and all sorts of fun things if they disagree with the local ruler.
Climbing the social ladder is far from impossible in the US. It is hard, but it is hard everywhere, the ones on top of the ladder never want to let go, but at least, in the US, there is no rule officially preventing it like castes in India.
Worker protection could be better but it is no nonexistent either. At least, there are contracts that mean something, safety standards, etc...
Incarceration rate is not necessarily the sign of a third world country. In the worst places, there are no prisons to keep criminals locked in, and they are out to get you.
This is absolutely correct. I strongly suspect the people who say things about the US being a third world country have no experience in second world countries, much less third world.
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Those are all relative and obviously cherry picked. If you need to cherry pick and exaggerate wildly it’s not a very convincing argument IMO.
One can just look at objective data: https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/
People that say US is a third world country are mostly illinformed, my guess is due to political affiliation as you said, but also the city dynamics, arm chair media consumption (NYT exclusively reports vocal minority issues day in day out) and uninformed about what actual third-world countries are like.
People that say US is a third world country are mostly illinformed, my guess is due to political affiliation as you said, but also the city dynamics, arm chair media consumption (NYT exclusively reports vocal minority issues day in day out) and uninformed about what actual third-world countries are like.
Looking at the data, the sample size is quite pathetic.
https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/bli/
The amount of responses is skewed largely to 2-3 countries and the self-report guide is unreliable.
On top of that, by their own admission here: https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/economics/how-s-life_97892641...
their empirical data does not account for factors like wealth distribution, and a lot of the subjective indicators do not correlate strongly with the "objective" measures, with the exception of housing satisfaction.
Data and science doesn't make something objective. For something that claims to measure the quality of life of entire countries and compare them, I'd expect at least 70% of the world to be sampled in a thorough way.
Also, I don't think I've ever met anybody that genuinely believed the US was a third world country. They usually bring up its flaws in response to claims of "USA #1" or something along those lines which are slogans they grew up around their whole life. Now that they are looking into things, traveling, and experiencing more of life, they realize that that blanket statement holds no truth. The arm chair media consumption is definitely an issue but in the same way, I remember only reading good things about the US for almost the entirety of the 90s (consuming news from the BBC, Reuters, and local Japanese/Indian news orgs).
The amount of responses is skewed largely to 2-3 countries and the self-report guide is unreliable.
On top of that, by their own admission here: https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/economics/how-s-life_97892641...
their empirical data does not account for factors like wealth distribution, and a lot of the subjective indicators do not correlate strongly with the "objective" measures, with the exception of housing satisfaction.
Data and science doesn't make something objective. For something that claims to measure the quality of life of entire countries and compare them, I'd expect at least 70% of the world to be sampled in a thorough way.
Also, I don't think I've ever met anybody that genuinely believed the US was a third world country. They usually bring up its flaws in response to claims of "USA #1" or something along those lines which are slogans they grew up around their whole life. Now that they are looking into things, traveling, and experiencing more of life, they realize that that blanket statement holds no truth. The arm chair media consumption is definitely an issue but in the same way, I remember only reading good things about the US for almost the entirety of the 90s (consuming news from the BBC, Reuters, and local Japanese/Indian news orgs).
> Data and science doesn't make something objective
Well the “US is a third world country” take is based on no evidence whatsoever and defies all common sense, experience, etc, so I guess I’ll take the significant but imperfect evidence.
Well the “US is a third world country” take is based on no evidence whatsoever and defies all common sense, experience, etc, so I guess I’ll take the significant but imperfect evidence.
The idea of the US "turning into a third world country with a Gucci belt" is just a caricature; you are taking it extremely literally and I'm not sure why. But assuming large amounts of the population believed this to be a fact, this evidence from the website is not significant whatsoever. It's imperfect and insignificant. Any meaning you extract from it would be the equivalent of obtaining a desired trend from a plot full of randomly placed dots.
> The idea of the US "turning into a third world country with a Gucci belt" is just a caricature; you are taking it extremely literally and I'm not sure why.
Some people are intending it as a caricature and others are intending it literally (for example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27520754). The literal case is obviously factually incorrect and the caricature case is unhelpful and divisive. Take your pick.
Some people are intending it as a caricature and others are intending it literally (for example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27520754). The literal case is obviously factually incorrect and the caricature case is unhelpful and divisive. Take your pick.
America's problems are numerous and have been discussed elsewhere at length. Suffice to say that sometime between 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis, America has not been keeping up with other economies in terms of what makes a first world country worth living in. Biden may change that, or he may not. In any case, America has a lot of catching up to do if they want to overtake Europe (and some other places) in anything besides profit.
> America's problems are numerous and have been discussed elsewhere at length. Suffice to say that sometime between 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis, America has not been keeping up with other economies in terms of what makes a first world country worth living in.
Maybe. Or maybe the media is just peddling negativity such that we are overexposed. I moved to Europe a decade ago and have since returned, and plan to go back occasionally. When I went, I definitely had the impression that Europeans had it together and that Europe was some kind of liberal Utopia. And it was neat and European countries have political ideas worth borrowing, but it turns out that Europeans are also just people with their own distinct problems. They aren't more enlightened as American liberal media would have you believe. Europe has some really cool cultures, but they aren't "better" than American culture(s). IMO what Europe does have that America lacks is a deep, vibrant history (pre-Columbian American history is relatively impoverished for a variety of reasons).
Maybe. Or maybe the media is just peddling negativity such that we are overexposed. I moved to Europe a decade ago and have since returned, and plan to go back occasionally. When I went, I definitely had the impression that Europeans had it together and that Europe was some kind of liberal Utopia. And it was neat and European countries have political ideas worth borrowing, but it turns out that Europeans are also just people with their own distinct problems. They aren't more enlightened as American liberal media would have you believe. Europe has some really cool cultures, but they aren't "better" than American culture(s). IMO what Europe does have that America lacks is a deep, vibrant history (pre-Columbian American history is relatively impoverished for a variety of reasons).
A black friend of mine who's a travel writer (hence has lived in a bunch of different countries) says that she often finds more problems in terms of racism in Europe, relative to the US.
Also, a few years back some Indian extraction friends of mine were complaining about casual racism in the Western European country they were living in.
So, it's probably not as great as some US media portrays, but it's definitely not as bad as the other US media portrays.
Also, a few years back some Indian extraction friends of mine were complaining about casual racism in the Western European country they were living in.
So, it's probably not as great as some US media portrays, but it's definitely not as bad as the other US media portrays.
I’ve traveled Europe a lot as well and was similarly surprised at first (because the media’s portrayal of reality is severely warped). People say things like “America is a literal ethnostate” and other such nonsense but they don’t realize that America is one of the most egalitarian places in the history of the planet. That isn’t contradicted by the bad things that happen or have happened here; it’s just a testament to how bad things are and have been everywhere for all time.
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Poverty has been increasing rapidly here in the states and people just keep ignoring it. My employer isn't, we're gearing up to make tons of money on the next crash.
>As a European, I can only hope that our culture doesn't degrade itself to that degree.
The question is whether Europe will be able to maintain its wealth - which is the main thing that makes possible the luxury of having a more relaxed lifestyle - in the long term while falling behind economically. Most of Europe's wealth is based around old world economy.
The question is whether Europe will be able to maintain its wealth - which is the main thing that makes possible the luxury of having a more relaxed lifestyle - in the long term while falling behind economically. Most of Europe's wealth is based around old world economy.
We already see a wealth gap between the North and South and the West and East. Also between the old and young. Not sure what that means for the future.
Europes wealth is based, to a large extent, on hardware and a huge number of wealthy citizens. As long as hardware is a thing (not talking electronics but stuff like cars and so on), and we manage to not cut of the poorer 20-30% of society, Europe should do fine.
Europes wealth is based, to a large extent, on hardware and a huge number of wealthy citizens. As long as hardware is a thing (not talking electronics but stuff like cars and so on), and we manage to not cut of the poorer 20-30% of society, Europe should do fine.
> We already see a wealth gap between the North and South and the West and East.
This has always existed; or at least has in modern history. It's hardly a new development, although the EU and Euro has brought this more to the forefront.
These kind of things ebb and flow anyway; if you look at the last few hundred years then concentrations of wealth have shifted all over the place. Some locations have gone from very wealthy to very poor and back to very wealthy again.
This has always existed; or at least has in modern history. It's hardly a new development, although the EU and Euro has brought this more to the forefront.
These kind of things ebb and flow anyway; if you look at the last few hundred years then concentrations of wealth have shifted all over the place. Some locations have gone from very wealthy to very poor and back to very wealthy again.
Even in the electronics space EU has some big players — NXP, ST, Infineon, Bosch, Philips, ASML, Orsam, etc.
I think in general the European model works well for midsize, highly specialized hardware companies, mostly doing B2B. From what I can see, European companies are competitive in that space still, and it's not such a bad niche to be in. It's this middle ground between commodities and one-off custom products.
European economies are very diverse and I‘m not concerned with wealth as the most successful countries with high living standards also have relatively low debt in comparison to gdp.
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.
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.
I've had the best ideas and the sharpest intellect once I had _plenty_ of money to be comfortable such that I could just sit on my ass thinking about whatever I wanted without worrying whether I needed to make ends meet.
You are so wrong it's not even funny.
You are so wrong it's not even funny.
Easy to advocate this when you are not the one that goes hungry or homeless if you lose a job
Innovation for innovation’s sake is meaningless. Innovation to improve quality of life is reasonable, so decreasing quality of life to increase innovation is like shooting yourself in the foot for faster access to healthcare.
And competition is not the only thing that breeds innovation. Just think back to all the HN articles about needing to make time for curious people to innovate.
And competition is not the only thing that breeds innovation. Just think back to all the HN articles about needing to make time for curious people to innovate.
> If there's one thing that consistently fosters innovation and progress it's competition.
That statement is a bit of a truism, isn't it? If you squint hard enough, you can call most things a competition. If all else fails, in the sexual marketplace because financial success is an indicator of romantic success for males, who happen to have driven a lot of the innovation up to this point.
It also ignores the nuance to be found in whether and where to focus on public investment versus private investment, for one. I don't think you can really sensibly frame all public investment as competition, unless you're stretching it to the amorphous "international competition", in which case the principle is dangerously close to being unfalsifiable.
I'm not saying competition has no role to play, but where are inspiration, the joy of creation, altruism and wanting to abolish frustration and greater problems? We don't just have selfish genes.
That statement is a bit of a truism, isn't it? If you squint hard enough, you can call most things a competition. If all else fails, in the sexual marketplace because financial success is an indicator of romantic success for males, who happen to have driven a lot of the innovation up to this point.
It also ignores the nuance to be found in whether and where to focus on public investment versus private investment, for one. I don't think you can really sensibly frame all public investment as competition, unless you're stretching it to the amorphous "international competition", in which case the principle is dangerously close to being unfalsifiable.
I'm not saying competition has no role to play, but where are inspiration, the joy of creation, altruism and wanting to abolish frustration and greater problems? We don't just have selfish genes.
Isnt it actually all the pseudo monopolies that created all the innovations? Bell labs, Xerox park?
The most impactful and important innovations typically come from people who are intrinsically motivated.
Also, competition skews innovation towards solving problems that arrive from competition. You might just be hiring lawyers to bully a competitor instead of fostering sustainable progress. Or if your market is unregulated you can decide to use more severe methods.
Also, competition skews innovation towards solving problems that arrive from competition. You might just be hiring lawyers to bully a competitor instead of fostering sustainable progress. Or if your market is unregulated you can decide to use more severe methods.
> people who are intrinsically motivated
People who are intrinsically motivated are going to do their thing regardless of the boundary conditions. There's no way to give someone intrinsic motivation and there's no way to take it away from them. You would have had to physically handicap Michelangelo to prevent him from sculpting or Maradona from kicking balls and so on.
Incentives definitely aren't everything, but they do work, and when you talk about systemic problems you have to think statistically.
> You might just be hiring lawyers to bully a competitor instead of fostering sustainable progress. Or if your market is unregulated you can decide to use more severe methods.
I'm talking about competition, not laissez-faire. If you're saying that competitive markets have to be fostered and don't just magically happen, then we are just vehemently agreeing.
People who are intrinsically motivated are going to do their thing regardless of the boundary conditions. There's no way to give someone intrinsic motivation and there's no way to take it away from them. You would have had to physically handicap Michelangelo to prevent him from sculpting or Maradona from kicking balls and so on.
Incentives definitely aren't everything, but they do work, and when you talk about systemic problems you have to think statistically.
> You might just be hiring lawyers to bully a competitor instead of fostering sustainable progress. Or if your market is unregulated you can decide to use more severe methods.
I'm talking about competition, not laissez-faire. If you're saying that competitive markets have to be fostered and don't just magically happen, then we are just vehemently agreeing.
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Its weird really. Europeans do pretty well in sports so its not like they lack drive. Speaking having just watched Djokovic, Nadal et al battling it out.
It’s just blatant overgeneralization by grandparent comment. You can’t really describe a whole continent like that, especially on a very variable human attribute like drivenness.
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As another European, I'd rather say the problem is in execution. On the flip side, having too much importance on a permanent contract creates incentives for other overheated markets to require a permanent contract before being able to continue the transaction (under the guise of "risk reduction"). See renting in the Netherlands. Additionally, employers have absolutely no qualms using this status to their advantage anyway. It just means playing the market a little differently, like making a 2 month leave notice mandatory. This doesn't consider the fact many people in markets much worse for employees than IT, these employees end up in situations where they cycle between companies since none of them will give a permanent contract anyway, or these companies try their worst to circumvent the law.
Ultimately, it still comes down to execution, laws, the state of a market and personal preferences. Both forms can be toxic.
Ultimately, it still comes down to execution, laws, the state of a market and personal preferences. Both forms can be toxic.
> a "third world country with a Gucci belt" (as someone put it) for everyone except the 1%
The median American is much richer than the median European.
The median American is much richer than the median European.
While also spending more money on various things, or having to spend them on privatised health care etc. It's not directly comparable. My point also discussed things like infrastructure and public services, which are often very neglected compared to their European counterparts.
Yeah, that statement made zero sense by the other person. Sure, on paper, us Americans at the median have more money. But after you pay for a single visit to the ER or urgent care, or after you have a kid, or any expenses, Western Europeans are far better off. I know, I've been near that income level before. It's not a fun experience over here.
That said, now that I've moved into a job that pays at least $225K per year, you know, life in the USA is amazing for me. And everything everywhere else in the world is so cheap! Why can't my fellow country men just pull themselves up their bootstraps and get a high income earner job? It's so easy! You just go to the job tree and get one /s.
But more seriously, we need to completely restructure our society in the USA before the poor and middle class violently rise up against the government and make us into what Mexico was 120 years ago.
That said, now that I've moved into a job that pays at least $225K per year, you know, life in the USA is amazing for me. And everything everywhere else in the world is so cheap! Why can't my fellow country men just pull themselves up their bootstraps and get a high income earner job? It's so easy! You just go to the job tree and get one /s.
But more seriously, we need to completely restructure our society in the USA before the poor and middle class violently rise up against the government and make us into what Mexico was 120 years ago.
Most Americans have employer provided health insurance. Fewer than 10% have no health insurance. Hardly anyone is paying out of pocket.
> we need to completely restructure our society in the USA
The specific primary reason the USA is rich is that we’ve resisted the temptation to do harebrained projects like this.
> we need to completely restructure our society in the USA
The specific primary reason the USA is rich is that we’ve resisted the temptation to do harebrained projects like this.
Most Americans pay a shit ton of money before their insurance kicks in to pay for the majority of their non-preventative care. I personally need to spend $3,000 before I only pay 10% of the bills that insurance receives until I hit $6,000 in a calendar year after which I pay nothing else.
Maybe if you only take San Francisco and New York City in consideration.
USA has famously cheaper life than EU (especially gas and food). Not that I would trade places.
USA has famously cheaper life than EU (especially gas and food). Not that I would trade places.
Statements like this are ambiguous, because "European" can mean many different things. Over 40% of Europeans live in former communist states, so the median European in the literal sense does not tell much about the standard of living in the traditional first-world European countries.
I did a comparison between Finland and the US some time ago. My conclusion was that the median households were about as wealthy in both countries, but the average household was 3x wealthier in the US. The biggest caveat was that household wealth includes retirement savings but not pensions, making the median Finn wealthier than the median American. I estimated that the crossover point for the standard of living was somewhere around the 80th percentile, depending on things such as local costs of living and whether you have kids or not.
After a few years in America, nominal salaries seem low in Finland. On the other hand, Finns have fewer major expenses. Their out-of-pocket costs for education, childcare, and healthcare are much lower. The concept of an emergency fund does not really exist in Finland, largely thanks to income-dependent benefits. Pension contributions are mostly paid by the employer on top of the nominal salary, making saving for retirement much less important.
I did a comparison between Finland and the US some time ago. My conclusion was that the median households were about as wealthy in both countries, but the average household was 3x wealthier in the US. The biggest caveat was that household wealth includes retirement savings but not pensions, making the median Finn wealthier than the median American. I estimated that the crossover point for the standard of living was somewhere around the 80th percentile, depending on things such as local costs of living and whether you have kids or not.
After a few years in America, nominal salaries seem low in Finland. On the other hand, Finns have fewer major expenses. Their out-of-pocket costs for education, childcare, and healthcare are much lower. The concept of an emergency fund does not really exist in Finland, largely thanks to income-dependent benefits. Pension contributions are mostly paid by the employer on top of the nominal salary, making saving for retirement much less important.
As an American with over 10k in their emergency fund, it would be really nice if it didn't have to be that high! That's 3 months for both my wife and I to not work at all if needed, or one trip to the ER for a "major" accident.
I would love to only need to keep a few thousand bucks in the case that my car breaks, and even then, that's likely overkill for the actual repair costs relative to the value of the car.
I don't own a house, I don't have any debt. I'm 8 years into my career and I've just now getting to building a positive net worth. I've put off so much medical/dental maintenance because of the cost and now it'll take half of my savings to fix all of it.
I know I'm doing a lot better than many folks my age. Top 10% for my age, but it sucks knowing that elsewhere in the world, they're doing some things so much better. It's one "benefit" of the internet connected world; we can see what everyone else is doing and how others solve hard social problems. Fixing those social problems in the US though, is continuing to be extremely difficult and we're still likely decades away from catching up to parts of Europe, and by then, we'll still be decades behind what they'd be doing then.
Sometimes I wonder if my life would feel better if I didn't know the term egalitarianism.
I would love to only need to keep a few thousand bucks in the case that my car breaks, and even then, that's likely overkill for the actual repair costs relative to the value of the car.
I don't own a house, I don't have any debt. I'm 8 years into my career and I've just now getting to building a positive net worth. I've put off so much medical/dental maintenance because of the cost and now it'll take half of my savings to fix all of it.
I know I'm doing a lot better than many folks my age. Top 10% for my age, but it sucks knowing that elsewhere in the world, they're doing some things so much better. It's one "benefit" of the internet connected world; we can see what everyone else is doing and how others solve hard social problems. Fixing those social problems in the US though, is continuing to be extremely difficult and we're still likely decades away from catching up to parts of Europe, and by then, we'll still be decades behind what they'd be doing then.
Sometimes I wonder if my life would feel better if I didn't know the term egalitarianism.
The "median citizen" is an absurd concept given the income distribution. It completely fails to capture income inequality.
Also access to free education, free healthcare and so on.
Also access to free education, free healthcare and so on.
I think you’re confusing median and mean. Median actually does account for the long tail.
Over 90% of Americans have health insurance.
Over 90% of Americans have health insurance.
This isn't (quite) true.
On a continent,-wide level it is, and US incomes are significantly higher. But US wealth levels are below most of Western Europe, including France, the UK, Ireland, even Italy and Spain. Plus Canada/Australia/New Zealand for good measure.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_...
That said, I thoroughly disagree with the characterisation of the US as "a third world country with a Gucci belt".
On a continent,-wide level it is, and US incomes are significantly higher. But US wealth levels are below most of Western Europe, including France, the UK, Ireland, even Italy and Spain. Plus Canada/Australia/New Zealand for good measure.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_...
That said, I thoroughly disagree with the characterisation of the US as "a third world country with a Gucci belt".
GP's phrasing is wrong but there is a point there - it is much easier to achieve success and then regulate and distribute its benefits than to go the other way round.
I am not a fan of unbridled capitalism a la the USA and fully agree that more countries should strive to reach European levels of worker and civil rights... however, there is validity to the statement that 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 and many of their older firms have struggled to innovate as technology has spread across the globe. There is a good reason why a fast moving industry like tech has taken root in the US while Europe as a whole is playing catch up.
The US will solve its problems, i have full faith in that country's ability to rise to the challenge as they have done numerous times in the past. Europe's problems with tech innovation run deep and go beyond simply vacation days and worker rights. Look no further than the current spree of tech regulation. I wish more countries did that but there is a fundamental problem - the EU is trying to legislate without having a good alternative.
My prediction - If the US resolves its immigration system and allows more talent to flow in without having to worry about a visa, European skilled immigration is toast.
I am not a fan of unbridled capitalism a la the USA and fully agree that more countries should strive to reach European levels of worker and civil rights... however, there is validity to the statement that 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 and many of their older firms have struggled to innovate as technology has spread across the globe. There is a good reason why a fast moving industry like tech has taken root in the US while Europe as a whole is playing catch up.
The US will solve its problems, i have full faith in that country's ability to rise to the challenge as they have done numerous times in the past. Europe's problems with tech innovation run deep and go beyond simply vacation days and worker rights. Look no further than the current spree of tech regulation. I wish more countries did that but there is a fundamental problem - the EU is trying to legislate without having a good alternative.
My prediction - If the US resolves its immigration system and allows more talent to flow in without having to worry about a visa, European skilled immigration is toast.
> 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 "the sick man of Europe": https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.28.1.167
The overhang of colonial benefit is present in Britain; I'm not really sure about France (the disasters of trying to hold on to Vietnam and Algeria?). It's not present in Germany or Italy which had it taken off them. It may well be an issue to Portugal and Spain, which were dictatorships well after the war.
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 "the sick man of Europe": https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.28.1.167
The overhang of colonial benefit is present in Britain; I'm not really sure about France (the disasters of trying to hold on to Vietnam and Algeria?). It's not present in Germany or Italy which had it taken off them. It may well be an issue to Portugal and Spain, which were dictatorships well after the war.
Spain was razed to the ground during the Civil War (1936-1939) and people were literally eating cats and rats off the streets so I doubt that any of our current wealth is inherited from our former Imperial glory, aside from maybe some intangible, indirect and minuscule effects such as “historic capital”.
To your point, same goes for Germany indeed… Have you guys seen the pics of what cities like Berlin, Nuremberg or Frankfurt looked like after the war?
There is a lot of old money in Europe, as some families managed to shield it from these crises, then compound interest did the rest, but I’d really like to see some proof about the sentiment being repeated ITT that Europe’s current wealth is inherited or handed down, because the idea sounds contrary to everything I know about the continent’s history.
To your point, same goes for Germany indeed… Have you guys seen the pics of what cities like Berlin, Nuremberg or Frankfurt looked like after the war?
There is a lot of old money in Europe, as some families managed to shield it from these crises, then compound interest did the rest, but I’d really like to see some proof about the sentiment being repeated ITT that Europe’s current wealth is inherited or handed down, because the idea sounds contrary to everything I know about the continent’s history.
Perhaps not Europe as a whole, but definitely the concentrated structure of land ownership, e.g. https://www.businessinsider.com/why-hugh-grosvenor-duke-of-w...
To some extent I think the social structures produced by inherited wealth are anti-conduicive to innovation. Where's the innovation in the US? Most would say it's concentrated out west, in a state that didn't exist until 1850. The social structures of concentrated wealth in the South from the slavery era make it less innovative. And the northeast centers on money-making-money and property ownership.
The real sweet spot, of course, is cashing out: finding how to get the old money and oil money to invest in your new innovation. The success of WeWork, for example.
To some extent I think the social structures produced by inherited wealth are anti-conduicive to innovation. Where's the innovation in the US? Most would say it's concentrated out west, in a state that didn't exist until 1850. The social structures of concentrated wealth in the South from the slavery era make it less innovative. And the northeast centers on money-making-money and property ownership.
The real sweet spot, of course, is cashing out: finding how to get the old money and oil money to invest in your new innovation. The success of WeWork, for example.
"Spain was razed to the ground during the Civil War [...] same goes for Germany indeed"
I wouldn't say that Spain was "razed to the ground" compared to Germany.
I wouldn't say that Spain was "razed to the ground" compared to Germany.
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.
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.
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
* 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
Some of which applies to SV as well. The US Navy:
- taught a huge number of people enough electronics to do field maintenance of radio and radar
- had a further more theoretical education for radar operators
- at the end of the war, sold off a huge amount of kit cheaply; some of this is still kicking around the ham community in California. See e.g. https://mightyohm.com/wiki/resources:surplus and the geographic distribution
The US picked up a lot of refugees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martians_(scientists) , Intel founder Andy Grove etc).
There's all sorts of odd little path dependencies. Shockley and Fairchild semiconductors were in California because Shockley himself wanted to live near his mother and managed to recruit people to move across the country.
- taught a huge number of people enough electronics to do field maintenance of radio and radar
- had a further more theoretical education for radar operators
- at the end of the war, sold off a huge amount of kit cheaply; some of this is still kicking around the ham community in California. See e.g. https://mightyohm.com/wiki/resources:surplus and the geographic distribution
The US picked up a lot of refugees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martians_(scientists) , Intel founder Andy Grove etc).
There's all sorts of odd little path dependencies. Shockley and Fairchild semiconductors were in California because Shockley himself wanted to live near his mother and managed to recruit people to move across the country.
I find it very interesting how it all played out to make society today. Thanks for sharing these articles. I'm gonna check them out
This is the "broken window fallacy" on steroids. There is no net benefit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
How so? It's pretty axiomatic that destruction and rebuilding cycle that follows a continental-scale war lead to widespread investment and an economic boom.
Ok
I wonder if we should perhaps bomb some nations every once in a while for their benefit... /s
* 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.
I was at university, back when Germany was the sick man. And I was truely worried about getting a job. Well, things turned out very differently.
> Well, apart from the whole WW2 business.
Let's be clear. By the time the last bullet was fired in WW2, Europe was basically destroyed, rumble, from the North Sea cross to Moscow. Brittan, although not occupied, was also hopelessly broke after the war. This weakness in Europe was one of the prime reasons why the colonies could break away from their European overlords. Europe was in no condition to do much about it either. They had more important things to worry about like food, and hoping that the Americans would come through with their Marshall Plan.
That's just counting the western half of Europe which wasn't under new (communist) management.
The loot and plunder was truly gone.
Let's be clear. By the time the last bullet was fired in WW2, Europe was basically destroyed, rumble, from the North Sea cross to Moscow. Brittan, although not occupied, was also hopelessly broke after the war. This weakness in Europe was one of the prime reasons why the colonies could break away from their European overlords. Europe was in no condition to do much about it either. They had more important things to worry about like food, and hoping that the Americans would come through with their Marshall Plan.
That's just counting the western half of Europe which wasn't under new (communist) management.
The loot and plunder was truly gone.
the destruction of world war two was absolutely insane, especially on the eastern front.
for instance: Belarus lost a quarter of it's population many villages and cities where utterly destroyed. also, don't forget world war 1 (and the other conflicts sparked after, like Russian civil war, breakup of Austria Hungary, Greco Turkish war etc) was only 25 years prior..
for instance: Belarus lost a quarter of it's population many villages and cities where utterly destroyed. also, don't forget world war 1 (and the other conflicts sparked after, like Russian civil war, breakup of Austria Hungary, Greco Turkish war etc) was only 25 years prior..
people from the US seem to underesti
> however, there is validity to the statement that Europe is currently coasting along on the spoils of centuries of loot and plunder.
oh boy.
Time for you to crack the spine of a history book covering the 20th century, me thinks.
oh boy.
Time for you to crack the spine of a history book covering the 20th century, me thinks.
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People will take my phrasing to their preferred way, I was aware of it when I wrote it. It's the internet.
I'd need to be a great philosopher and writer, to write a boring book with the same opinion that wouldn't hurt them. Unfortunately, I am none of those two. Those who want to take it in the wrong way will and I'm ok with that.
I'd need to be a great philosopher and writer, to write a boring book with the same opinion that wouldn't hurt them. Unfortunately, I am none of those two. Those who want to take it in the wrong way will and I'm ok with that.
Median wages in the US are still much higher than in Europe
and it's always been 'bad' to be at the 'bottom' in the US.
It's been that way for 150 years at least (read the stories of relatively well paid American GI's in UK WW2), no signs of changing just yet.
I wonder if it's a culture problem or a scale problem or both.
It's been that way for 150 years at least (read the stories of relatively well paid American GI's in UK WW2), no signs of changing just yet.
I wonder if it's a culture problem or a scale problem or both.
> At least for the strong countries in west EU, lifestyle is very relaxed and any ambitious is frowned upon, it is extremely demotivating, not to mention bureaucracy. Corporations and regulations will just drive your small company out of the market no matter what.
My brother works long hours for a company that recently raised 20 millions, all of that in France. Europe is composed of many people, and many of them have a big growth mindset and ambitions. Ambition is not frowned upon, at least not in my circles. Bureaucracy is surprisingly easy to deal with.
The other thing is that people from Europe already know that if they want to work hard and earn lots of money, they can just go to the USA. But things are changing and now people build things in Europe. I think you have a very reductive vision of European people. I'll also add that "Europe" doesn't have a culture as a whole. I'm French, I'm surprised by how Italians do things, same with Germans. We are composed of different countries with rich histories and culture. Grouping everything as "European" is the same as saying "African", it hides most of the reality and complexity of the world.
My brother works long hours for a company that recently raised 20 millions, all of that in France. Europe is composed of many people, and many of them have a big growth mindset and ambitions. Ambition is not frowned upon, at least not in my circles. Bureaucracy is surprisingly easy to deal with.
The other thing is that people from Europe already know that if they want to work hard and earn lots of money, they can just go to the USA. But things are changing and now people build things in Europe. I think you have a very reductive vision of European people. I'll also add that "Europe" doesn't have a culture as a whole. I'm French, I'm surprised by how Italians do things, same with Germans. We are composed of different countries with rich histories and culture. Grouping everything as "European" is the same as saying "African", it hides most of the reality and complexity of the world.
>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.
False. Sweden is in the top 10 competitive nations in the world. And it is because it has a relaxing lifestyle, support for children and parents, etc.
If desperate people was more innovative or productive, the list of successful USA entrepreneurs would not be filled with upper-class or rich businessman.
Easy of mind, education and time creates opportunity. Desperation only leads to bad decisions.
Late years Sweden in going down because it is moving towards more neo-liberal policies, thou.
False. Sweden is in the top 10 competitive nations in the world. And it is because it has a relaxing lifestyle, support for children and parents, etc.
If desperate people was more innovative or productive, the list of successful USA entrepreneurs would not be filled with upper-class or rich businessman.
Easy of mind, education and time creates opportunity. Desperation only leads to bad decisions.
Late years Sweden in going down because it is moving towards more neo-liberal policies, thou.
I think it is very hard to say if it is because if or in spite of its policies that Sweden has been somewhat successful.
And I would say that going from the world's highest tax rates (% of GDP) to the world's fourth highest rate does not make Sweden neo-liberal. We have also had a Social Democrat prime minister since 2014 and a government that relies on support from the former Communist party, so we are not quite a neo-liberal utopia yet.
And I would say that going from the world's highest tax rates (% of GDP) to the world's fourth highest rate does not make Sweden neo-liberal. We have also had a Social Democrat prime minister since 2014 and a government that relies on support from the former Communist party, so we are not quite a neo-liberal utopia yet.
Software development and other tech jobs were low-status professions in Europe (the UK being a partial exception) up until a few years ago. Once a friend told me some thing like "it is not fair that you make more money than I do, I have a degree in literature and, with all due respect, you are just a guy that works with computers". This was not an absurd conversation to hear anywhere in continental Europe in the early 2000s.
For a brilliant 20 year old German in 2005 becoming a primary school teacher or a pencil pusher in a random government office would have been a better option than working in tech. With "better option" I mean double salary, double pension, better healthcare, more holidays. So it shouldn't surprise anybody if foreigners are overrepresented in tech jobs in Germany, and it has nothing to do with European lazyness (had you said risk-aversion I could have agreed).
For a brilliant 20 year old German in 2005 becoming a primary school teacher or a pencil pusher in a random government office would have been a better option than working in tech. With "better option" I mean double salary, double pension, better healthcare, more holidays. So it shouldn't surprise anybody if foreigners are overrepresented in tech jobs in Germany, and it has nothing to do with European lazyness (had you said risk-aversion I could have agreed).
This is something I’ve noticed working with European people and also traveling.
I think there is a cycle here where because working with software is considered low status, many good software people leave, and lots of smart people probably do not go into the field at all unless they truly love software. This would tend to drive the talent pool down, IMO, which keeps away good software jobs, keeping it low status.
In the US for example writing software is usually considered wholly different from “IT” whereas in Europe IT encompasses both. That’s probably another thing bringing its status down. You are grouping software engineers with people plugging in printers and solving Karen’s support ticket (no offense IT people).
I think there is a cycle here where because working with software is considered low status, many good software people leave, and lots of smart people probably do not go into the field at all unless they truly love software. This would tend to drive the talent pool down, IMO, which keeps away good software jobs, keeping it low status.
In the US for example writing software is usually considered wholly different from “IT” whereas in Europe IT encompasses both. That’s probably another thing bringing its status down. You are grouping software engineers with people plugging in printers and solving Karen’s support ticket (no offense IT people).
> In the US for example writing software is usually considered wholly different from “IT” whereas in Europe IT encompasses both. That’s probably another thing bringing its status down. You are grouping software engineers with people plugging in printers and solving Karen’s support ticket (no offense IT people).
oh boy, if you think IT is just pluggin in printers and fixing easy support tickets you are easily mistaken.
What about network and system engineers? Those who keep the cloud and global internet running? Those are considered IT (atleast in europe) and are definitely not low quality, easy to learn jobs.
oh boy, if you think IT is just pluggin in printers and fixing easy support tickets you are easily mistaken.
What about network and system engineers? Those who keep the cloud and global internet running? Those are considered IT (atleast in europe) and are definitely not low quality, easy to learn jobs.
How do you define "low status"? Is elderly care "low status" according to your definition? It's not according to mine. I consider myself a proud member of a "normal status profession" where my skills can be adequately utilized.
I don’t, I can’t manipulate the public perceptions of professions. In Europe software developers don’t enjoy the same social standing of high-school teachers, so a rational 20 year old will prefer to be a high school teacher than a software developer.
The average IT guy is still more productive and less replaceable than somebody with a degree in literature doing unpaid internships in coffee shops. But for some reason the former used to enjoy less social recognition, at least in continental Europe.
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You just broadly painted all of Europe as lazy. Maybe you should reconsider your attitude?
> Corporations and regulations will just drive your small company out of the market no matter what
Has this happened to you?
Plenty of small business where I stand, and this lifestyle fits them perfectly, there is no desperation to survive. Not every business has to be about growth.
I think what you’re seeing is the result of policies that increase quality of life. So Germany has to import someone like you, from a third world country, that will accept the pay and have “ambition”. It goes both ways.
> Corporations and regulations will just drive your small company out of the market no matter what
Has this happened to you?
Plenty of small business where I stand, and this lifestyle fits them perfectly, there is no desperation to survive. Not every business has to be about growth.
I think what you’re seeing is the result of policies that increase quality of life. So Germany has to import someone like you, from a third world country, that will accept the pay and have “ambition”. It goes both ways.
Wow that's a lot to unpack... But I'll just leave this here.
> I see how kids and adults are spoiled here
I think what you're seeing is how people are meant to be treated.
Maybe the German software developers don't want to work for a startup sweat shop?
> I see how kids and adults are spoiled here
I think what you're seeing is how people are meant to be treated.
Maybe the German software developers don't want to work for a startup sweat shop?
> 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.
And yet Silicon Valley lies in one of the states with the most employee friendly regulation in the US wrt worker protection, paid overtime etc.: https://s3.amazonaws.com/oxfam-us/www/static/media/files/Bes...
And yet Silicon Valley lies in one of the states with the most employee friendly regulation in the US wrt worker protection, paid overtime etc.: https://s3.amazonaws.com/oxfam-us/www/static/media/files/Bes...
SV has a momentum due to a number of factors. One of the ways they have been able to maintain the momentum has been the fact that CA allows employees freely move to a competitor and work there.
This keeps the companies competing.
This keeps the companies competing.
Yes, but how you interpret "employee friendly" matters. Case in point, California is an "at will" employer, which depending on how you want to leverage it, can be seen as employee friendly or employer friendly.
from a social democratic perspective, it just means your employer has eroted your rights of a stable living and extracted even more value from you through pressure.
In addition, people now tend to equal consumer services in tech to “innovation”, but if you look closely a disproportionate amount of the real innovation in energy, industry, food production, finance and “real word tech” happens in Europe - because a lot of people have the freedom to do things that matter with their lives and not spend their time being a growth hacker.
I assumed that it was the other way around. Can you point me to further reading?
Philips, siemens, bosch, just three.
also, many small companies which are world market leader in a very tiny and specific thing.
For instance, there is a company in germany which is able to produce very high quality lead sheeting to a unusual size, which allowed mythbusters to create a lead balloon.
No company in the US was able to achieve this thickness.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h70kbIzPgig
For instance, there is a company in germany which is able to produce very high quality lead sheeting to a unusual size, which allowed mythbusters to create a lead balloon.
No company in the US was able to achieve this thickness.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h70kbIzPgig
I have a similar perspective mostly (we live in the same city and both are foreigners so we are seeing from a similar lense,fwiw). What i disagree with is that people here are not ambitious. I think its more like the regulation and laws and red tape in general that makes starting a business a non attractive endeavor compared to being an employee considering all the benefits employees get in most of EU. In the US, i would imagine the difference in terms of risk of quitting your job to start a business is not as wide as in EU.
I spoke with many French who moved to Canada (there are many in the last decade or so). And 99% mention that North American culture is much less rigid than French culture and there are much more opportunities over here.
They mention it's very hard to change careers in their country with a more 'hierarchical' and rigid culture and mobility is limited.
Totally different when they move and appreciate the mobility, freedom and opportunities.
They mention it's very hard to change careers in their country with a more 'hierarchical' and rigid culture and mobility is limited.
Totally different when they move and appreciate the mobility, freedom and opportunities.
When i see this kind of discussion here and in HN i think it mostly miss the primary point..
You would be more to the point if we were talking about the industrial era which can automate even the experience into machinery.
But things like software are heavily based on knowledge retention.
Knowledge retention is about attracting talent, and make sure they evolve their knowledge and keep that knowledge there.
So you need a good quality of life, career and financial possibilities, good universities, a good culture with individual freedoms.
Its all about the "human gold". And the countries that will retain this sort of talents are cannot be optimized to also be industrial powerhouses, because the balances are different.
Anyway remote labor will change things a lot also, and we will see how things will turn out. But work and quality of life balance will become really important, and industrial sweat shops wont be as attractive in my opinion.
I hope that talent get more spread out instead of concentrated as is now, giving we are going more remote..
Anyway, i guess a lot of parts of EU will become more palatable as the physical place where you are at become less important.
I predict that small towns in Italy, Portugal or France with mostly old people will get more trendy giving the houses will be more affordable and people will be able to create their kids in a more healthy environment.
Pandemic will change faster the assumptions we had about how we should live our lives, and i think loneliness will hurt us more as the value of money compared to what is lost by pursuing it will become less appealing.
The industrial era wisdom will get reviewed and some things wont make any sense anymore. (For instance, packing too many people in gigantic towns, lowering the quality of life, country life will get more trendy with time in my opinion, people living in small communities of 20 families in rural areas)
You would be more to the point if we were talking about the industrial era which can automate even the experience into machinery.
But things like software are heavily based on knowledge retention.
Knowledge retention is about attracting talent, and make sure they evolve their knowledge and keep that knowledge there.
So you need a good quality of life, career and financial possibilities, good universities, a good culture with individual freedoms.
Its all about the "human gold". And the countries that will retain this sort of talents are cannot be optimized to also be industrial powerhouses, because the balances are different.
Anyway remote labor will change things a lot also, and we will see how things will turn out. But work and quality of life balance will become really important, and industrial sweat shops wont be as attractive in my opinion.
I hope that talent get more spread out instead of concentrated as is now, giving we are going more remote..
Anyway, i guess a lot of parts of EU will become more palatable as the physical place where you are at become less important.
I predict that small towns in Italy, Portugal or France with mostly old people will get more trendy giving the houses will be more affordable and people will be able to create their kids in a more healthy environment.
Pandemic will change faster the assumptions we had about how we should live our lives, and i think loneliness will hurt us more as the value of money compared to what is lost by pursuing it will become less appealing.
The industrial era wisdom will get reviewed and some things wont make any sense anymore. (For instance, packing too many people in gigantic towns, lowering the quality of life, country life will get more trendy with time in my opinion, people living in small communities of 20 families in rural areas)
Could be that their scarcity of software developers in Germany that requires foreign work or alternatively foreigners ask a lower salary
The question needs to be asked here is: Why there is a shortage of developers in Germany, while people having access to free education?
One reason is that I can be paid three times more in the US, and with the extra disposable income, I can live a better life, even without the legal protections.
Second reason is that, why should the kids even bother studying computer science for 4-6 years to earn 3k per month? A plumber here can charge 100 per hour and does not require any formal educational training.
One reason is that I can be paid three times more in the US, and with the extra disposable income, I can live a better life, even without the legal protections.
Second reason is that, why should the kids even bother studying computer science for 4-6 years to earn 3k per month? A plumber here can charge 100 per hour and does not require any formal educational training.
A plumber needs formal education, at least in Germany. Three years of it, to be exact. And then some more to run his own shop.
Also, 100 an hour sounds great. That is without taken taxes, social security, operational costs, fix costs an so into account. Those plumbers getting wealthy are running their own shops, small legit enterprises.
Final note: Any decent developer job I know of pays at least 3k, net, after taxes, social and medical insurance,... Enough to live a comfortable live. One without student debt, I might add.
Also, 100 an hour sounds great. That is without taken taxes, social security, operational costs, fix costs an so into account. Those plumbers getting wealthy are running their own shops, small legit enterprises.
Final note: Any decent developer job I know of pays at least 3k, net, after taxes, social and medical insurance,... Enough to live a comfortable live. One without student debt, I might add.
3K net is not that much. The whole point of working in IT in the US is that you shoot into the upper middle class levels of compensation. You are no longer a peer of a shopkeeper or a public official, you are now next to doctors and lawyers. You no longer have to balance your monthly budget, you manage your savings.
> A plumber needs formal education, at least in Germany. Three years of it, to be exact. And then some more to run his own shop.
Here's Europe's problem.
The same way you don't need 5+ years university education to put together whatever piece of hardware / software together, the same way I don't need studying hydraulic to put together hydraulic implements.
Here's Europe's problem.
The same way you don't need 5+ years university education to put together whatever piece of hardware / software together, the same way I don't need studying hydraulic to put together hydraulic implements.
mind you the german education system is very different from the US/English one.
Germany (and many other european countries) has the idea of a trade school, in which one learns a trade. Usually these are combined with working experience in the form of apprenticeships. In my experience, continental europe has far more emphasis on early work experience compared to ango-saxon countries. An internship usually lasts a couple of years, people get payed a wage for the work they do and it is combined with schooling.
A plumber would be a prime example of the vocation which is using this kind of system.
people finish secondary education at an earlier age then in the US (16 or even 15 in some cases), then they transfer into tertiary education in a fachschule.
Germany (and many other european countries) has the idea of a trade school, in which one learns a trade. Usually these are combined with working experience in the form of apprenticeships. In my experience, continental europe has far more emphasis on early work experience compared to ango-saxon countries. An internship usually lasts a couple of years, people get payed a wage for the work they do and it is combined with schooling.
A plumber would be a prime example of the vocation which is using this kind of system.
people finish secondary education at an earlier age then in the US (16 or even 15 in some cases), then they transfer into tertiary education in a fachschule.
> A plumber would be a prime example of the vocation which is using this kind of system.
> people finish secondary education at an earlier age then in the US (16 or even 15 in some cases), then they transfer into tertiary education in a fachschule.
Who the fuck know what they want to do for the rest of their lives at 15 or 16, most likely without having the possibility to re-invest 3+ years to change branch ?
Who the fuck know what they want to do for the rest of their lives at 15 or 16, most likely without having the possibility to re-invest 3+ years to change branch ?
> Germany (and many other european countries) has the idea of a trade school, in which one learns a trade.
And that is a problem. Want to be a plumber? 3 years education. Want to open a bakery? 3 years education. Want to work at a bank? 3 years education. Want to be a hairdresser? You guessed it right - 3 years education. Handwerker? No luck, 3 years education. Car mechanic? Forget it. It’s ridiculous.
And that is a problem. Want to be a plumber? 3 years education. Want to open a bakery? 3 years education. Want to work at a bank? 3 years education. Want to be a hairdresser? You guessed it right - 3 years education. Handwerker? No luck, 3 years education. Car mechanic? Forget it. It’s ridiculous.
> operational costs, fix costs an so into account.
These are tax deductible.
These are tax deductible.
Why did I have to scroll so far to find this? Tech jobs pay almost an order of magnitude more in the US. Cost of living is of course higher and you likely still won't be able to but a house any time soon, but still the difference is stark. Europe severely underpays its tech workers, so the US is able to attract all the smartest people.
I have met many ambitious European people in the US. Europe has ambitious people, they just don’t make it easy for them to do their thing; it’s better for ambitious people to just go to the US than to take on the monumental task of changing the culture in Europe or to swim upstream and try to start a business anyway.
You should move to south Germany - people are very much ambitious there, work is often their main goal. Also, burnout numbers and other mental health statistics are really up, and that for years before COVID. Many people are working a lot just to buy a house. Far from everyone has inherited, actually Germany started a lot from scratch after the war. Most wealthy people I know built their wealth with lots of work, including weekends. Many colleagues work in the evening. It’s true few build a company though. But many decide to travel the world, or get ambitious with sports, art or charities. There’s a lot of things to be accomplished especially when you experienced first hand that the parents career didn’t make them much happy and satisfied in life.
Developing countries are ahead of Europe and even the US in some very, very narrow things. In some places mobile and online banking penetration.
But to lift up the nation, you need regulations, competence at all levels.
'Google' is a tiny project relative to America. Most countries are 99% about the basic things: roads, bridges, hospitals, carpenters, governance, food etc..
There are enough groups of ambitious people to form networks of that. In Paris and London people move, it's the same in most countries.
But to lift up the nation, you need regulations, competence at all levels.
'Google' is a tiny project relative to America. Most countries are 99% about the basic things: roads, bridges, hospitals, carpenters, governance, food etc..
There are enough groups of ambitious people to form networks of that. In Paris and London people move, it's the same in most countries.
> It is quite rare to find a [G]erman software developer on Startups.
Because they probably already left for Switzerland or North American, where they can get paid much better salaries.
Because they probably already left for Switzerland or North American, where they can get paid much better salaries.
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you know what makes people work hard harder than ""culture""?
poverty
>a less relaxing lifestyle and AMBITIOUS people.
all I see is `""hackers"" sitting 10h a day working while believing they're saving world`
poverty
>a less relaxing lifestyle and AMBITIOUS people.
all I see is `""hackers"" sitting 10h a day working while believing they're saving world`
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.
> 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.
There needs to be a source for this.
There needs to be a source for this.
Necessity is the mother of invention. But that doesn't need that the must humane way up induce invention is to purposefully create the necessity in the first place.
> 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.
This doesn't really make sense to me. The EU is a clear leader in other industries compared to the US, just not in the tech industry. In terms of national security and stability, I'd say any of these companies are much more important than any tech company. If the market here for innovation is so bad, why are these companies leaders in their industry?
A few examples I can think of off the top of my head:
- automotive (Volkswagen, Daimler, Bosch)
- industrial equipment (Siemens, ABB)
- railroad (Siemens, Alstom)
- telecoms (Ericson, Nokia)
- chemicals (BSAF, Ineos)
- food and drink (anything from France, Italy or Spain :D)
This doesn't really make sense to me. The EU is a clear leader in other industries compared to the US, just not in the tech industry. In terms of national security and stability, I'd say any of these companies are much more important than any tech company. If the market here for innovation is so bad, why are these companies leaders in their industry?
A few examples I can think of off the top of my head:
- automotive (Volkswagen, Daimler, Bosch)
- industrial equipment (Siemens, ABB)
- railroad (Siemens, Alstom)
- telecoms (Ericson, Nokia)
- chemicals (BSAF, Ineos)
- food and drink (anything from France, Italy or Spain :D)
Tech innovation, once it has resulted in sufficient financial advantage becomes a 'winner takes all' game, where the people that won the previous round have a better than average chance of winning all subsequent rounds as well until there is some outside imposed limit. They are either able to throw more resources at the same problem or they can afford to buy out the successes elsewhere and claim them as their own.
The same argument could be made about the European film scene (check out how many Hollywood blockbusters are remakes of great European movies), the European music scene and the European literature scene to greater or lesser degree.
But you know what? It's fine. There is plenty of quality software in Europe, and as long as those companies don't get bought out by the handful of runaway American successes they can grow and do just fine. They tend to be better at customer service, they tend to be better at addressing multi-lingual markets at an earlier stage in their development than their American counterparts and they are active in important fields.
The thing that America excels at is advertising and simply making money. But there is more than that in this world.
The same argument could be made about the European film scene (check out how many Hollywood blockbusters are remakes of great European movies), the European music scene and the European literature scene to greater or lesser degree.
But you know what? It's fine. There is plenty of quality software in Europe, and as long as those companies don't get bought out by the handful of runaway American successes they can grow and do just fine. They tend to be better at customer service, they tend to be better at addressing multi-lingual markets at an earlier stage in their development than their American counterparts and they are active in important fields.
The thing that America excels at is advertising and simply making money. But there is more than that in this world.
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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.
I can’t help thinking of Qwant, the alternative privacy-aware European search engine. Their financial standing is so dire that this week they had to ask money from Huawei. [1]
[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/french-search-engine-qwant-h...
I can’t help thinking of Qwant, the alternative privacy-aware European search engine. Their financial standing is so dire that this week they had to ask money from Huawei. [1]
[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/french-search-engine-qwant-h...
> 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 a large density of software engineers in any given location to simplify growth scaling.
Some of these are changing. Whether they will change fast enough to compete in software is another story, but it's very likely that Europe will be better positioned to take advantage of the next tech revolution. You can already see this in biotech.
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 a large density of software engineers in any given location to simplify growth scaling.
Some of these are changing. Whether they will change fast enough to compete in software is another story, but it's very likely that Europe will be better positioned to take advantage of the next tech revolution. You can already see this in biotech.
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 is semi-skilled or low-skilled. The EU loves to boast about how freedom of movement of people is an important pillar but getting it to work over the long term is still a bureaucratic nightmare.
Meanwhile, the US continues to vacuum up talent from across the world despite an utterly broken immigration system. Heck, even Canada is a top destination for talent due to its proximity to the US.
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 is semi-skilled or low-skilled. The EU loves to boast about how freedom of movement of people is an important pillar but getting it to work over the long term is still a bureaucratic nightmare.
Meanwhile, the US continues to vacuum up talent from across the world despite an utterly broken immigration system. Heck, even Canada is a top destination for talent due to its proximity to the US.
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.
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.
Raising capital is getting easier but still nothing compared to the US. If we want change we need more capital to make competing software. If my competitor from SV has 10M in the bank and I can only raise 500k in Europe how do I compete? The end users doesn't care that much.
This apparently isn't as much of an issue anymore, although there are supposedly other constraints on scaling.
Hot take: the problems here are cultural.
Consider these data points:
1. The US is a country of migrants (ignoring the blight of slavery for now), whether those be those seeking a better life from Europe originally, later China and later still Central and South America. These are all people who uprooted whatever lives they had and legally or illegally migrated to the US. IMHO you still see echoes of this "pioneering" culture and I think it's no accident that the peak of the frontier, the Wild West, and homesteading in general have been deeply mythologized.
But look at TV shows like Gold Rush or Deadliest Catch. Whatever creative license is taken here, you still have people who will take the risk of working a dangerous and dirty job for a share of the proceeds.
The average American just seems to have more of an appetite for risk than at least anywhere I've been in Europe.
2. The much-discussed "Protestant work ethic". As exploitative as it is (and it is exploitative), the willingness of Americans to work all the time has an effect that I don't think you can dismiss.
3. Being comfortable makes you more risk-averse, even lazy. We all joke on here about Europe with its 6-8 weeks of vacation, 35 hour work weeks, universal health care and a year of maternity of leave to some extent. These are all good things. The upside of not having those things, if there is one, is that (IMHO) people have a greater motivation. Again, I'm not saying this is a good thing. It just... is.
4. 330M people most of whom speak one language (English obviously). You can't argue that this doesn't make things easier.
5. The barrier to education that is cost with a legacy admissions system led to the endowment system that created venture capital.
For the record, I'm Australian not American and the above isn't intended to extol the virtues of American culture. For example, the fact that a near-majority of the US thinks it's acceptable that a trip to the ER can bankrupt a significant portion of the population is cruel, even reprehensible.
EDIT: corrected less risk-averse to more risk-averse.
Consider these data points:
1. The US is a country of migrants (ignoring the blight of slavery for now), whether those be those seeking a better life from Europe originally, later China and later still Central and South America. These are all people who uprooted whatever lives they had and legally or illegally migrated to the US. IMHO you still see echoes of this "pioneering" culture and I think it's no accident that the peak of the frontier, the Wild West, and homesteading in general have been deeply mythologized.
But look at TV shows like Gold Rush or Deadliest Catch. Whatever creative license is taken here, you still have people who will take the risk of working a dangerous and dirty job for a share of the proceeds.
The average American just seems to have more of an appetite for risk than at least anywhere I've been in Europe.
2. The much-discussed "Protestant work ethic". As exploitative as it is (and it is exploitative), the willingness of Americans to work all the time has an effect that I don't think you can dismiss.
3. Being comfortable makes you more risk-averse, even lazy. We all joke on here about Europe with its 6-8 weeks of vacation, 35 hour work weeks, universal health care and a year of maternity of leave to some extent. These are all good things. The upside of not having those things, if there is one, is that (IMHO) people have a greater motivation. Again, I'm not saying this is a good thing. It just... is.
4. 330M people most of whom speak one language (English obviously). You can't argue that this doesn't make things easier.
5. The barrier to education that is cost with a legacy admissions system led to the endowment system that created venture capital.
For the record, I'm Australian not American and the above isn't intended to extol the virtues of American culture. For example, the fact that a near-majority of the US thinks it's acceptable that a trip to the ER can bankrupt a significant portion of the population is cruel, even reprehensible.
EDIT: corrected less risk-averse to more risk-averse.
>Being comfortable makes you less risk-averse, even lazy
Do you mean more risk-averse? Anyway, to comment on this point. Non-Europeans, get quite a few things mixed up.
>We all joke on here about Europe with its 6-8 weeks of vacation, 35 hour work weeks, universal health care and a year of maternity of leave to some extent.
The bigger problem is two-fold and has to do with your second point:
1. Europeans have very set schedules, which has only started to erode with younger generations. Summer for vacation. Evening and weekend for relaxation. Weekdays for work. This encompasses almost every hour of a person's life, each year. If you have an idea you can execute alone and deviate from this pattern, great. If you don't and need someone else, good luck finding like-minded people, as you're already a very unique individual. If you can somehow accumulate enough wealth or get an investment, you could hire people instead. Yet, that's tough for younger people to do, and older people will slowly settle in their ways. Also, related to point 1, Europeans typically don't venture very far away from their childhood friends and family unlike Americans having no qualms uprooting their past lives.
2. Europeans don't universally have 6-8 weeks of vacation and 35 hour work weeks. Most of the younger middle class or upper middle class is likely to work 40h weeks and has 3-4 weeks of vacation, as well as some loose mandatory holidays. Loose mandatory holidays kinda suck to work with for bigger projects, at best you can weave them together with your PTO. Even working 32h weeks, which a lot of Europeans started doing, still leaves your head with the job 4 out of 7 days and mentally complex things require pretty big context shifts. The structure of this free time is more positioned as "regular bigger breaks from work" rather than "now I can take time off from my job for a long time and focus on my own stuff". Either way, nothing beats just taking a year off to work on yourself or your own ideas.
Do you mean more risk-averse? Anyway, to comment on this point. Non-Europeans, get quite a few things mixed up.
>We all joke on here about Europe with its 6-8 weeks of vacation, 35 hour work weeks, universal health care and a year of maternity of leave to some extent.
The bigger problem is two-fold and has to do with your second point:
1. Europeans have very set schedules, which has only started to erode with younger generations. Summer for vacation. Evening and weekend for relaxation. Weekdays for work. This encompasses almost every hour of a person's life, each year. If you have an idea you can execute alone and deviate from this pattern, great. If you don't and need someone else, good luck finding like-minded people, as you're already a very unique individual. If you can somehow accumulate enough wealth or get an investment, you could hire people instead. Yet, that's tough for younger people to do, and older people will slowly settle in their ways. Also, related to point 1, Europeans typically don't venture very far away from their childhood friends and family unlike Americans having no qualms uprooting their past lives.
2. Europeans don't universally have 6-8 weeks of vacation and 35 hour work weeks. Most of the younger middle class or upper middle class is likely to work 40h weeks and has 3-4 weeks of vacation, as well as some loose mandatory holidays. Loose mandatory holidays kinda suck to work with for bigger projects, at best you can weave them together with your PTO. Even working 32h weeks, which a lot of Europeans started doing, still leaves your head with the job 4 out of 7 days and mentally complex things require pretty big context shifts. The structure of this free time is more positioned as "regular bigger breaks from work" rather than "now I can take time off from my job for a long time and focus on my own stuff". Either way, nothing beats just taking a year off to work on yourself or your own ideas.
> Do you mean more risk-averse?
I do. Thanks. Corrected.
> Europeans have very set schedules
That's another way of describing conformity, in this case to cultural norms.
The best way I can describe it is like this: in the UK (and the US), the default position is that things are allowed unless they're specifically forbidden. In continental Europe, it's the reverse: everything is disallowed unless it's specifically permitted.
This was evident to me from the time that I lived in Germany and Switzerland at least.
Disruptive businesses aren't created by conformists.
I do. Thanks. Corrected.
> Europeans have very set schedules
That's another way of describing conformity, in this case to cultural norms.
The best way I can describe it is like this: in the UK (and the US), the default position is that things are allowed unless they're specifically forbidden. In continental Europe, it's the reverse: everything is disallowed unless it's specifically permitted.
This was evident to me from the time that I lived in Germany and Switzerland at least.
Disruptive businesses aren't created by conformists.
I wonder about the UK. When I created my business I started by contracting and using the inevitable downtime to get my products off the ground. Thanks to IR35 I would find that very difficult now.
Then you have stuff like workplace pensions which are an administrative mine field.
Then you have stuff like workplace pensions which are an administrative mine field.
> The best way I can describe it is like this: in the UK (and the US), the default position is that things are allowed unless they're specifically forbidden. In continental Europe, it's the reverse: everything is disallowed unless it's specifically permitted.
Only in rural North America, otherwise, everybody has the mentality as the Europeans. Otherwise, I wholeheartedly agree. Europeans don't know the meaning of the word "Freedom".
The only difference with the Uber and such is that people have no fear to break the Law.
Only in rural North America, otherwise, everybody has the mentality as the Europeans. Otherwise, I wholeheartedly agree. Europeans don't know the meaning of the word "Freedom".
The only difference with the Uber and such is that people have no fear to break the Law.
> Loose mandatory holidays kinda suck to work with for bigger projects, at best you can weave them together with your PTO.
those are like a few days per year
it's maybe relevant once or twice a year
>Even working 32h weeks, which a lot of Europeans started doing
? first time I hear about this in Eastern EU
those are like a few days per year
it's maybe relevant once or twice a year
>Even working 32h weeks, which a lot of Europeans started doing
? first time I hear about this in Eastern EU
As a European I kinda agree with this.
The US as a country was founded on very high risk. It makes sense that this remains in the culture today.
I don't think that European policies (vacation, universal health care, etc) are the cause of Europe being more risk averse. I think it's the other way around. We have those policies because we have a more risk averse culture compared to the US.
This isn't a bad thing per se. The problem is that we live in an age where technological innovation is fueling the global economy, and there is no innovation without risk.
The US as a country was founded on very high risk. It makes sense that this remains in the culture today.
I don't think that European policies (vacation, universal health care, etc) are the cause of Europe being more risk averse. I think it's the other way around. We have those policies because we have a more risk averse culture compared to the US.
This isn't a bad thing per se. The problem is that we live in an age where technological innovation is fueling the global economy, and there is no innovation without risk.
Speaking of work-ethic - I've noticed how much less Australians work than everyone else. Knocking off at lunchtime on a Friday, leaving at 3 or 4pm, etc. The only people I've seen working a full 40 hours in Australian companies are the people who own the company, and foreigners.
I know Australians have are able to easily get a work visa to go to America. The cultural shock must be pretty big once they're actually expected to work a full day, though I guess the salary increase makes up for it.
I know Australians have are able to easily get a work visa to go to America. The cultural shock must be pretty big once they're actually expected to work a full day, though I guess the salary increase makes up for it.
> Knocking off at lunchtime on a Friday, leaving at 3 or 4pm, etc. The only people I've seen working a full 40 hours in Australian companies are the people who own the company, and foreigners.
Are you implying that this is a bad thing? Having time to actually enjoy life seems to be very underappreciated here.
Are you implying that this is a bad thing? Having time to actually enjoy life seems to be very underappreciated here.
I mean it's a great thing for me as a New Zealander. I work a full 40 hours and look like a machine. And AU companies pay more than local ones.
As an Australian, your theory is correct. The culture shock is real and has caused tensions amongst distributed trans-Pacific teams that I've been a part of.
- Australians would complain that their American counter-parts were burning themselves out and ignoring structural issues impacting their productivity. Or outright accusations of "you working harder than us makes us look bad" - classic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome
- Americans would complain that the Australians were lazy and not pulling their weight.
- Australians would complain that their American counter-parts were burning themselves out and ignoring structural issues impacting their productivity. Or outright accusations of "you working harder than us makes us look bad" - classic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome
- Americans would complain that the Australians were lazy and not pulling their weight.
I think risk aversion is a big one, at least here in Australia. You might be seen as someone who failed rather than someone who tried and learned for next time. There is also not much VC culture so you have to convince conservative banks that your wild idea (gamble?) has merit.
Jeremy Howard (Fast AI) had a talk that hit home when discussing startups in AU vs US, why he left and why he came back:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uygOz2fORo
Jeremy Howard (Fast AI) had a talk that hit home when discussing startups in AU vs US, why he left and why he came back:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uygOz2fORo
What's interesting is that India (which has many languages throughout the country) pretty much adopted English as the de facto business language.
Are EU countries not the same? Genuinely don't know how English is perceived in these countries.
Although this is probably much easier for India since it is one country.
Are EU countries not the same? Genuinely don't know how English is perceived in these countries.
Although this is probably much easier for India since it is one country.
The status of English is... complicated.
So all the languages of EU members are officially recognized. This has become increasingly unwieldy as you need translators in the EU Parliament for every combination and there probably aren't that many people who can translate Portugese to Estonian, for example.
There have been proposals over time to instead translate into a particular language. This has been resisted heavily by the French in particular because everyone knows that intermediate language would be English.
English really is the lingua franca at this point.
Additionally the presidency of the EU rotates every 6 months (IIRC), which has created its own problems. For example, when potential new members were negotiating the then-French EU president wanted to negotiate in French but (IIRC) new members tend to default to English.
If you look at number of proficient speakers, English is by far the most spoken language followed distantly by German, French and Italian (in that order). And this is still true even after the UK has left the EU.
English, French and German are the procedural languages of the European Commission.
English has clearly won here but there is a lot of resistance to this linguistic hegemony (as many see it). The French have a ministry to find new words for things to stop English loan words seeping in. Many people in many EU member states don't want to lose their culture and language. And I can understand that.
But, going back to the original point: people need to communicate. English is the natural means for that. As a result many people spend a lot of time and effort trying to preserve the status quo. This is another facet of conformity, in this case conforming to historical traditions and languages.
People who obsess about preserving language and culture aren't the people who start massively disruptive businesses.
So all the languages of EU members are officially recognized. This has become increasingly unwieldy as you need translators in the EU Parliament for every combination and there probably aren't that many people who can translate Portugese to Estonian, for example.
There have been proposals over time to instead translate into a particular language. This has been resisted heavily by the French in particular because everyone knows that intermediate language would be English.
English really is the lingua franca at this point.
Additionally the presidency of the EU rotates every 6 months (IIRC), which has created its own problems. For example, when potential new members were negotiating the then-French EU president wanted to negotiate in French but (IIRC) new members tend to default to English.
If you look at number of proficient speakers, English is by far the most spoken language followed distantly by German, French and Italian (in that order). And this is still true even after the UK has left the EU.
English, French and German are the procedural languages of the European Commission.
English has clearly won here but there is a lot of resistance to this linguistic hegemony (as many see it). The French have a ministry to find new words for things to stop English loan words seeping in. Many people in many EU member states don't want to lose their culture and language. And I can understand that.
But, going back to the original point: people need to communicate. English is the natural means for that. As a result many people spend a lot of time and effort trying to preserve the status quo. This is another facet of conformity, in this case conforming to historical traditions and languages.
People who obsess about preserving language and culture aren't the people who start massively disruptive businesses.
> English really is the lingua franca at this point.
a good thing to point out is that Continental Europeans seem to talk a slightly different english compared to americans and the british.
Usually more direct, with less complex vocabulary etc.
I wonder how long it will take for this to become somewhat standardized. especially now that britain has left the EU.
a good thing to point out is that Continental Europeans seem to talk a slightly different english compared to americans and the british.
Usually more direct, with less complex vocabulary etc.
I wonder how long it will take for this to become somewhat standardized. especially now that britain has left the EU.
What's going on for English after Brexit?
> Are EU countries not the same?
Do you mean 21 voices each with their own culture and chauvinism ?
Do you mean 21 voices each with their own culture and chauvinism ?
The Gold Rush show has very little to do with reality. It’s a scripted show that had the primary motivation of making money.
> For one, we lack the imagination and vision to launch something without knowing how it might eventually make money
I don't think there is lack of imagination. The biggest barrier for any person who wants to launch something is: paperwork around establishing a company. In some countries you have to pay every month some amount of money if you want to be a freelancer, in others you need to setup a sole proprietorship, in others the distinction is not that clear. In almost every country in Europe (perhaps with the exception of the UK) the whole process is cumbersome. Young people who are willing to launch some projects online don't want to mess up with taxes authorities nor lawyers nor the commerce chamber... and hence they decide not to launch anything at all. Besides, setting up a company costs money (perhaps not much).
I live in Europe. I don't want to setup a damn company for every little project I may think it can become big. I want to let my projects grow in the wild, and if any of them get traction then sure, I will setup a company without fear of losing money.
Also: being a software engineer/computer programmer in Europe is not as sexy as it is in USA. It's getting better, yes, but here the "engineer" is the last monkey. Managers and sales are the ones who get the credit. So, European mentality also plays a role here.
I don't think there is lack of imagination. The biggest barrier for any person who wants to launch something is: paperwork around establishing a company. In some countries you have to pay every month some amount of money if you want to be a freelancer, in others you need to setup a sole proprietorship, in others the distinction is not that clear. In almost every country in Europe (perhaps with the exception of the UK) the whole process is cumbersome. Young people who are willing to launch some projects online don't want to mess up with taxes authorities nor lawyers nor the commerce chamber... and hence they decide not to launch anything at all. Besides, setting up a company costs money (perhaps not much).
I live in Europe. I don't want to setup a damn company for every little project I may think it can become big. I want to let my projects grow in the wild, and if any of them get traction then sure, I will setup a company without fear of losing money.
Also: being a software engineer/computer programmer in Europe is not as sexy as it is in USA. It's getting better, yes, but here the "engineer" is the last monkey. Managers and sales are the ones who get the credit. So, European mentality also plays a role here.
> The biggest barrier for any person who wants to launch something is: paperwork around establishing a company.
Seriously? Your plumber managed to establish a company. That kebab place across the street. The delivery guy subcontracting for courier service. And the company that wants to conquer the world can't?
Seriously? Your plumber managed to establish a company. That kebab place across the street. The delivery guy subcontracting for courier service. And the company that wants to conquer the world can't?
Yeah I remember some big4 companies saying that France is among the easiest country to incorporate a company ( I think it was E&Y).
The problem is more on :
1 - Europe can't have a common language
2 - Each country will support first their own companies, then US, then other competitive European companies
3 - A mess to expend outside of its own country.
4 - Culture of useless consultancy companies (Atos, Alten, Altran, Cap Gemini, Accenture, and a shit load of others) for France and several other countries killing any IT innovations.
And many more things.
And many more things.
Much of it is true. However as for #2, there are often at least clusters of countries where expansion isn't a big deal (BeNeLux, Nordics, Baltic…) so it's not that terrible. And supporting the US companies, well maybe it's true for the whales but nobody gives two damns about competing American startups.
I live in the US, but the plumber is just doing business in one jurisdiction and expects that business will continue to exist for years. Jumping through a bunch of hoops may not be worth what starts out at a couple hundred dollars a month. Lots of companies only accidentally conquer the world. If you put a barrier in front of any activity, you will get less of it in direct proportion to the height of the barrier.
> > > For one, we lack the imagination and vision to launch something without knowing how it might eventually make money
> I don't think there is lack of imagination. The biggest barrier for any person who wants to launch something is: paperwork around establishing a company.
I don't think that is true for the type of company that is described by the line you're replying to. Starting a company is not that hard. Starting a company without even knowing what its eventual business model will be, purely banking on growth for growth's sake, that requires a vast amount of investment with very little guarantees of a return. And that is hard to get in Europe! Much harder than merely starting a company is. I have been part of one such startup for a short time years ago, and I thought it was a complete scam, so unused was I to that type of company. I've never seen any since.
> In some countries you have to pay every month some amount of money if you want to be a freelancer,
Yes, but freelancing isn't the topic.
However, I have a feeling that companies that just want to grow big and are unclear on what their business model will be when they are, are not exactly working on the most important problems. So maybe it's not all bad for Europe.
> I don't think there is lack of imagination. The biggest barrier for any person who wants to launch something is: paperwork around establishing a company.
I don't think that is true for the type of company that is described by the line you're replying to. Starting a company is not that hard. Starting a company without even knowing what its eventual business model will be, purely banking on growth for growth's sake, that requires a vast amount of investment with very little guarantees of a return. And that is hard to get in Europe! Much harder than merely starting a company is. I have been part of one such startup for a short time years ago, and I thought it was a complete scam, so unused was I to that type of company. I've never seen any since.
> In some countries you have to pay every month some amount of money if you want to be a freelancer,
Yes, but freelancing isn't the topic.
However, I have a feeling that companies that just want to grow big and are unclear on what their business model will be when they are, are not exactly working on the most important problems. So maybe it's not all bad for Europe.
IDK, I set up an LLC to bill for a single project, and it cost me something like 100 euros and a few hours of my time reading up on how to do it. Yes, that brings the need to file taxes every year - but on the other hand ordinary people in USA have to that for their personal income (unlike most people in EU), and that doesn't seem like something impossible to them.
Like, it definitely is a barrier for trivial hobby projects, if you whip something up in a single day and don't want to spend any more time on it, then this becomes a problem, but it's not a meaningful barrier for any actual project on which you're working every week that brings you some revenue.
Like, it definitely is a barrier for trivial hobby projects, if you whip something up in a single day and don't want to spend any more time on it, then this becomes a problem, but it's not a meaningful barrier for any actual project on which you're working every week that brings you some revenue.
> Also: being a software engineer/computer programmer in Europe is not as sexy as it is in USA. It's getting better, yes, but here the "engineer" is the last monkey. Managers and sales are the ones who get the credit. So, European mentality also plays a role here.
Eventually those manager and sales people will learn that they need developers to build stuff, or else they can't manage anyone because nothing has been built or sell products that don't exist.
Eventually those manager and sales people will learn that they need developers to build stuff, or else they can't manage anyone because nothing has been built or sell products that don't exist.
> Eventually those manager and sales people will learn that they need developers to build stuff
The "bourgeoisie" never really figured out they needed workers to run the mines...
The "bourgeoisie" never really figured out they needed workers to run the mines...
they found a better alternative called: 'you do the work, I get the pay in your place. win win'.
and it's structured in the form of useless middlemen `consulting` companies going by the names of (Atos, Alten, Accenture, ...)
finding a job in tech related industries means most probably going through them, and in practice they value business school people and management types way more than the lowly engineer.
and it's structured in the form of useless middlemen `consulting` companies going by the names of (Atos, Alten, Accenture, ...)
finding a job in tech related industries means most probably going through them, and in practice they value business school people and management types way more than the lowly engineer.
Unfortunately they are very slow learners and by the time they figure it out a lot of damage has been done.
Why would you assume they’d change? They will simply go to non tech companies and “manage “people there
I'm afraid that this is the same in the US.
Once again, proof that no good deed goes unpunished. It's a credit to
Europe's social values that they find themselves prey to the profit-first
institutions of Silicon Valley. And lest we forget, the world-changing
beneficence of the internet and Linux originated from a Swiss lab and a Finn.
* the web, not the internet.
Finns have been behind a lot of what we have today.
We have to operate by american rules in the hope that something will catch on, and then pray european countries won't create legislation that outlaws or makes it impossible to monetize your product. Schemes like the H2020 research grants are more of a UBI for Phd holders than a real attempt to outcompete the world. I don't think any funding scheme coming from the EU can be competitive, instead of a job-and-bureaucracy-creation machine.
Europe lacks on marketing, distribution and ability to acquire and lock-in users, fast. This has been the american recipe to success time and again, not the quality of consumer-facing products which has been going downhill for a decade now. We can't bet on EU as a whole to create an ecosystem, instead the best use of EU funds would be for states to run the most basic consumer services for free for their citizens (such as email or a mastodon instance). It will be sub-par but it will at least create an alternative due to the EU's large distribution mechanism.
Europe lacks on marketing, distribution and ability to acquire and lock-in users, fast. This has been the american recipe to success time and again, not the quality of consumer-facing products which has been going downhill for a decade now. We can't bet on EU as a whole to create an ecosystem, instead the best use of EU funds would be for states to run the most basic consumer services for free for their citizens (such as email or a mastodon instance). It will be sub-par but it will at least create an alternative due to the EU's large distribution mechanism.
Patrick Collison replying to an Economist Article that is pessimistic about European Tech Future:
https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/1403340409787469836
https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/1403340409787469836
My previous comment on this issue: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27508759
(Slightly edited) copy-paste:
Economist ran an article on this: https://www.economist.com/briefing/2021/06/05/once-a-corpora...
We're in the service economy now, and Europe has no real single market for services, due to all kinds of national regulations that differ throughout the block. Nor does it have well-developed financial and labor markets, partly also because they are currently partitioned by nationality. Its stock exchanges are too many and too small, etc. The list goes on.
For many big European companies, an astounding percentage of revenue comes from the US or China. But if you start a startup building for US/China from the start, why would you want the HQ to be somewhere in Europe?
This also means that the story is very very different for products that can be shipped in boxes. Europe does extremely well in cars, beverages, clothing, chemicals and that sort of thing. Also electrical utilities for some reason.
(Slightly edited) copy-paste:
Economist ran an article on this: https://www.economist.com/briefing/2021/06/05/once-a-corpora...
We're in the service economy now, and Europe has no real single market for services, due to all kinds of national regulations that differ throughout the block. Nor does it have well-developed financial and labor markets, partly also because they are currently partitioned by nationality. Its stock exchanges are too many and too small, etc. The list goes on.
For many big European companies, an astounding percentage of revenue comes from the US or China. But if you start a startup building for US/China from the start, why would you want the HQ to be somewhere in Europe?
This also means that the story is very very different for products that can be shipped in boxes. Europe does extremely well in cars, beverages, clothing, chemicals and that sort of thing. Also electrical utilities for some reason.
Although the EU is a marketplace of 27 countries, it is not a digitally homogeneous marketplace. Adoption and acceptance of digital tools varies by country. Language is also important - the tech giants localise their apps and tools. But many software companies in larger European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain etc) concentrate on their home country first before they focus on international reach. That makes sense. In smaller countries, where the software market is also smaller, software companies have a more international outlook.
I am struggling to think of European success stories in the traditional desktop app space - apps that have international reach and name recognition. I can only think of a handful desktop apps:
- Sketch (Netherlands)
- Affinity Photo/Designer/Publisher (UK)
- Cinema4D (Germany)
Who else enjoys international success for their desktop apps? What about SaaS?
The apps above specialise in a particluar field (design and 3D animation), but missing are any apps in the "office productivity" category which seem completely dominated by tech giants like Microsoft and Google.
Note: I purposely did not mention SAP because no-one looks to SAP as a source of inspiration. Their enterprise apps are expensive and clunky.
I am struggling to think of European success stories in the traditional desktop app space - apps that have international reach and name recognition. I can only think of a handful desktop apps:
- Sketch (Netherlands)
- Affinity Photo/Designer/Publisher (UK)
- Cinema4D (Germany)
Who else enjoys international success for their desktop apps? What about SaaS?
The apps above specialise in a particluar field (design and 3D animation), but missing are any apps in the "office productivity" category which seem completely dominated by tech giants like Microsoft and Google.
Note: I purposely did not mention SAP because no-one looks to SAP as a source of inspiration. Their enterprise apps are expensive and clunky.
I want to highlight this.
There is always talk about a european market, but it is more like 27 markets with one access ticket.
You have 27 languages, 27 cultures, 27 political systems, 27 markets, 27 levels of development and infrastructure. Although you have a market of 300 million consumers, they all have different spending habits, different spending power, different needs...
America is one market of 300 million people, with roughly the same culture, the same language, the same laws and political system and has been exporting it's language and power through out the last 100 years, so your market is probably double the size of your population.
There is also success stories of european players: Zalando, Delivery Hero. Sap has some very innovative departments, but their Reputation all in all is shite, yes.
Also most of souther europe doesn't have the get rich quick mentality. They live by "dolce vita" - the good life. Nobody is gonna be bending over backwards here to become a millionaire anytime soon. They happily live with 20k€ a year and their families and Relationships.
I still hate the shitty software we make here in europe/germany but we are working hard here to improve that. And if a european company tells you they offer a API or Service, they probably wont shut it down because it went out of falvour this month.
There is always talk about a european market, but it is more like 27 markets with one access ticket.
You have 27 languages, 27 cultures, 27 political systems, 27 markets, 27 levels of development and infrastructure. Although you have a market of 300 million consumers, they all have different spending habits, different spending power, different needs...
America is one market of 300 million people, with roughly the same culture, the same language, the same laws and political system and has been exporting it's language and power through out the last 100 years, so your market is probably double the size of your population.
There is also success stories of european players: Zalando, Delivery Hero. Sap has some very innovative departments, but their Reputation all in all is shite, yes.
Also most of souther europe doesn't have the get rich quick mentality. They live by "dolce vita" - the good life. Nobody is gonna be bending over backwards here to become a millionaire anytime soon. They happily live with 20k€ a year and their families and Relationships.
I still hate the shitty software we make here in europe/germany but we are working hard here to improve that. And if a european company tells you they offer a API or Service, they probably wont shut it down because it went out of falvour this month.
> Also most of souther europe doesn't have the get rich quick mentality. They live by "dolce vita" - the good life. Nobody is gonna be bending over backwards here to become a millionaire anytime soon. They happily live with 20k€ a year and their families and Relationships.
Sometimes it seems that Northern Europeans think that the southern European is the noble savage of the developed world.
I'll speak for Italy, not having direct experience of other southern European countries. Taxes are very high, bureaucracy is omnipresent and openly hostile. A friend of mine once won a price for an invention, ~5K euros. The money was barely enough to register the company (not to pay for an office, just to register a company, a procedure that in the UK would cost 20£). The process took months. Salaries are much lower than in other European countries and people work longer hours, people of my age have been employed at-will for almost their whole careers. Unpaid overtime is the norm. Companies are small, do not provide chances to grow professionally and do not invest, productivity is low and unpaid overtime is often a means to compensate. At least once in everybody's life, your boss would come to you saying that there isn't enough money to pay your salary this month. Working hard simply doesn't matter, many software developers and translators and designers and whatnot earn as much as janitors. I don't come from southern Italy, where I suspect the situation is even worse.
In this context, you don't "happily" live with 20K euros per annum, you just have to accept that. And you have to live with your family because you can't afford otherwise. If you are lucky enough to get a government job or to retire early (which since the 70s have been the government's favourite ways of tackling unemployment), you may get a chance of enjoying this "dolce vita" of yours.
Sometimes it seems that Northern Europeans think that the southern European is the noble savage of the developed world.
I'll speak for Italy, not having direct experience of other southern European countries. Taxes are very high, bureaucracy is omnipresent and openly hostile. A friend of mine once won a price for an invention, ~5K euros. The money was barely enough to register the company (not to pay for an office, just to register a company, a procedure that in the UK would cost 20£). The process took months. Salaries are much lower than in other European countries and people work longer hours, people of my age have been employed at-will for almost their whole careers. Unpaid overtime is the norm. Companies are small, do not provide chances to grow professionally and do not invest, productivity is low and unpaid overtime is often a means to compensate. At least once in everybody's life, your boss would come to you saying that there isn't enough money to pay your salary this month. Working hard simply doesn't matter, many software developers and translators and designers and whatnot earn as much as janitors. I don't come from southern Italy, where I suspect the situation is even worse.
In this context, you don't "happily" live with 20K euros per annum, you just have to accept that. And you have to live with your family because you can't afford otherwise. If you are lucky enough to get a government job or to retire early (which since the 70s have been the government's favourite ways of tackling unemployment), you may get a chance of enjoying this "dolce vita" of yours.
>You have 27 languages, 27 cultures, 27 political systems, 27 markets, 27 levels of development and infrastructure. Although you have a market of 300 million consumers, they all have different spending habits, different spending power, different needs...
i was thinking about that.
that's 27 smaller markets compare to one US or China market. you have to deal with 27 regulations and cultures. is that even worth the time and efforts?
i was thinking about that.
that's 27 smaller markets compare to one US or China market. you have to deal with 27 regulations and cultures. is that even worth the time and efforts?
>You have 27 languages, 27 cultures, 27 political systems, 27 markets, 27 levels of development and infrastructure.
If I look at most of my European sales they are in Germany, The Netherlands and Scandinavia. The UK was in that list until Brexit.
I don't think you need to target all 27, at least not until you are well established.
If I look at most of my European sales they are in Germany, The Netherlands and Scandinavia. The UK was in that list until Brexit.
I don't think you need to target all 27, at least not until you are well established.
And suddenly your 300m market is only 100m people
In many cases, you never really had a 300m market in the first place. The EU membership spans a wide range of cultures, languages, traditions, economics and politics. Many products or services won't be equally attractive to customers all over the EU, particularly once you take into account the rules that mean you can't necessarily price according to what a free market would pay either.
Living in EU. Can only say, the main reason is in my perspective regulatory and taxes. Some points
- It is difficult to issue equity and get equity (tax)
- Each EU country has different taxes. You are taxed lower in Netherlands than in Germany.
- Each country has different regulation rules. If you do something exciting. Wow let's say a social network. You would be killed by regulation and data privacy rules. Autonomous driving the same. Blockchain forget it.
- Ideology driven investments. Maybe just a feeling. But nearly on each event green energy seems to be the hot topic. It is kind of political driven. Like everyone should jump on the green energy train. It is harder to get funding for more exotic topics...
- It is difficult to issue equity and get equity (tax)
- Each EU country has different taxes. You are taxed lower in Netherlands than in Germany.
- Each country has different regulation rules. If you do something exciting. Wow let's say a social network. You would be killed by regulation and data privacy rules. Autonomous driving the same. Blockchain forget it.
- Ideology driven investments. Maybe just a feeling. But nearly on each event green energy seems to be the hot topic. It is kind of political driven. Like everyone should jump on the green energy train. It is harder to get funding for more exotic topics...
This! Companies from smaller countries even can't grow, just because local market is big as it is and if you want to grow, you need to sell goods/services in other countries, which means you need lawyers to get into all tax and other legal nuances. Just by fixing this issues for small companies would boom growth of tech and other companies.
exactly and it gets hell of complex since every country has its own tax rules. Especially CFC rules and so on makes your life pretty difficult. Big companies can of course play the game very well.
> Autonomous driving the same. Blockchain forget it.
There's plenty of both in the EU. And blockchain is more useful as a counter-example of innovation than anything.
There's plenty of both in the EU. And blockchain is more useful as a counter-example of innovation than anything.
Autonomous driving. Which company plays in the same field as Us and or even Chinese companies?
Blockchain: IT is controversial about the usefulness. But it is far more easier to make (legal) money with it outside of EU or in some small crypto friendly EU countries.
Blockchain: IT is controversial about the usefulness. But it is far more easier to make (legal) money with it outside of EU or in some small crypto friendly EU countries.
Not to mention the VAT (Value Added Tax) that is a big weapon of market selfdestruction.
How so? It only affects the end consumer. It’s deductible for businesses.
To start, YOU are the end consumer. Lets imagine that you wake up one day, and all is 21% more expensive, would be happy with it?
I am, my company isn't. What's your point? How would things get 21% more expensive from one day to another? The VAT system already functions and is already calculated into the cost of living. An example: selling a SaaS subscription in the EU, the price would be 100%-19% VAT + VAT, selling the same subscription to the US, the price would be 100%. Consumer in the EU does not lose anything. Business neither because the VAT the business pays back to the VAT system can be claimed back on VAT paid by the same business on other services.
The VAT thus motivates businesses to spend money on goods and services. What is it used for? "VAT essentially compensates for the shared service and infrastructure provided in a certain locality by a state and funded by its taxpayers that were used in the provision of that product or service." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-added_tax
The VAT thus motivates businesses to spend money on goods and services. What is it used for? "VAT essentially compensates for the shared service and infrastructure provided in a certain locality by a state and funded by its taxpayers that were used in the provision of that product or service." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-added_tax
> How would things get 21% more expensive from one day to another?
New Laws.
Is more expensive because everybody is paying a 21% more in taxes. So either the customer pays more, or the seller accepts to take a cut in their benefits to keep the price in a strategic value (below the product of his competitors)
To compensate it and survive, the startup needs now to find a way to produce the 'same' product 21% cheaper. For example, in China.
That invariably leads to your product being cloned for somebody and fake products invading your market.
New Laws.
Is more expensive because everybody is paying a 21% more in taxes. So either the customer pays more, or the seller accepts to take a cut in their benefits to keep the price in a strategic value (below the product of his competitors)
To compensate it and survive, the startup needs now to find a way to produce the 'same' product 21% cheaper. For example, in China.
That invariably leads to your product being cloned for somebody and fake products invading your market.
> New Laws.
How did we end up on new laws when we started about VAT explicitly?
How did we end up on new laws when we started about VAT explicitly?
Maybe you are not aware, but VAT has been raised many times in the last years.
Like any tax. In some cases, it was also lowered. Product groups move between VAT rates.
And your startup is now a company, but also a tax collecting office. You are forced also to be a tax collector, collect money from your clients, keep it safe and pay it to the mobs... to the government before 100 days, either you have it or not.
Your customers, of course, hate it. Will hate YOU for that.
And will try to press you to forget VAT all the time. This system introduces a incredible amount of anger and friction in the process of selling a product, that must to be as straightforward and easy as possible. And is a bless to the bigco competitors.
That leads us to the parallel VAT-less market that will be created in no time.
Your customers, of course, hate it. Will hate YOU for that.
And will try to press you to forget VAT all the time. This system introduces a incredible amount of anger and friction in the process of selling a product, that must to be as straightforward and easy as possible. And is a bless to the bigco competitors.
That leads us to the parallel VAT-less market that will be created in no time.
> You are forced also to be a tax collector, collect money from your clients, keep it safe and pay it to the mobs... to the government before 100 days, either you have it or not.
Well, you raise an invoice with VAT on it, you get paid, you put the VAT money on the side because it is NOT YOUR money and you pay the VAT to the financial system. Your invoice goes into accounting only when it's paid. Can you explain what's wrong with that?
> Your customers, of course, hate it. Will hate YOU for that.
160 countries around the world have VAT / GST. Haven't seen widespread "HATE" anywhere.
Well, you raise an invoice with VAT on it, you get paid, you put the VAT money on the side because it is NOT YOUR money and you pay the VAT to the financial system. Your invoice goes into accounting only when it's paid. Can you explain what's wrong with that?
> Your customers, of course, hate it. Will hate YOU for that.
160 countries around the world have VAT / GST. Haven't seen widespread "HATE" anywhere.
> Haven't seen widespread "HATE" anywhere.
I'm really happy for you. Could you repeat that to my customers, please?
I'm really happy for you. Could you repeat that to my customers, please?
That’s fine but how could I possibly do that without being introduced?
There are a couple of self-driving and blockchain companies in Europe, but curiously enough they don't find it as difficult as some random internet commenter
"killed by regulation and data privacy rules"
Funny to see the same people that bemoan the privacy rules being now forced to follow them due to Apple and Google. Seems like they'll have to actually sit and think how to do instead of complaining.
"killed by regulation and data privacy rules"
Funny to see the same people that bemoan the privacy rules being now forced to follow them due to Apple and Google. Seems like they'll have to actually sit and think how to do instead of complaining.
I must say that I lack the Scandinavian/Baltic perspective here. Some successful software projects founded in Scandinavia and the Baltics some of you have heard of include:
Linux Skype Spotify Mojang (Minecraft) Rovio (Angry Birds) SoundCloud Klarna MySQL Opera Qt
Even Tidal, Rdio and Beats Music can trace their ancestry to this region.
Not to mention the only(?) remaining competition to Chinese telecom, Ericsson and Nokia, following the defeat of Lucent, Nortel, Siemens et al.
With this perspective, perhaps it can be argued that speaking of Europe as a whole in this sense is unproductive.
Linux Skype Spotify Mojang (Minecraft) Rovio (Angry Birds) SoundCloud Klarna MySQL Opera Qt
Even Tidal, Rdio and Beats Music can trace their ancestry to this region.
Not to mention the only(?) remaining competition to Chinese telecom, Ericsson and Nokia, following the defeat of Lucent, Nortel, Siemens et al.
With this perspective, perhaps it can be argued that speaking of Europe as a whole in this sense is unproductive.
Now let's start counting US startups
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 pursuing education and careers in these areas.
A software engineer makes like 50% more salary (let alone all of the other stuff) in the Bay Area as they do in London. London is a really expensive city that pays certain industries a ton of money.
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 pursuing education and careers in these areas.
A software engineer makes like 50% more salary (let alone all of the other stuff) in the Bay Area as they do in London. London is a really expensive city that pays certain industries a ton of money.
The reason US developers are paid more is because US startups are much more successful. As to why they are so much more successful is a different question.
Also, the US dollar being the defacto reserve currency and it currently being incredibly cheap helps quite a lot.
The US is basically the only country being able to borrow directly against natural resources (which it has plenty off, especially compared to the EU).
They are paid more, because the US is a much more expensive place to live (at least in California).
This is circular logic. The US is more expensive because it has higher median wages. Its not like its a remote island with a few hundred people which would make logistics difficult.
That is right. FAANGs make more money, pay people more, real estate investors raise cost of housing, people have to pay more, so fangs need to pay more, etc etc.
Exactly, the substantially higher salaries for tech workers in the US allows them to attract the best and brightest from all over the world.
I think the poor pay is actually a result of the difficulty to raise money in Europe. Smaller funding rounds leave less room for SV-level compensation, which drains talent to higher-paying economies.
I think its a feedback loop.
--> better engineers
--> more successful/innovative company
--> company generates more revenue
--> company can pay higher
--> better engineers
--> better engineers
--> more successful/innovative company
--> company generates more revenue
--> company can pay higher
--> better engineers
I think a law that forbids blocking third party clients (either through terms&conditions or technical means) would level the playing field a bit. Though I see issues around balancing the need of platforms to update their APIs and an API update essentially blocking third party clients who don't keep pace.
While I'd appreciate such a law, I doubt it would work in practice.
First-party can turn it into a cat-and-mouse game where they'll introduce some minor changes that require third-party apps to be updated over and over again. We've seen this happen with some education related app / system in Sweden where people built a better third-party app / client.
Finding a decent, enforceable solution this way is certainly not trivial.
First-party can turn it into a cat-and-mouse game where they'll introduce some minor changes that require third-party apps to be updated over and over again. We've seen this happen with some education related app / system in Sweden where people built a better third-party app / client.
Finding a decent, enforceable solution this way is certainly not trivial.
A similar thing is part of the PSD2 regulation[0]. It forces banks to open APIs.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Services_Directive
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Services_Directive
Mandate that every API version that introduces breaking changes remains available for X years. Big companies do this anyway because there always are people using outdated first-party apps.
> Mandate that every API version that introduces breaking changes remains available for X years.
Then you've just crippled the ability to deliver new functionality at a rapid pace without huge associated support costs.
no?
Then you've just crippled the ability to deliver new functionality at a rapid pace without huge associated support costs.
no?
No. You didn't read my comment fully. Companies already support app versions that are years old, for various reasons — the most obvious one being that many people use older devices that run an OS that's no longer supported by the app in question, and others just don't ever update anything. So since they're already doing this right now, and have been doing this since forever, there's literally zero additional work involved.
Besides, no one is asking them to "deliver new functionality at a rapid pace", especially to feature-complete products. This whole "keep flapping your wings or you'll die" thing is a lie. It's fine for a product to be done. It's fine to stop. It's fine to go into maintenance mode.
Besides, no one is asking them to "deliver new functionality at a rapid pace", especially to feature-complete products. This whole "keep flapping your wings or you'll die" thing is a lie. It's fine for a product to be done. It's fine to stop. It's fine to go into maintenance mode.
> Companies already support app versions that are years old
Some do, agile startups tend not to.
> Besides, no one is asking them to "deliver new functionality at a rapid pace"
And your proposed legislation would ensure that they cannot.
> It's fine for a product to be done. It's fine to stop. It's fine to go into maintenance mode.
It's not fine for this to be the law.
Some do, agile startups tend not to.
> Besides, no one is asking them to "deliver new functionality at a rapid pace"
And your proposed legislation would ensure that they cannot.
> It's fine for a product to be done. It's fine to stop. It's fine to go into maintenance mode.
It's not fine for this to be the law.
Maybe there should be some sort of condition, like minimum MAU or something. Only regulate those that grow to be huge enough for many people to depend on them. This would exclude startups but would still apply to Facebook and Twitter.
> It's not fine for this to be the law.
This law sounds silly and counter-productive enough for EU to actually implement it!
This law sounds silly and counter-productive enough for EU to actually implement it!
How so? What prevents you from making new functionality available incrementally and in a backwards-compatible manner on the newest version of the API?
Besides, this would reduce e-waste from perfectly functional devices that are not longer functional because the cloud endpoint went away. So it would be good for the environment too.
Besides, this would reduce e-waste from perfectly functional devices that are not longer functional because the cloud endpoint went away. So it would be good for the environment too.
You’ve just imposed a set of legal constraints on an entire industry there.
You genuinely can’t see how this might stifle creativity and add costs in a small, fast moving company? I can already hear the jaded developer conversations -
“Oh god, no don’t change that, we’ll be stuck with another ‘version 3 ‘ we have to support forever”.
And the managerial equivalent - “delivering X new feature will break existing APIs and as a result of the regulations we have to keep those running, adding time to the dev cycle for back/forward porting and increasing support costs, maybe hosting costs too, best shelve it”
It’s fine for slow-moving enterprise stuff, for everyone else it’s a crazy imposition. You can’t drop a feature you don’t want to support any more, you can’t completely change how one works, you’re constrained.
Of course it’s possible to work that way, but it adds load. In the context of “Europe doesn’t have enough fast moving home-grown tech”, legislating that would be precisely the wrong move.
You genuinely can’t see how this might stifle creativity and add costs in a small, fast moving company? I can already hear the jaded developer conversations -
“Oh god, no don’t change that, we’ll be stuck with another ‘version 3 ‘ we have to support forever”.
And the managerial equivalent - “delivering X new feature will break existing APIs and as a result of the regulations we have to keep those running, adding time to the dev cycle for back/forward porting and increasing support costs, maybe hosting costs too, best shelve it”
It’s fine for slow-moving enterprise stuff, for everyone else it’s a crazy imposition. You can’t drop a feature you don’t want to support any more, you can’t completely change how one works, you’re constrained.
Of course it’s possible to work that way, but it adds load. In the context of “Europe doesn’t have enough fast moving home-grown tech”, legislating that would be precisely the wrong move.
> Mandate that every API version that introduces breaking changes remains available for X years.
This is the kind of insane regulation that holds Europe back - it’s the problem not the solution.
This is the kind of insane regulation that holds Europe back - it’s the problem not the solution.
Such law would even help with the walled garden of Signal.
Am I the only one who thinks this is not a problem but just how things should be in general? Why should people be pushed to work themselves to death due to societal/financial pressure? If the work culture in Europe provides less stressful life and better work-life balance, barring those who are career driven/ambitious/enjoy the associated challenges, it should be perfectly ok to embrace the former without being guilt-shamed by the latter. I don't have stats but I think the percentage of people who enjoy their work but not as much so as to slow-march to their deaths to the tunes of never-ending deadlines, isn't insignificant.
> Why should people be pushed to work themselves to death due to societal/financial pressure?
The article isn't about that at all?
The article isn't about that at all?
The EU should just pay anybody who makes Open Source contributions.
Problem solved.
Europeans get their own tech stack. Can compete again with US companies, as the all the cost for building infrastructure is externalized.
Problem solved.
Europeans get their own tech stack. Can compete again with US companies, as the all the cost for building infrastructure is externalized.
I understand the intention behind such a proposal, history of unintended consequences of government intensives should stop any sensible person from implementing anything remotely like that.
Do you remember how one company promised people a free shirt for open source contributions, and how it resulted in an epic shitstorm of garbage patches? Just a few months ago. Now, imagine this, but with actual money instead of T-shirts.
Do you remember how one company promised people a free shirt for open source contributions, and how it resulted in an epic shitstorm of garbage patches? Just a few months ago. Now, imagine this, but with actual money instead of T-shirts.
This is for public policy people to figure out. They do stuff like that all the time.
Of course it's not easy. But if it works, can be tremendously effective.
Maybe a starter would be to give some maintainers of already successful projects a salary, if they want. Impossible to game.
Of course it's not easy. But if it works, can be tremendously effective.
Maybe a starter would be to give some maintainers of already successful projects a salary, if they want. Impossible to game.
Actually you can receive (modest) grants for this, for example from NLnet. I've been writing open source software full-time for the last two years funded partly by this.
There are also other grants I believe, but I'm not really an expert on this. I just know there are actually possibilities.
There are also other grants I believe, but I'm not really an expert on this. I just know there are actually possibilities.
In fact, it is way easier to spot fraud in Open Source projects than in government subsidies literally in any other sector.
They indeed do "stuff like that" all the time. That's exactly my point.
it could take other forms though, for instance you could identify people who are already maintaining or creating significant foss projects and pay them while they keep working on them. probably it makes sense to limit this to the most productive/driven few. it should be really straightforward (though time-consuming) to see if someone is cheating, because all the work is there in public view in the form of git commits.
EU is already the biggest contributor to Open Source.
And I fully agree that FOSS should be paid collectively like civil infrastructure.
But we need to be careful with the freeloaders. Big companies coopted FOSS into unpaid labor: anything released with permissive licenses can be proprietarized by SaaS/Cloud companies. Almost always US based.
This would turn European financial contributions to FOSS into a gift for FAANGs.
This is why the European Union Public Licence is copyleft and compatible with GPL. But it's not enough.
And I fully agree that FOSS should be paid collectively like civil infrastructure.
But we need to be careful with the freeloaders. Big companies coopted FOSS into unpaid labor: anything released with permissive licenses can be proprietarized by SaaS/Cloud companies. Almost always US based.
This would turn European financial contributions to FOSS into a gift for FAANGs.
This is why the European Union Public Licence is copyleft and compatible with GPL. But it's not enough.
That would be a great strategy and probably wouldn't cost much. Pay open source project authors to maintain popular projects. Right now, technologists in Europe are starved of capital. We have 0 surplus capital to take any risks or to innovate; we're too busy chasing the next paycheck to think about building infrastructure.
Even when we do build infrastructure, there is 0 government support; governments or tech companies don't make any effort to bring any attention to EU open source projects.
All other countries have protectionist structures but EU imports all its tech, even though there is more than enough in-house talent to build it - They'd rather give out contracts to US and Chinese companies and have their EU citizens working for these companies as employees instead of giving their citizens a chance to actually run the companies.
Even when we do build infrastructure, there is 0 government support; governments or tech companies don't make any effort to bring any attention to EU open source projects.
All other countries have protectionist structures but EU imports all its tech, even though there is more than enough in-house talent to build it - They'd rather give out contracts to US and Chinese companies and have their EU citizens working for these companies as employees instead of giving their citizens a chance to actually run the companies.
Right. Last I read, Hacktoberfest created a huge amount of spam for Open Source contributions, and all that was on the line there was a t-shirt. You seem to be suggesting that real money should be involved - do you think the outcome will be different than Hacktoberfest?
Yes? Like donating money to a well-established project is very different than sending a t-shirt to whoever creates a repo with 2 commits or what..
If people are willing to create a ton of spam for a t-shirt, I would imagine that a lot more spam would be created if contributions were rewarded with more money. Or at least, it's not immediately clear what mechanisms would exist that would prevent spam pay-for-contributions that also wouldn't work for t-shirt contributions.
> 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.
I agree with this from a commenter below. In US you have so many more customers that speak your language and have your culture. You can move around and find common issues. One government. One law. So different from the EU.
I do not see a fix until government, law and language becomes unified to a common government, common law and the common language.
I agree with this from a commenter below. In US you have so many more customers that speak your language and have your culture. You can move around and find common issues. One government. One law. So different from the EU.
I do not see a fix until government, law and language becomes unified to a common government, common law and the common language.
The US has one dominant language and one dominant culture, but the legal system is complex. There are national laws. There are also 50 states, each with their own sets of laws. There are also laws at lower levels (county, city, etc). There are similarities that hold true, more-or-less, across the nation, but also differences that are relevant to businesses.
For example, the recent battle in California over how "gig economy" workers are classified:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_22
Or, the problem of figuring out where you can sell your micro-mobility vehicle:
"The classification of ebikes and other forms of transport is a complex matter in the US. There are federal rules and lots of different regulations at state and city level."
https://www.mypodride.com/faqs (see the "PodRide for USA and Canada" section)
The US may be better than in the EU in this regard, but it's also not that different.
For example, the recent battle in California over how "gig economy" workers are classified:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_22
Or, the problem of figuring out where you can sell your micro-mobility vehicle:
"The classification of ebikes and other forms of transport is a complex matter in the US. There are federal rules and lots of different regulations at state and city level."
https://www.mypodride.com/faqs (see the "PodRide for USA and Canada" section)
The US may be better than in the EU in this regard, but it's also not that different.
US legal system seems less complex than the EU. Thought I admit that I do not have a complete overview of US law.
I see it like having many small US countries at the same time, while the EU law above just directs these smaller US countries to implement custom laws for their own backwater. I chose the example because for each country, all the levels you describe also seem to exist.
I see it like having many small US countries at the same time, while the EU law above just directs these smaller US countries to implement custom laws for their own backwater. I chose the example because for each country, all the levels you describe also seem to exist.
United States' platforms on Chinese hardware sounds like everybody's problem. Except for China which has both.
To be honest, it would be nice for Europe to handle the platforms and for the United States to go back to radical innovation. The times of emacs, vi, Bell labs, Xerox and pushing the computing medium to the edge.
To be honest, it would be nice for Europe to handle the platforms and for the United States to go back to radical innovation. The times of emacs, vi, Bell labs, Xerox and pushing the computing medium to the edge.
All the FAANGs are American companies, and they've all been pushing the boundaries. What do you feel America has lost in this respect?
The US and California in particular lost it's appeal. 20 years ago it was the dream destination for many. Now, even some Indians steer away. I don't know a single European who would want to live in the US. Not even from Eastern Europe. The go-to place is London, Berlin, Stockholm, Amsterdam, etc.
FAANGS were started 1-2 decades ago. In past 5 years the trend changed. Ask PG. He will never move back to the US.
And no, Texas will never be the next big innovation hub.
Living in the US is dull and uninspiring if you lived away for long. Also the missing social net makes the situation worse and worse every year.
"America" is losing the talent pool.
FAANGS were started 1-2 decades ago. In past 5 years the trend changed. Ask PG. He will never move back to the US.
And no, Texas will never be the next big innovation hub.
Living in the US is dull and uninspiring if you lived away for long. Also the missing social net makes the situation worse and worse every year.
"America" is losing the talent pool.
Instead I would argue that if the Americans opened their borders, a huge fraction of European tech workers/professionals will relocate there. I'd say that, as middle-class persons, they wouldn't subject themselves to the torture of getting a visa, which may also partially explain the rise of Berlin as a tech hub after Brexit.
Nonsense. You do realize that people don’t just relocate to another country let alone to another continent, especially when the benefits are questionable at best. Somewhat more pay, but for more expenses due to a ridiculous health-care, depending on location, it may very well be less safe, etc.
You may disagree, but “nonsense” sounds a bit excessive. An Italian or Spanish software developer earning 30K euros per annum would likely go to the US if they were offered an American salary. Many of those who went to the UK or to Germany (me included) would have crossed the Atlantic for the right offer.
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 US visa policy.
I mainly reflected on the current trend I observered. Did not consider a sudden change in the US visa policy.
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.
A half decent flat in London costs in excess of 2000£ per month. Where “decent” means you don’t deal with pests, walls are not made of paper and your neighbour going to the toilet doesn’t cause the whole building to shake.
Universal healthcare varies a lot in Europe, for instance in the UK it is rather limited compared to continental Europe, even compared to Southern Europe. In the UK you would need a health insurance costing ~200-300£pm to enjoy the same quality of care of places like Italy or Germany.
On the other hand a good developer in the US may earn enough to retire in 5 years, 500K$ per annum are not totally unheard of. In Europe if you are very very good, you may get slightly above 100K£, but it’s still extremely rare and you will end up paying half of that in taxes.
Universal healthcare varies a lot in Europe, for instance in the UK it is rather limited compared to continental Europe, even compared to Southern Europe. In the UK you would need a health insurance costing ~200-300£pm to enjoy the same quality of care of places like Italy or Germany.
On the other hand a good developer in the US may earn enough to retire in 5 years, 500K$ per annum are not totally unheard of. In Europe if you are very very good, you may get slightly above 100K£, but it’s still extremely rare and you will end up paying half of that in taxes.
Housing is more expensive? Have you seen rent prices in London or Zurich?
Developers get great healthcare.
It's pretty comparable.
Developers get great healthcare.
It's pretty comparable.
So you are claiming that the only reason European developers don’t cross en mass is due to non-open borders?
Depending on what we mean by en mass, because Europe is not the third world. But I think it would have an impact on the European market(s) for software developers (as in increased scarcity, higher salaries, ecc…)
To give an example: I was among the first airbnb users when it started. In the past few years I used booking.com more because I liked both their website and booking experience better. And yes, they offer private accomodation. Booking.com improved a lot while airbnb stagnated. I admit that I am not the target audiance for the airbnb "experiences" feature though.
It’s not really technology though now is it. They’re pushing the boundaries of capitalism and morality but not technology. It’s been ages since Silicon Valley was about silicon. Almost all the current energy of the valley is in surveillance/ad-tech. Maybe the odd rocket as a fig-leaf.
Where are the HQs of Qualcomm, AMD, Intel, Nvidia located? Yes, everyone talks about Uber et al and indeed those companies barely add innovative ideas compared to the innovation that is needed to increase a CPU's performance. Uber et al instead mainly do a better job at extracting money from their extremely good market positions than the hardware companies do.
Erm… a lot of the “pushing the boundaries” of technology happens at the foundries in South Asia, and equipment providers in the Netherlands.
afaik china has their own google/facebook
I think the author's reasoning that the entire continent of Europe lacks imagination was a major weakness of this article, and perhaps unintentionally some kind of -ist or -ism.
Anecdotally, many of the brightest American software developers I've met hail from Europe: UK, Greece, Russia, Serbia, Italy, etc. I can go on and on and think of many geniuses I've had the privilege to work with.
The question that people should be asking is why do the best and brightest often tend to migrate to American companies?
My personal perspective on why European software doesn't seem to ever become market leading boils down to their government culture of wanting to regulate almost everything.
Software is a world of possibilities. You can start from nothing and code literally anything.
To me, the European tendency to want to have government regulate that and confine you to a narrow box of allowed services stifles that. Anybody who has a unique idea (unique ideas always step you outside of the box of existing regulated services) is going to be hampered.
To give an example: something as simple as their Cookie law, which no doubt started with good intentions, just makes the first impression with any European website ugly and focuses away from the actual product. Does anybody really not know what a cookie is by now? Seriously?
As far as I know, there wasn't ever any law mandating banners for any and all cookies, it was for (frankly poorly defined, GDPR somewhat fixed that) non-necessary cookies. But nobody's going to put "Do you want to be tracked? Y/N" banners on their site.
The problem is not the lack of imagination, quite the opposite in fact, but the lack people willing to pay the software workers, and the absence of investors that literally launch money at every startup just because they like playing the "tech lottery".
European businessmans are in general very cunning and old fashioned, they don't like sharing their profits with their employees or with othere people in general.
We get to life a relatively quiet and relaxed life, but for an employee or for a young tech enterpreneur is impossibile to make nearly as much as in the US, because the "hot jobs" here in europe are not in the tech space but in the "old space": attorneys, bureucreats, medics, church people, politics, and so on. Obviously a lot of tech workers make the switch for the US or other countries.
Source: i live in Italy where a senior top-level engineer makes 40k euros/year gross, a self-employed medical doctor specialized on foot diseases makes 100/200 euros/30 minutes, evading taxes 80% of the time.
European businessmans are in general very cunning and old fashioned, they don't like sharing their profits with their employees or with othere people in general.
We get to life a relatively quiet and relaxed life, but for an employee or for a young tech enterpreneur is impossibile to make nearly as much as in the US, because the "hot jobs" here in europe are not in the tech space but in the "old space": attorneys, bureucreats, medics, church people, politics, and so on. Obviously a lot of tech workers make the switch for the US or other countries.
Source: i live in Italy where a senior top-level engineer makes 40k euros/year gross, a self-employed medical doctor specialized on foot diseases makes 100/200 euros/30 minutes, evading taxes 80% of the time.
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.
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.
We finally have prime since a year. I had that almost 15 years ago in the US.
Actually. We only got Amazon.nl since a year or 2. Bevroren that we had to use the German Amazon
We still don’t have HomePod, or Dutch swiping keyboards. We’re always in the late batch of iPhones
We still don’t have HomePod, or Dutch swiping keyboards. We’re always in the late batch of iPhones
but google, facebook, apple...etc. already huge in US with vast amount of resources before they enter foreign market. a start up in US/China have one big market for them to grow domestically and gain enough resources before entering foreign market.
lets say you are a small German start up. is German big enough to grow and gain enough resources before you enter say Estonia?
edit: isn't Rocket Internet business model is copying successful US company for Europe before the US company have enough resources to enter?
lets say you are a small German start up. is German big enough to grow and gain enough resources before you enter say Estonia?
edit: isn't Rocket Internet business model is copying successful US company for Europe before the US company have enough resources to enter?
facebook entered europe at the same time as US and there were even a lot of european competitors. It did not really displace them, what happened is their competitors lacked to motivation to outcompete facebook in europe. The only remnant of that era is VK for obvious reasons (both it and Yandex are actually pretty good though not great)
No it didn’t. It stayed in the US until it blew up.
They did win. Not because the lack of innovation. Because the international aspect of Facebook.
Friends from holidays, people using Facebook abroad etc.
Facebook itself is always lagging the market, and then either copy or buy the thing that’s hot at that point.
They did win. Not because the lack of innovation. Because the international aspect of Facebook.
Friends from holidays, people using Facebook abroad etc.
Facebook itself is always lagging the market, and then either copy or buy the thing that’s hot at that point.
And it is not even like that, in smaller countries google don't offer some of services (android auto) and hardware (pixel).
Fyi... a related 11 minute video from a Hungarian on why Europe doesn't have many big consumer-facing tech startups: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSU5MFPn6Zk
Europe lacks the US bankruptcy laws which encourage risk-taking that is needed in this space
They don't have LLCs?
LLCs aren't really relevant to this. The poster was commenting on bankruptcy laws with the assumption of familiarity. You can check out articles like https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10657-006-8978-..., but the gist is that bankruptcy in the US is forgiving versus being a terminal state in Europe. This is both in law and in society.
Once someone has gone bankrupt in Europe, they are historically, are a pariah. They will struggle to get financing to take a risk with another company. This is on top of a risk-averse system that generally places much higher requirements on non-bankrupt people seeking financing.
Compare this to the situation in the US. Here there is relatively easy access to financing at all sizes of organization. It only noticeably tightens when there is a recession or there are very serious issues with the founders. When a company fails there are more options for recovery, sell-off, acquisition, etc. Labor law permits companies to jettison all employees easily too in certain situations whereas that is much more difficult in Europe. Although this is starting to get away from pure bankruptcy law it overlaps.
Once someone has gone bankrupt in Europe, they are historically, are a pariah. They will struggle to get financing to take a risk with another company. This is on top of a risk-averse system that generally places much higher requirements on non-bankrupt people seeking financing.
Compare this to the situation in the US. Here there is relatively easy access to financing at all sizes of organization. It only noticeably tightens when there is a recession or there are very serious issues with the founders. When a company fails there are more options for recovery, sell-off, acquisition, etc. Labor law permits companies to jettison all employees easily too in certain situations whereas that is much more difficult in Europe. Although this is starting to get away from pure bankruptcy law it overlaps.
This. In addition, in some countries like Germany, having your name connected to a bankruptcy will ruin your credit score, making it difficult to e.g. rent an apartment.
There are equivalents (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsabilit%C3%A9_limit%C3%A... - in French) but country-specific, there's no a European common structure.
But another benefit from LLCs in the USA might be the lighter paperwork and simpler taxes filing.
Which we also have (in France at least, as entrepreneur individuel), but both don't intersect.
But another benefit from LLCs in the USA might be the lighter paperwork and simpler taxes filing.
Which we also have (in France at least, as entrepreneur individuel), but both don't intersect.
>there's no a European common structure.
There are European corporate entities nowadays. See SE[0], SCE[1] and SPE[2]. The SPE is what you'd call an LLC, GmbH, SARL etc.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societas_Europaea
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societas_cooperativa_Europaea
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societas_privata_Europaea
There are European corporate entities nowadays. See SE[0], SCE[1] and SPE[2]. The SPE is what you'd call an LLC, GmbH, SARL etc.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societas_Europaea
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societas_cooperativa_Europaea
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societas_privata_Europaea
I don't know about the bankruptcy laws, but Germany's GMBH (similar to an LLC) requires 25k in capital to get started.
UG requires only 1ct, though extracting profit is a bit more difficult until you get to 25k.
It used to be 18k here. Not anymore.
However an LLC will provide you with almost no protection anymore.
What does that mean? A BV protects you unless you pierce the veil. You are negligent or a malicious if you do so; otherwise it does protect you. But maybe you mean something else.
If the goal is trustworthy software then just write and host trustworthy software.
If the goal is to have a thriving economy based on writing and hosting trustworthy software then it's going to need subsidies; it costs more to pay for high quality software written by engineers protected by strong labor laws than it does to pay Silicon Valley rates with RSUs complicit in large-scale data gathering and exploitation.
Ironically in economic terms Europe (the EU and Ireland specifically) already hosts a huge fraction of FAANG profits and IP ownership/licensing due to double-Irish arrangements. They just offshore the development to the U.S. So mission accomplished I guess?
If the goal is to have a thriving economy based on writing and hosting trustworthy software then it's going to need subsidies; it costs more to pay for high quality software written by engineers protected by strong labor laws than it does to pay Silicon Valley rates with RSUs complicit in large-scale data gathering and exploitation.
Ironically in economic terms Europe (the EU and Ireland specifically) already hosts a huge fraction of FAANG profits and IP ownership/licensing due to double-Irish arrangements. They just offshore the development to the U.S. So mission accomplished I guess?
The author's explanation for the lack of european tech companies is that almost all software relies on business models other then charging money, and for various reasons european companies aren't able to use these business models. This doesn't seem sufficient. For three of the five big US tech companies - Microsoft, Apple and Amazon - the main business model is charging money. If the author's explanation is correct, these companies could could just as well have been founded in europe, yet no company even approaching their power and influence has been.
Microsoft Apple and Amazon date from a time before saturation internet access, Amazon being created right at the start. Back then internet advertising wasn't a plausible business model. Even when Google was new it wasn't taken seriously in America. Google tried to sell to Yahoo for $1M and they said no because everyone knows you can't monetize web search.
Once it became clear that ads were a bit more profitable than that, the success of Google/FB led to a tidal wave of VC capital searching for opportunities that looked just like those. So suddenly everyone is trying to give their service away for free and make it up on {ads, volume}.
I guess I feel very mixed about this, being a European who is now starting his own software company (taking a break from coding for a few mins at the moment). I remember when I was in my early 20s, before YouTube was acquired, my mother pointed at it and said, "Why couldn't you have made that?". My response was to laugh and say, mum, look, you can't pay for video streaming using banner ads. Streaming is expensive and banner ads don't earn much money.
Was I right? Wrong? I still am not sure. YouTube may or may not be profitable. It was extremely ambiguous to what extent Google's businesses outside of web and content ads made money when I was working there, although that was years ago, so of course it may be very different now. Obviously the YouTube founders did very well out of it, but their business model was basically "sell the company to someone who can save us, or die trying". Whether it's European culture or parental expectations I don't know, but deep down I didn't and still don't feel like that is a truly honourable way to create and run a business. I would feel guilty and bad if I were hiring people to a company without having the foggiest idea of how to ever pay their salaries, nor would I feel comfortable pitching to investors a firm whose business model was clearly unworkable. Yet, this is the standard business strategy in the Valley.
Years later I found myself in the offices of a16z. I wasn't there to pitch, although the receptionist assumed I was. I'd been invited to discuss an app I'd written that had attracted their attention. I told them the app was open source and I wouldn't take their money because I had no idea what its business model could be.
A mistake? Maybe. European? Very.
I could now go raise funds for my new venture, and maybe at some point I will. Plenty of investors have expressed interest. But, fundamentally, I still don't want to. It feels somehow like "cheating" to create a business that doesn't really make money. Or if not cheating then at least somehow not quite something you can be proud of. Certainly, the American way of creating a startup that loses money for years would not at all impress my friends, family or fiancé. They would in fact see that as failure, not success.
And I'm OK with that. So I'm probably destined to create another small European software company that may or may not one day sell to a bigger US firm. Don't get me wrong. I dream big. But deep down I know that if I attract too much attention I'll always be at risk of being steamrollered by a "success is failure" US VC backed company that has no idea how to become sustainable, but might somehow stumble onto a plan anyway and if it doesn't, well the VCs will force one of their other investments to make an acquihire and somehow it'll work out so that everyone can save face. Bankruptcy is after all, basically unheard of in the Valley, and spending other people's money for a decade is lionized.
Once it became clear that ads were a bit more profitable than that, the success of Google/FB led to a tidal wave of VC capital searching for opportunities that looked just like those. So suddenly everyone is trying to give their service away for free and make it up on {ads, volume}.
I guess I feel very mixed about this, being a European who is now starting his own software company (taking a break from coding for a few mins at the moment). I remember when I was in my early 20s, before YouTube was acquired, my mother pointed at it and said, "Why couldn't you have made that?". My response was to laugh and say, mum, look, you can't pay for video streaming using banner ads. Streaming is expensive and banner ads don't earn much money.
Was I right? Wrong? I still am not sure. YouTube may or may not be profitable. It was extremely ambiguous to what extent Google's businesses outside of web and content ads made money when I was working there, although that was years ago, so of course it may be very different now. Obviously the YouTube founders did very well out of it, but their business model was basically "sell the company to someone who can save us, or die trying". Whether it's European culture or parental expectations I don't know, but deep down I didn't and still don't feel like that is a truly honourable way to create and run a business. I would feel guilty and bad if I were hiring people to a company without having the foggiest idea of how to ever pay their salaries, nor would I feel comfortable pitching to investors a firm whose business model was clearly unworkable. Yet, this is the standard business strategy in the Valley.
Years later I found myself in the offices of a16z. I wasn't there to pitch, although the receptionist assumed I was. I'd been invited to discuss an app I'd written that had attracted their attention. I told them the app was open source and I wouldn't take their money because I had no idea what its business model could be.
A mistake? Maybe. European? Very.
I could now go raise funds for my new venture, and maybe at some point I will. Plenty of investors have expressed interest. But, fundamentally, I still don't want to. It feels somehow like "cheating" to create a business that doesn't really make money. Or if not cheating then at least somehow not quite something you can be proud of. Certainly, the American way of creating a startup that loses money for years would not at all impress my friends, family or fiancé. They would in fact see that as failure, not success.
And I'm OK with that. So I'm probably destined to create another small European software company that may or may not one day sell to a bigger US firm. Don't get me wrong. I dream big. But deep down I know that if I attract too much attention I'll always be at risk of being steamrollered by a "success is failure" US VC backed company that has no idea how to become sustainable, but might somehow stumble onto a plan anyway and if it doesn't, well the VCs will force one of their other investments to make an acquihire and somehow it'll work out so that everyone can save face. Bankruptcy is after all, basically unheard of in the Valley, and spending other people's money for a decade is lionized.
> Microsoft Apple and Amazon date from a time before saturation internet access, Amazon being created right at the start. Back then internet advertising wasn't a plausible business model.
That doesn't explain why even that time, no such companies were founded in europe. I guess your thoughts on profitability are an attempt to explain that? I can't find data on when these companies became profitable, but at least for Microsoft it seems likely that they became profitable after three years[1].
[1]: https://www.quora.com/When-did-Microsoft-become-profitable
That doesn't explain why even that time, no such companies were founded in europe. I guess your thoughts on profitability are an attempt to explain that? I can't find data on when these companies became profitable, but at least for Microsoft it seems likely that they became profitable after three years[1].
[1]: https://www.quora.com/When-did-Microsoft-become-profitable
Yes, Apple and Microsoft are from a different generation when the rules of business still applied. Even Google is from the tail end of it, although they needed vast VC injections in the beginning and didn't really have a workable business model (but they knew it and saw it as a problem, hence their attempt to sell to Yahoo).
But there were lots of tech firms founded in Europe in the 1980s. ARM is the descendent of Acorn Computers which was the UK's attempt to compete with Apple, and that was just one of many examples. Acorn developed its own computers, its own RISC OS and so on.
If you look at the history of Acorn and the interviews with its founders, one of the things that killed them off was a small home market, very limited ability to sell into Europe and it being too difficult/slow to expand into the USA due to a variety of factors. So a lot of what you see discussed elsewhere on this thread.
And obviously Finland produced Nokia which ruled the roost for a long time in mobile, but again, most Americans don't realize that because Nokia managed to dominate everywhere except the USA, where a variety of structural barriers hindered growth.
SAP dates to that time too, I think. Possibly even earlier.
But there were lots of tech firms founded in Europe in the 1980s. ARM is the descendent of Acorn Computers which was the UK's attempt to compete with Apple, and that was just one of many examples. Acorn developed its own computers, its own RISC OS and so on.
If you look at the history of Acorn and the interviews with its founders, one of the things that killed them off was a small home market, very limited ability to sell into Europe and it being too difficult/slow to expand into the USA due to a variety of factors. So a lot of what you see discussed elsewhere on this thread.
And obviously Finland produced Nokia which ruled the roost for a long time in mobile, but again, most Americans don't realize that because Nokia managed to dominate everywhere except the USA, where a variety of structural barriers hindered growth.
SAP dates to that time too, I think. Possibly even earlier.
Absolutely agreed. I'm bewildered about how entrenched Windows and Office is, for one - in government and in schools. How the hell can they put so much control into an other entity like this? Especially if there are fine alternatives, although I agree that large migrations are really, really painful. France, for some reason, has a higher frequency in news regarding adoption of free software, for example the adoption of Matrix [0], LibreOffice [1] or Framasoft's activity in the education [2]. This gives me some hope.
[0] https://matrix.org/blog/2018/04/26/matrix-and-riot-confirmed...
[1] https://itsfoss.com/french-city-toulouse-saved-1-million-eur...
[2] https://framasoft.org/en/
[0] https://matrix.org/blog/2018/04/26/matrix-and-riot-confirmed...
[1] https://itsfoss.com/french-city-toulouse-saved-1-million-eur...
[2] https://framasoft.org/en/
> If Europe wants to have its citizens (and companies) rely significantly on European-operated software, it has no choice but to develop better software,
NEVER in my 30+ years as a user of computer networks or communication programs I have seen the "better software" win. It has always been the most marketing, the most shady ethics, or anything else that lead to the strongest network effect.
NEVER in my 30+ years as a user of computer networks or communication programs I have seen the "better software" win. It has always been the most marketing, the most shady ethics, or anything else that lead to the strongest network effect.
Following this, I think it might be instructive to ask what happened to EU tech successes that have failed. Nokia and the famous "burning platform", for example. Was it the case that natural market competition leads to there being only room for two phone OSs?
And a far more controversial question: would it be allowed? Or would a successful European world-dominating quasi-monopoly on the FAANG scale get banned from the US market? We've seen twitches in that direction (remember the "Tiktok will be forced to sell to Oracle" nonsense?). Or in the aerospace market, things like https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/26/bombardier-... or https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32542140 ; Boeing vs Airbus shenanigans go back a long way.
I found out the other day that one of the UK's longstanding tech companies collapsed after accidentally buying a CIA front organization for illegal arms sales: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferranti#Collapse
Or ARM: are they an "EU" tech success any more? As their ownership is passed from Japanese Softbank to US NVIDIA.
And a far more controversial question: would it be allowed? Or would a successful European world-dominating quasi-monopoly on the FAANG scale get banned from the US market? We've seen twitches in that direction (remember the "Tiktok will be forced to sell to Oracle" nonsense?). Or in the aerospace market, things like https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/26/bombardier-... or https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32542140 ; Boeing vs Airbus shenanigans go back a long way.
I found out the other day that one of the UK's longstanding tech companies collapsed after accidentally buying a CIA front organization for illegal arms sales: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferranti#Collapse
Or ARM: are they an "EU" tech success any more? As their ownership is passed from Japanese Softbank to US NVIDIA.
The UK government have blocked the sale to nvidia as far as I know. Whether that means it is being brought back to the UK, I don't know.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56804007
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56804007
> Or ARM: are they an "EU" tech success any more?
Even if they stay where they are they're not in the EU any longer anyway!
Even if they stay where they are they're not in the EU any longer anyway!
For ARM it was already deeply ambiguous because their CPU design teams are these days in Austin, Texas. Obviously a lot of staff are still in the UK but AFAIK the actual CPU design no longer is.
> If Europe wants to have its citizens (and companies) rely significantly on European-operated software, it has no choice but to develop better software,
Europe is at a permanent disadvantage with language. You either target your local market in your local language, or you do English first. If you do English first, your market isn't even in your home country. Even culturally England and the USA (and AUS/NZ) are a bit different to France, Germany, Sweden and so on.
Only one "European" success I can think of whilst typing this: Spotify (anglo-swedish).
America on the other hand has access to a literally flood of venture capital money.
Europe is at a permanent disadvantage with language. You either target your local market in your local language, or you do English first. If you do English first, your market isn't even in your home country. Even culturally England and the USA (and AUS/NZ) are a bit different to France, Germany, Sweden and so on.
Only one "European" success I can think of whilst typing this: Spotify (anglo-swedish).
America on the other hand has access to a literally flood of venture capital money.
SAP - I'm not making a statement re the quality of their software, but they seem to be doing pretty well for themselves.
Siemens SiMatic - again, I won't say anything about the quality of their software, but they seem to be successful.
Siemens SiMatic - again, I won't say anything about the quality of their software, but they seem to be successful.
Skype.
And really, i18n is a minor issue.
And really, i18n is a minor issue.
From a technical perspective, yes. Most frameworks worth their salt provide good-enough mechanisms for that.
Where i18n becomes nasty is when you have to find, evaluate and constantly coordinate with n external translation agencies. Working from Germany on an international product, this is a nightmare. From a technical standpoint we can release features within a minute thanks to our CI/CD setup, but as soon as some user-facing text is affected we have to hold changed back until all translations were collected.
Where i18n becomes nasty is when you have to find, evaluate and constantly coordinate with n external translation agencies. Working from Germany on an international product, this is a nightmare. From a technical standpoint we can release features within a minute thanks to our CI/CD setup, but as soon as some user-facing text is affected we have to hold changed back until all translations were collected.
Agreed, but i18n of your software isn't really what I'm talking about.
There's other things like GDPR, local taxation, many cross border laws, and by culture I mean a variety of things: you'll see university graduates flogging themselves to death in Silicon Valley, but a start up in London will be slightly more relaxed by comparison. In the US, "free VC money" means there's an incentive to get to market asap, monetize, and move on. That doesn't really exist in Europe.
There's other things like GDPR, local taxation, many cross border laws, and by culture I mean a variety of things: you'll see university graduates flogging themselves to death in Silicon Valley, but a start up in London will be slightly more relaxed by comparison. In the US, "free VC money" means there's an incentive to get to market asap, monetize, and move on. That doesn't really exist in Europe.
Fortunately most of the above mentioned is harmonized in the EU. Culture is a fair point, but I suspect much of it is chicken and egg problem. Thin VC money, less lively M&A market, fewer reasons for gold rush.
Google vs. Yahoo, Ask Jeeves etc.
After it was basically the winner it brought in marketing, shady ethics and everything else to keep growing.
After it was basically the winner it brought in marketing, shady ethics and everything else to keep growing.
Just to be clear, you're listing Google as a counterexample, as a piece of software that was good rather than just marketed as such, right? [ I would accept it as a counterexample. ]
Perhaps people do not remember what using search engines in the 90s was like; statistically, there are a huge number of current software engineers who never did, and a largish number who were not even born when Google Search launched.
sure, but perhaps the same is true for a lot of products that nowadays we think are not necessarily that good but only marketed as such. At any rate the original parent said that good has never won out, and I think there is still a larger number of people on HN than not that can remember at least one software product that was better.
on edit: I mean there seems to be a large number of people of the opinion, and I concur, that Google now is not as good as the Google of a decade ago. This is part of the reason why I think that many products we think of as bad might actually have been very good at the time that they gained their initial success.
on edit: I mean there seems to be a large number of people of the opinion, and I concur, that Google now is not as good as the Google of a decade ago. This is part of the reason why I think that many products we think of as bad might actually have been very good at the time that they gained their initial success.
At the beginning Google was pretty much technically better than yahoo (and even Altavista, which I would argue was the "technical" leader). It also solved search for that era; you really could find anything on google, and easily, so it was a better product too.
The definition of "better software" is vague. Does it mean technically better? Better product? Easier to use? Ethical? Probably have to ask GP for clarifcation on that.
The definition of "better software" is vague. Does it mean technically better? Better product? Easier to use? Ethical? Probably have to ask GP for clarifcation on that.
yes.
I do agree this is an important factor, but there are various well-known counter examples, so "NEVER" seems far too strong.
Google was significantly better than anything else at the time, and in spite of the problems with Google, its search result are still quite a bit better than most others I've tried.
GitHub was a huge improvement over anything that came before it, and after a review of alternatives some months ago it still clearly is the best product IMO.
Internet Explorer was a lot better than Netscape. Yes, it was a mess, but Netscape was an even bigger mess.
There are probably other examples.
Google was significantly better than anything else at the time, and in spite of the problems with Google, its search result are still quite a bit better than most others I've tried.
GitHub was a huge improvement over anything that came before it, and after a review of alternatives some months ago it still clearly is the best product IMO.
Internet Explorer was a lot better than Netscape. Yes, it was a mess, but Netscape was an even bigger mess.
There are probably other examples.
Interestingly, in FLOSS the opposite is true.
Another "poor Europe, too scared, too insular, too antiquated" article. I wish my trends site still worked since this seems to be a bit of a theme recently.
Something is out of whack about the priorities here. Yes America has FANGS and is at the cutting edge of slinging ads and casino style VC culture. But have you seen the state of US banking and payments infrastructure? Plaid is pretty much cutting edge for god's sake. The US is so far behind in banking and actual useful technology it's quite funny.
Things like GDPR and OpenBanking point to an alternative way of doing technology, that to my value set is better than the ability to inflate ridiculous Uber/WeWork/etc. valuations with no correlation to real world value.
Something is out of whack about the priorities here. Yes America has FANGS and is at the cutting edge of slinging ads and casino style VC culture. But have you seen the state of US banking and payments infrastructure? Plaid is pretty much cutting edge for god's sake. The US is so far behind in banking and actual useful technology it's quite funny.
Things like GDPR and OpenBanking point to an alternative way of doing technology, that to my value set is better than the ability to inflate ridiculous Uber/WeWork/etc. valuations with no correlation to real world value.
> The US is so far behind in banking and actual useful technology it's quite funny.
I see this said, and it was true two decades ago, but I’m not aware of any way it’s true now. What banking can you do in Europe that you can’t do in the US?
I see this said, and it was true two decades ago, but I’m not aware of any way it’s true now. What banking can you do in Europe that you can’t do in the US?
Instant bank transfers over SEPA for one, without third party payment processor involved.
Right, that’s the only one I’ve ever heard, but what does ‘without third party payment processor involved’ bring in practice?
I have a European bank account and a US one, and I don’t experience any meaningful difference, indeed the third party processors in the US are generally far more feature rich than the bare bones European bank options.
Hardly: “The US is so far behind in banking and actual useful technology it's quite funny.”
More: An irrelevant implementation detail that doesn’t impact end users.
I have a European bank account and a US one, and I don’t experience any meaningful difference, indeed the third party processors in the US are generally far more feature rich than the bare bones European bank options.
Hardly: “The US is so far behind in banking and actual useful technology it's quite funny.”
More: An irrelevant implementation detail that doesn’t impact end users.
Not supported everywhere
Direct debit not supported everywhere. Important for saas
Direct debit not supported everywhere. Important for saas
At least in Belgium, a very large fraction (perhaps even the majority) of software developers works for the government or for banks. It goes without saying that neither governments nor banks are exactly known for developing great software, or for marketing it ...
As a foreigner in France... Several things seem very anti-startup. Despite having a cool StationF co-working place.
In France (Paris) its impossible to rent without earning 3 times your rent in after tax salary.
Lots of decent programmers - but if you hire them its very hard (impossible) to lay them off on a employment contract.
If you don't give them an employment contract they can't rent an apartment.
As a Director you can be held personally responsible (no corporate protection) from non salary payment or other debts.
It is very complex to give shares or options to your employees without large tax implications.
result? StationF is mostly large companies. When you hire people you really need the help of a lawyer to protect yourself.
In France (Paris) its impossible to rent without earning 3 times your rent in after tax salary.
Lots of decent programmers - but if you hire them its very hard (impossible) to lay them off on a employment contract.
If you don't give them an employment contract they can't rent an apartment.
As a Director you can be held personally responsible (no corporate protection) from non salary payment or other debts.
It is very complex to give shares or options to your employees without large tax implications.
result? StationF is mostly large companies. When you hire people you really need the help of a lawyer to protect yourself.
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
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
PG has a related essay: Why Startups Condense in America
http://www.paulgraham.com/america.html
He actually has several essays on how to try to create a Silicon Valley in other geographic areas, but this seemed the most relevant.
tldr:
1. The US Allows Immigration.
2. The US Is a Rich Country.
3. The US Is Not (Yet) a Police State.
4. American Universities Are Better.
5. You Can Fire People in America.
6. In America Work Is Less Identified with Employment.
7. America Is Not Too Fussy. (If there are any laws regulating businesses, you can assume larval startups will break most of them, because they don't know what the laws are and don't have time to find out.)
8. America Has a Large Domestic Market.
9. America Has Venture Funding.
10. America Has Dynamic Typing for Careers. (Compared to other industrialized countries the US is disorganized about routing people into careers. For example, in America people often don't decide to go to medical school till they've finished college. In Europe they generally decide in high school.)
11. Attitude (There's one item conspicuously missing from this list: American attitudes. Americans are said to be more entrepreneurial, and less afraid of risk. But America has no monopoly on this. Indians and Chinese seem plenty entrepreneurial, perhaps more than Americans. Some say Europeans are less energetic, but I don't believe it. I think the problem with Europe is not that they lack balls, but that they lack examples.)
http://www.paulgraham.com/america.html
He actually has several essays on how to try to create a Silicon Valley in other geographic areas, but this seemed the most relevant.
tldr:
1. The US Allows Immigration.
2. The US Is a Rich Country.
3. The US Is Not (Yet) a Police State.
4. American Universities Are Better.
5. You Can Fire People in America.
6. In America Work Is Less Identified with Employment.
7. America Is Not Too Fussy. (If there are any laws regulating businesses, you can assume larval startups will break most of them, because they don't know what the laws are and don't have time to find out.)
8. America Has a Large Domestic Market.
9. America Has Venture Funding.
10. America Has Dynamic Typing for Careers. (Compared to other industrialized countries the US is disorganized about routing people into careers. For example, in America people often don't decide to go to medical school till they've finished college. In Europe they generally decide in high school.)
11. Attitude (There's one item conspicuously missing from this list: American attitudes. Americans are said to be more entrepreneurial, and less afraid of risk. But America has no monopoly on this. Indians and Chinese seem plenty entrepreneurial, perhaps more than Americans. Some say Europeans are less energetic, but I don't believe it. I think the problem with Europe is not that they lack balls, but that they lack examples.)
As a European, I do think he hits several marks correctly. But I don't at all understand point 10. If anything, it's been my experience that the US is more focused on people having "the right" education for the job. Could anyone elaborate on what he might possibly mean?
(Also, I think point 4 is very field-specific. While the US may have a few institutions that are universally recognized as excellent, there are also many European ones that are phenomenal within a given field. Having a truly exceptional group within field X does not give your a university the name recognition of Stanford, but it serves the same purpose when it comes to training people in field X.)
(Also, I think point 4 is very field-specific. While the US may have a few institutions that are universally recognized as excellent, there are also many European ones that are phenomenal within a given field. Having a truly exceptional group within field X does not give your a university the name recognition of Stanford, but it serves the same purpose when it comes to training people in field X.)
> If anything, it's been my experience that the US is more focused on people having "the right" education for the job.
What are you thinking of here? Big US companies like Google will let you get a high-level job with no college education whatsoever. Most traditional European companies would not consider doing that.
> While the US may have a few institutions that are universally recognized as excellent
"a few institutions"? The US absolutely dominates the top universities. You have to go down to the 40s to find your first EU institution.
What are you thinking of here? Big US companies like Google will let you get a high-level job with no college education whatsoever. Most traditional European companies would not consider doing that.
> While the US may have a few institutions that are universally recognized as excellent
"a few institutions"? The US absolutely dominates the top universities. You have to go down to the 40s to find your first EU institution.
> What are you thinking of here? Big US companies like Google will let you get a high-level job with no college education whatsoever. Most traditional European companies would not consider doing that.
But Google isn't a "traditional US company" either. So I don't think that comparison holds.
> "a few institutions"? The US absolutely dominates the top universities. You have to go down to the 40s to find your first EU institution.
Good point. Is should not have used the word "few". But my point still holds: the overall excellence of the university (which is admittedly stellar in the US) doesn't matter much if the university happens to be magnificent and world-leading in exactly your field. This is part of the reason why such university rankings are a bit silly. If I'm in (making stuff up here) biochemistry and my European university has a world-leading lab for that, what do I care whether an equivalent US university can boast a magnificent English and aerospace engineering department?
But Google isn't a "traditional US company" either. So I don't think that comparison holds.
> "a few institutions"? The US absolutely dominates the top universities. You have to go down to the 40s to find your first EU institution.
Good point. Is should not have used the word "few". But my point still holds: the overall excellence of the university (which is admittedly stellar in the US) doesn't matter much if the university happens to be magnificent and world-leading in exactly your field. This is part of the reason why such university rankings are a bit silly. If I'm in (making stuff up here) biochemistry and my European university has a world-leading lab for that, what do I care whether an equivalent US university can boast a magnificent English and aerospace engineering department?
I think the point about the workforce being flexible is tremendous.
I had an engineer tell me- in America people don't care about your title, they care about how much money you have. In Europe it's all about titles. In Japan it's about seniority.
I've had no problem picking the job that pays the highest and it changed me from chem engineer to programmer.
My peers that are obsessed with a title have fallen behind, making 80k a year as a 30 year old. I think these people have a significantly harder time finding a new job, where as being a programmer and engineer, I'm able to work in any industry.
I had an engineer tell me- in America people don't care about your title, they care about how much money you have. In Europe it's all about titles. In Japan it's about seniority.
I've had no problem picking the job that pays the highest and it changed me from chem engineer to programmer.
My peers that are obsessed with a title have fallen behind, making 80k a year as a 30 year old. I think these people have a significantly harder time finding a new job, where as being a programmer and engineer, I'm able to work in any industry.
> Americans are said to be more entrepreneurial
There seems, from my experience mostly in the UK but also talking to people from round Europe, to be a big regulatory and mental impediment in most places to setting up your own business. Being an employee is safe, you get a lot of rights, your paycheck arrives the same day every month and it's actually really hard to lose that, if you are going to lose it that's a huge tragedy, and you've probably had several months notice anyway.
A lot of the middle classes in the UK would never consider trying to start a business, even though the social safety net would catch them to some extent on failure, in reality it may save you from the street but it's not likely to be much better than that. Best stick to that safe £50k a year. Which, incidentally, is considered pretty decent pay but won't leave you much to put aside to actually kick off that business idea later. Starting a business is for high flyers, finance types, other people.
You might be right about it not being lack of energy, but I think the entrepreneurial spirit in the UK is pretty suppressed. And in the EU from what I can tell it's similar, with an added side of "and the state is going to make this very difficult too".
There seems, from my experience mostly in the UK but also talking to people from round Europe, to be a big regulatory and mental impediment in most places to setting up your own business. Being an employee is safe, you get a lot of rights, your paycheck arrives the same day every month and it's actually really hard to lose that, if you are going to lose it that's a huge tragedy, and you've probably had several months notice anyway.
A lot of the middle classes in the UK would never consider trying to start a business, even though the social safety net would catch them to some extent on failure, in reality it may save you from the street but it's not likely to be much better than that. Best stick to that safe £50k a year. Which, incidentally, is considered pretty decent pay but won't leave you much to put aside to actually kick off that business idea later. Starting a business is for high flyers, finance types, other people.
You might be right about it not being lack of energy, but I think the entrepreneurial spirit in the UK is pretty suppressed. And in the EU from what I can tell it's similar, with an added side of "and the state is going to make this very difficult too".
I remember reading a similar article a very long time ago, back when "reading an article" usually meant reading it on paper so have no recollection of where or how to cite it, and it had a similar list.
One that stood out was that in Silicon Valley having your company go under was not really much of a setback, if at all.
In many other places in the US that looked like they had the ingredients to be a Silicon Valley if you led your company to bankruptcy, that was what did them in. The money folks would not be interested in financing you again, and you'd stop getting invited to the social and business events that the successful people get invited to so your ability to network would take a huge hit.
Startups in those places tended to be focused on safe things like trying to do something slightly better in an already well established area.
One that stood out was that in Silicon Valley having your company go under was not really much of a setback, if at all.
In many other places in the US that looked like they had the ingredients to be a Silicon Valley if you led your company to bankruptcy, that was what did them in. The money folks would not be interested in financing you again, and you'd stop getting invited to the social and business events that the successful people get invited to so your ability to network would take a huge hit.
Startups in those places tended to be focused on safe things like trying to do something slightly better in an already well established area.
The first point didn't age so well. All developed countries have an easier immigration path for skilled workers than the US. Yes, even Japan.
I don't think any of those matter. America has distribution and is unapologetica about marketing and people heavily hustling and pushing their product. EU countries have so far tended to place obstacles instead because of mentality.
If the issue is about security and not economics,
free open source platforms already exist.
Europe should fund them heavily and by doing so give them the advertising power to compete with for-profit ones.
Otherwise they will end up squandering a lot of money, Covid apps are not a good example.[1]
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/henwet/the_uk_...
Europe should fund them heavily and by doing so give them the advertising power to compete with for-profit ones.
Otherwise they will end up squandering a lot of money, Covid apps are not a good example.[1]
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/henwet/the_uk_...
> The remaining non-trivial challenge is how to turn such EU funding into quality software
This is not a trivial challenge though. It's basically about creating a business climate that would allow startups grow fast and capture dominating positions on both European and worldwide markets.
Funding, with all its importance (look at what DARPA funding has enabled) can only give a first impulse, help a team create a prototype of something innovative. The rest is on legislation, investing culture, taxation etc.
This is not a trivial challenge though. It's basically about creating a business climate that would allow startups grow fast and capture dominating positions on both European and worldwide markets.
Funding, with all its importance (look at what DARPA funding has enabled) can only give a first impulse, help a team create a prototype of something innovative. The rest is on legislation, investing culture, taxation etc.
Needs a corresponding article called «the US anti-trust problem», of course american companies are bigger when they can just buy up the competition while continuing to run the actual service into the ground (facebook, twitter and youtube/google all fits here) since there’s no alternative…
Or maybe it should just be called «the US Social Media problem»…
(There’s also the tax issue, but that’s mostly on countries like Ireland and The Netherlands being tax havens (UK too, but they left, kinda…))
Or maybe it should just be called «the US Social Media problem»…
(There’s also the tax issue, but that’s mostly on countries like Ireland and The Netherlands being tax havens (UK too, but they left, kinda…))
We already have plenty of OSS software.
Signal can be a perfect replacement for Whatsapp. If the EU want to spend money on maintaining, improving and deploying Signal, that'd be great.
People still won't use it, though.
It's too late. If Europe wants a slice of the market they need to make business as frictionless as possible like the USA did in the past - that will bring capital, eventually.
I think Europe has bigger problems to care about though.
Signal can be a perfect replacement for Whatsapp. If the EU want to spend money on maintaining, improving and deploying Signal, that'd be great.
People still won't use it, though.
It's too late. If Europe wants a slice of the market they need to make business as frictionless as possible like the USA did in the past - that will bring capital, eventually.
I think Europe has bigger problems to care about though.
As much as I partly agree with this article, I find it painful to read because it shoddily reengineers bits of Free (as in freedom) software discourse. Specifically that proprietary software subjugates users with malicious features to make money - the US is more creative at doing this than European ones. But yes I agree, the US is better at it, for better or for worse.
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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.
We are left with US survivors in these particular cases.
Czech here. In my opinion, Europe lacks the venture capitalist culture that formed the Silicon Valley.
Actually, most of the U.S. lack it as well, but having one Silicon Valley is much better than having zero of them.
European startups struggle to raise any money at all. (And I mean on the order of 100,000 eur, much less millions.) Our banks are extremely risk-averse and if they spend money at all, it is on projects that the political sphere supports. These tend to be duds.
Actually, most of the U.S. lack it as well, but having one Silicon Valley is much better than having zero of them.
European startups struggle to raise any money at all. (And I mean on the order of 100,000 eur, much less millions.) Our banks are extremely risk-averse and if they spend money at all, it is on projects that the political sphere supports. These tend to be duds.
At first, a bus driver should not have bigger salary than software developer, period. But in EU, a truck driver or bus driver having better status and credit karma that scientist or just a programmer.
Perhaps EU should own software companies developing open-source software that each country can adapt to its needs. It is common with state-owned energy and water utilities. Why not software?
Want to establish a business in Europe? Good luck wasting 150 hours a month only for compliance with billions of laws and spending the rest 10 hours for the actual development.
You hire someone for that. What is the difference with hiring tax people and lawyers in the US. It amazes me why anyone would do this themselves. Or spend time on it themselves. Even a poor startup has 1000E to fix this. Well, it depends what you want to start; if it is a tire burning facility it will be more expensive but the main takeaway is: you just don't attempt this yourself. I outsource and have outsourced for decades, all interaction with the state and the eu; it is cheap and I don't spend time.
For software companies, there are hardly any barriers. Gdpr and labor laws depending on country if you contract people. For both, you get someone else to do it. There are companies who do this for a monthly fee.
For software companies, there are hardly any barriers. Gdpr and labor laws depending on country if you contract people. For both, you get someone else to do it. There are companies who do this for a monthly fee.
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
I’ve seen and heard of 9+ months, and a ton of paperwork
[deleted]
And that is not true in the US? I don't know but it takes a lot of effort in countries we did it outside of the EU. US banks are generally more gung ho on money laundering prevention and such so it seems hard to believe complexity will narrow the gap.
The reason is very simple. Europe is overtaxed and over-regulated and the situation is not likely to change for the better any time soon.
I think there is some guy in Europe that made an OS some years ago - Linus or something.
So there is at least one with some imagination.
Nokia is not dead!
Neither is Ericsson. In fact they are #2 and #3 when it comes to market share in networking equipment. Since Huawei is banned in many European countries now, I bet most sold networking equipment in Europe right now is European.
Nokia is a shade of past itself. Its telecom software divisions in EU are sweatshops.
Canada has a lot of the same problems, it is finally getting a bit better but we still have a long way to go.
"Since all communication platforms are now free, the only way to get people to use competitive European software and services is to also offer these for free, and to make sure this technology is very good and compelling"
I have never seen a government or any regulation deliver anything "good and compelling", or take any other action to "make sure" someone else delivers it.
I have never seen a government or any regulation deliver anything "good and compelling", or take any other action to "make sure" someone else delivers it.
Try living in a country without roads, electric grid and water management. Those aren't granted.
> I have never seen a government or any regulation deliver anything "good and compelling", or take any other action to "make sure" someone else delivers it.
* US Digital Service
* 18F
* Pubmed
* US Digital Service
* 18F
* Pubmed
The moon landing is nice example.
Or going back a bit further, the mail.
well with the mail, lysander spooner tried to (and succeeded at) setting up a private alternative and was beaten the fuck back by the government. It wasn't until the late 20th C that private mail services came back, and they are specifically abjured against delivering 1st class mail.
dopidopHN(2)
>> typical clunky open source software
What?
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?
Can you give us one example of a stellar open source UI you use daily?
Firefox is roughly as good as any other browser, which is to say it does some things better and some things worse, and many things roughly the same.
Blender is one of the 2 or 3 dominant tools in its field. It's a niche field, so it's not for office work, but is nevertheless an incredible tool by any standard.
For almost anyone's purposes, LibreOffice is better than any closed source equivalent tool (though some of them do have specific features that are critical for some users). The only issues with it come from being forced to interoperate with data generated by closed source applications. I don't happen to enjoy using LibreOffice very much, but there's denying its "stellar" quality compared to the alternatives.
[ EDIT: I really can't fail to mention VCV Rack, a libre+gratis virtual modular synthesizer. It wasn't the first such tool, but it is by far the most successful, and by far the best, at least in terms of user experience. It has also created an ecosystem of module developers (more than 2200 modules already), which is both a reason why and an indication of just how stellar a tool it really is ]
Of course, as a software developer, I could name a long list of FLOSS tools that are also stellar, but you and others would likely dismiss them as not of interest to "the general public". In the context of this article, that would probably be fair.
Blender is one of the 2 or 3 dominant tools in its field. It's a niche field, so it's not for office work, but is nevertheless an incredible tool by any standard.
For almost anyone's purposes, LibreOffice is better than any closed source equivalent tool (though some of them do have specific features that are critical for some users). The only issues with it come from being forced to interoperate with data generated by closed source applications. I don't happen to enjoy using LibreOffice very much, but there's denying its "stellar" quality compared to the alternatives.
[ EDIT: I really can't fail to mention VCV Rack, a libre+gratis virtual modular synthesizer. It wasn't the first such tool, but it is by far the most successful, and by far the best, at least in terms of user experience. It has also created an ecosystem of module developers (more than 2200 modules already), which is both a reason why and an indication of just how stellar a tool it really is ]
Of course, as a software developer, I could name a long list of FLOSS tools that are also stellar, but you and others would likely dismiss them as not of interest to "the general public". In the context of this article, that would probably be fair.
I mean, saying LibreOffice is better than Microsoft Office is like saying eating toothpaste is better than eating soap. You'll never get a Michelin star for serving Colgate, so I'm not sure I'd call LibreOffice "stellar".
But I don't think it's surprising that highly complex UI-driven applications aren't as plentiful in open source, where the sweet spot (from my perspective) has been smaller applications that scratch particular itches. Would an open suite of office tools even get off the ground today, built from scratch without funding from Sun and then Oracle?
Maybe I was just burned too hard by trying to figure out GIMP.
But I don't think it's surprising that highly complex UI-driven applications aren't as plentiful in open source, where the sweet spot (from my perspective) has been smaller applications that scratch particular itches. Would an open suite of office tools even get off the ground today, built from scratch without funding from Sun and then Oracle?
Maybe I was just burned too hard by trying to figure out GIMP.
For most users MS Office is a nightmare program to learn and use. It's functionality is incredibly extensive, having accumulated the kitchen sink, stove and refridgerator over its long life. But this doesn't make it actually very usable for people coming to it at this point. LibreOffice, while certainly not matching the functionality of MS Office, is much closer to the subset of what most people need most of the time.
You had me at LibreOffice. It struggles to render a blank page on a mac (something to do with retina resolution which is default since 2012).
I've tried to use it on all supported operating systems, but everywhere it's a slow starting, glitchy mess. Still the best OSS way to interop with Office documents, but not something I would classify as "stellar".
Given that I know dozens of people who use it without such issues on various platforms, and come across similar kinds of show-stopping problems on forums for related software, I personally wouldn't lay this at the feet of LibreOffice. Your mileage may vary.
These are powerful tools, but Blender and LibreOffice are also perfect examples of “clunky” open-source. They’ve never had the kind of polish that makes software great to use.
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.
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.
I'm more of a terminal guy and don't care so much about a "stellar open source UI", but one example is the Gnome Desktop Environment, it's very polished.
Today, the world runs on open source, so we shouldn't call it "clunky".
Today, the world runs on open source, so we shouldn't call it "clunky".
VLC is as good as it gets when it comes to playing video
Meanwhile the majority of computers use open source software as their OS....
But not the majority of people
So? Software demand is driven by the tasks software need to solve. Whether those tasks involve human interaction or not is surely irrelevant for the demand for software?
Depends on what you consider a "user". You're a user of this website too, presumably running on Linux.
Good point. Everything has free software somewhere in the system. Most content is served using open source software.
But almost no-one uses Linux for general computing because open source requires configuration to be usable.
But almost no-one uses Linux for general computing because open source requires configuration to be usable.
I'm on Manjaro Linux and didn't configure anything :D But, I know what you mean.
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.
You can't have everything.
Everything is broken in the US, so of course there is a culture of innovation - who knows, maybe you'll actually make things better!
Everything works perfectly already in Europe, so why let anyone rock the boat?
Everything works perfectly already in Europe, so why let anyone rock the boat?
> European investors specifically are much more interested in traditional business plans than US venture capitalists. “Data is the new oil” does not translate well into German, French or Spanish.
> In addition, with the GDPR, NIS (2) Directive & other regulations, data in Europe is definitely more “the new toxic waste”. It is in any case not a business plan.
> So not only do we lack the imagination to launch free platforms, the path to one day making money with them is blocked by regulation.
So protecting your citizens' rights and their privacy is "lack of imagination"? This is such a horrible argument. As if the only way to provide a service were to spy on your users.
> In addition, with the GDPR, NIS (2) Directive & other regulations, data in Europe is definitely more “the new toxic waste”. It is in any case not a business plan.
> So not only do we lack the imagination to launch free platforms, the path to one day making money with them is blocked by regulation.
So protecting your citizens' rights and their privacy is "lack of imagination"? This is such a horrible argument. As if the only way to provide a service were to spy on your users.
>So protecting your citizens' rights and their privacy is "lack of imagination"? This is such a horrible argument.
I don't really think it's the argument the author is making, or if they are, they mean it sarcastically.
The frustration is with the state of affairs where American companies can destroy the entire market for software products with free services built on data mining, much like Uber, Lyft, Doordash, etc. have upended the market by completely ignoring profitability in search of marketshare.
And data mining pretty much is the only way to provide a free service and still make money.
I don't really think it's the argument the author is making, or if they are, they mean it sarcastically.
The frustration is with the state of affairs where American companies can destroy the entire market for software products with free services built on data mining, much like Uber, Lyft, Doordash, etc. have upended the market by completely ignoring profitability in search of marketshare.
And data mining pretty much is the only way to provide a free service and still make money.
Protecting? They’re dining small companies millions, but fail to do anything against “big tech”
The whole gdpr is a big mess.
In terms of investors, there is barely any seed capital. There is series A/B, but the amounts are smaller than a typical seed round. They need to see profits from day one
The whole gdpr is a big mess.
In terms of investors, there is barely any seed capital. There is series A/B, but the amounts are smaller than a typical seed round. They need to see profits from day one
Yea. Europe seems to be taking a strong stance on things from a human pov but I can’t help but feel that’s a sure way to lose in the world that is coming.
The only thing better than data is big data. Yet gdpr etc is basically the opposite
Worse yet the same applies to the US. Think US will lose against the Chinese model too. Not as badly as Europe given the sketchy shit US big players are allowed to do but that’s still a far cry from the collect everything model the US is up against
The only thing better than data is big data. Yet gdpr etc is basically the opposite
Worse yet the same applies to the US. Think US will lose against the Chinese model too. Not as badly as Europe given the sketchy shit US big players are allowed to do but that’s still a far cry from the collect everything model the US is up against
Europe does have a few issues that make it unnecessarily hard to build successful startups here. People do start companies here but more often than not success is followed by US investment and before you know it the company is headquartered in the US. There are many reasons for that but a big one has to be that raising similar amounts of money in Europe is super hard. Investors drag their heels, founders have to take on more risk, etc.
A second reason is simply that the US as a big homogeneous market is a nice one to tackle for European companies as well. And often that means having a (big) presence in the US. The EU is basically many markets unified by really complex rules, bureaucracy, etc. There is free traffic of people but companies have a harder time dealing with local variations in legislation, hurdles for billing and taxation (e.g. VAT), banking, bureaucracy, etc.
That's much less of a thing in the US (though it is a bit of a thing there too between states). And that's before you consider language and cultural differences. Simply put, the same company in the EU will have a very hard time growing compared to doing that in the US. Being successful in the US market, means having the deep pockets to go international. Doing the same from a small country means you barely have enough to expand to another small country. Going international is hard work. Not something you do with your MVP. It's not very scalable either: you need to worry about cultural differences, bureaucracy, localization, understanding the local market, ramping up sales, marketing, etc. Especially with SAAS companies this is super expensive.