Comment by TekMol | Hacker News Reader

Comment by TekMol | Hacker News Reader

The web is becoming more and more fragmented. I wonder where this will lead to. Europe seems to fall behind the US at an accelerating pace.

During the last two decades, Europe already failed to take part in building the internet. Now Europeans all use US services. Amazon, Ebay, Facebook, Google, Dropbox, AirBnB, Uber...

This was due to the culture of Europes entrepreneurs which is often "bureaucracy first, product later".

Now lawmakers seem busy putting another burden on top of that. Laws that put Europe behind the rest of the world in how easy it is to build online services.

Where will Europe be in 20 years? Will it become a developing continent of the digital area? Or will German Engineers somehow make up for innovation via assiduous execution? I find it hard to see how that could work.

Politicians might think 'Now that we have the web, lets regulate it'. But I wonder: Now that we lost the web, how will we avoid the same with AI? AI will have orders of magnitude more impact on our lives then the web. How will we avoid losing crypto? In the age of crypto, people might freely chose what currency to use. Do we want the worlds currency to be owned by a US company? How will we avoid losing biotech? Will the same happen to our bodies that happened to our data? Will they be owned by a handful of US companies?

Europe is not falling behind the US. That's bullshit. I'm an American living in Amsterdam for a decade or so, so I have some perspective.

All those companies you mentioned are prominent, but they are only important because they are a few percent cheaper or more useful or have better marketing. But they come at a high cost to society.

European cultures are different. It moves slower. Rules are more acceptable. But the things it produces are more polished. Amsterdam is better than any US city, for example.

> But they come at a high cost to society.

That's such a hand-wavy argument. Can you prove that the cost of these laws is less?

> Amsterdam is better than any US city, for example.

Yes, for you. Not everyone's going to agree with that.

Not everyone has to agree, but to argue that Europe is falling behind you need to provide some evidence which is greater than all cultural differences.

For example, the Neanderthals are falling behind humans because they are all dead.

> but to argue that Europe is falling behind you need to provide some evidence which is greater than all cultural differences.

The parent post does provide evidence: no EU tech companies have hit Google/Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft scale. That's not a cultural difference, it shows that EU has not been as successful economically on the internet.

Are you really implying that in Europe there are no big tech companies just because in Europe fintech is stronger than search engines?

If you look at fortune 500, 143 companies are north American and 143 are European

But in 2001 215 were north American while only 158 were from Europe

EU market is just more fragmented not less innovative

That is a cultural reference because Europeans do care that much about scale. That is only important as a show of power. But it has little positive balance on everyday life. So it’s a difference in values.

> That is a cultural reference because Europeans do care that much about scale. That is only important as a show of power.

I'm not really talking about technical scale here. I'm talking about economic scale. In those terms, it does indeed seem that the EU is falling behind.

Also, it is not just a show of power, because these companies are reaping economic benefits from their power.

> But it has little positive balance on everyday life.

That's really your personal opinion. Many people (me included) would argue that the scale of these companies definitely makes a difference in your everyday life.

> Many people (me included) would argue that the scale of these companies definitely makes a difference

Many people would then be arguing sideways past the GP comment, which made no claim to the extent of the difference, rather that it was not a positive one.

As you say, though, it's definitely objectively clear from an economical standpoint.

> no EU tech companies have hit Google/Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft scale.

SAP and Accenture are up there. I get your point though.

I'm a European (born and bred) who just renounced US citizenship (gained through parent) and I have to counter you. Yes Amsterdam is way better than any US city but that has nothing to do with internet entrepreneurship. The EU, European governments and European culture in general do not support entrepreneurs. I bootstrapped a company in Berlin and all the government did was try find ways to shut us down. Our main competitor (Rocket Internet company) had the means to deal with this BS but as we were a small scrappy bootstrapped company we were treated like dirt. The Stripe story is very telling in this regard. Before moving to SV they tried to launch with Irish banks as partners and were laughed at for being naive children. No one is laughing anymore.

That example isn’t very convincing. I’ve only seen 1 or so service use stripe and their transaction costs are very high. You can’t call it’s existence positive without evoking some cultural values.

Plus, Europe is way ahead of the us in terms of banking convinence and efficiency.

Stripe is a multi-billion dollar company. It could have been Irish based for free. The Irish government spend billions to attract companies like Stripe. Also Stripe is a global brand now used by tens of thousands of businesses.

Wasn't Theranos multibillion valued at some point? Not trying to imply anything about Stripe being fraudulent, just evoking an extreme example of clear overvaluation to put such numbers into perspective. Stripe might also very well not have made much sense for Irish banks and a lot for US ones. Time will tell whether that was a mistake.

Nonsense on all counts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos

Ironically, your single statement was actually "nonsense on all accounts" as Theranos definitely was valued multiple billions at some point.

> Plus, Europe is way ahead of the us in terms of banking convinence and efficiency.

I heard that just posting a picture of your credit card number somehow means you can get all your money stolen/cause bad things to happen. Is this true? How can this be a thing?

Can confirm Amsterdam is better than any American city.

European engineers will move to places that pay them higher, like a chunk of them do today.

They do that? I never noticed anything like that. Do you have a source?

And while this bill indeed is a disaster, I really don't mind some extra regulations. They might not get it right the first time, but seeing how normal Americans get screwed and exploited over and over by internet companies, I think it's better than having no regulation at all.

I have coworkers here in the USA, from Europe. You do know the pay is significantly higher for software engineers in the USA compared to anywhere in the EU correct?

I don't know that. It is not enough to compare raw numbers, since the cost of living is so different. Healthcare is a famous example. But even leaving that aside, wages and standard of living differ already significant within Europe and I assume the same goes for the United States.

My colleagues and I live a comfortable life with a pay well above average in my country (The Netherlands) and while no country is perfect, I don't think I'd move away from family and friends even if I was payed double overseas.

> It is not enough to compare raw numbers, since the cost of living is so different. Healthcare is a famous example.

Yes, but this has the opposite effect from what you'd expect. The US has higher disposable income, both per capita and at the median, than Europe does. That means that, even accounting for the greater cost of healthcare in the US, households end up with greater purchasing power.

That's true across the country, but if you're comparing tech jobs, the effect is even more pronounced, because most tech companies provide health plans that ultimately are comparable (in terms of out-of-pocket expenses) to coverage in most of Europe. So you end up with significantly higher salaries[0], much lower taxes, and comparable health benefits.

As you point out, there may be other reasons that someone might not want to move (or be able to move), but there's no ignoring that salaries, disposable income, and purchasing power are dramatically higher in the US.

[0] London, for example, typically pays about half what you get in NYC or SF, for the same job title at the same company.

>>> So you end up with significantly higher salaries[0], much lower taxes, and comparable health benefits

If you're talking about Silicon Valley or New York, taxes won't be that different. And you'll get decent health insurance, sure. But it's still insurance (co-pays, premiums, only covered at these clinics etc)

As someone who moved from a developed country with single payer healthcare, it's actually better. No more waiting 3 months to see a specialist. The pay differential makes up the difference plus way more.

> No more waiting 3 months to see a specialist

I don't want to start a universal vs private debate, it's been done before. But private insurance as a job benefit exists independently of a government run program (mostly).

I did the same and no it's not better. It's just that wherever you moved from was badly managed. It doesn't have to be that way. It really sucks being at the mercy of the health insurance company if you happen to actually need to use your private health insurance for anything more than incidental usage.

> If you're talking about Silicon Valley or New York, taxes won't be that different.

I live in New York City. My taxes (as a percentage of my income) are substantially lower than they would be if I worked the same job in London, Berlin, Paris, Stockholm, Amsterdam, or any of the European cities that are considered to be "tech hubs".

> But it's still insurance (co-pays, premiums, only covered at these clinics etc)

...so? That's the case in most of Europe too, with the UK being the main exception. Most European companies use some form of private insurance or have out-of-pocket expenditures.

As far as I'm concerned, none of those "problems" exist. I have no monthly premiums to pay, most copays are $0 or close to it, and I don't think twice about finding in-network providers. It's much easier for me to book a specialist if I need to than it would be in any of those other cities.

> I live in New York City. My taxes (as a percentage of my income) are substantially lower than they would be if I worked the same job in London, Berlin, Paris, Stockholm, Amsterdam, or any of the European cities that are considered to be "tech hubs

Got any numbers on this? I was under the impression that effective tax rate is pretty much the same (if not lower, depending on your income) in London vs New York [0]. Could be wrong.

[0]http://www.hopesandfears.com/hopes/city/city_index/168817-ta...

>>> As far as I'm concerned, none of those "problems" exist. I have no monthly premiums to pay, most copays are $0 or close to it, and I don't think twice about finding in-network providers.

Right, so it works like universal healthcare... Great. You forgot to mention your deductible. Is that 0 true? Is it 0 to most people?

> That's the case in most of Europe too, with the UK being the main exception. Most European companies use some form of private insurance or have out-of-pocket expenditures.

Except private insurance in Europe is basically subsidised by government programs, which is why they are so much cheaper than in the US. Also, co-pays may exit, but do deductibles? I'm not aware of that.

> It's much easier for me to book a specialist if I need to than it would be in any of those other cities

Sure. You can also just get extra private insurance in those countries too.

> Got any numbers on this? I was under the impression that effective tax rate is pretty much the same (if not lower, depending on your income) in London vs New York

I have no idea how they're calculating those numbers in that link. They're all dead wrong.

> Except private insurance in Europe is basically subsidised by government programs, which is why they are so much cheaper than in the US. Also, co-pays may exit, but do deductibles? I'm not aware of that.

Once again, none of this is relevant, because at the end, it all works out to the same level of coverage, except with dramatically higher levels of disposable income for people in the US compared to those other cities.

It literally doesn't matter how heavily the government subsidizes it, because it still doesn't make up for the dramatically lower salaries.

The deductible usually is in the range of $200-$500. Doctor vists are a $25 flat fee, drugs are similar, etc. If you get cancer or something huge, maybe you'll pay $2000-5000/yr out of pocket?

All those numbers are pretty small compared to your compensation. You can just throw it in a bank or brokerage account after working for a month and will cover your medical deductible expenses for a very long time.

> The deductible usually is in the range of $200-$500. Doctor vists are a $25 flat fee, drugs are similar, etc. If you get cancer or something huge, maybe you'll pay $2000-5000/yr out of pocket?

Exactly. The maximum you can pay out of pocket is capped at $7,350 for individuals and $14,700 for families. That's the absolute maximum, and the insurance plans for almost any tech job (which is what we're talking about in this thread) are going to have caps that are a lot less than that.

$14,700 isn't a small amount of money for a family, but it's a lot less than the after-tax difference between salaries in New York and London/Berlin/Munich/Paris/Amsterdam/etc. for these jobs. Even if you're a single-income household, you still come out way ahead.

You do know that quality of life in the USA is significantly worse?

(this has been discussed on HN ad nauseam, don't assume someone completely missed all of that)

> Now Europeans all use US services. Amazon, Ebay, Facebook, Google, Dropbox, AirBnB, Uber...

Well, to be fair, everyone (sans China) uses these US services too.

And I can't think of any other countries imposing their laws on the rest of the world like the EU is doing.

I can think of the US

EU is imposing rules on its market, not others

> And I can't think of any other countries imposing their laws on the rest of the world

The USA is infamous for doing exactly that: ITAR, FATCA, ...

..USA?

Hello, DMCA?

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