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Comment by sgift | Hacker News Reader

> It's a tiny industry here and no-one is looking to build the next facebook, they're just looking to do interesting work whilst also having a good life.

This is something I miss in all the "Europe doesn't have the next Google, Europe doesn't have the next Facebook" discussions: Is this really a problem? We could if we wanted, but why would we want? Working like crazy for .. what?

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You may be surprised. I was talking to an American friend who works in the maritime industry and he was completely jealous of the Norwegian start up scene. In the maritime industry.

People make money doing things besides computers. Sometimes I think HackerNews folks forget that.

Maritime is huge in Norway due to decades of oil and gas exploration and extraction projects. Very prone to the industry boom and bust cycles however.

> We could if we wanted, but why would we want? Working like crazy for .. what?

To quote an EU politician I recently had the random chance to have lunch with: "Europe is realizing that these big corporations, they don't have our people's best interests in mind. We can't even begin the conversation on privacy and stuff like that because the American baseline for what is normal and ethical is so far off what we consider ethical there's no way to have a real dialogue. So we're taking measures to protect our citizens, starting with GDPR"

Perhaps if Europe had more Googles and Facebooks, they wouldn't monopolize the internet and the playing field could be more even.

Asking what's the point of having the Googels and Facebooks and Amazons is like asking 100 years ago "Why should Europe need a car industry"

Because consumers want that stuff and they're gonna get it somewhere. And if they get it somewhere else, that somewhere else gains a certain degree of power.

> Asking what's the point of having the Googels and Facebooks and Amazons is like asking 100 years ago "Why should Europe need a car industry"

That equates Google and Facebook with the whole IT industry, which is maybe what both wish they were but aren't.

Those discussions/articles are mostly started by Americans, not Europeans.

These are not the same. Yes, not having Google-like companies, even with their recent turn for the worse, is a problem. Not having a Facebook reflects rather positively on us.

What do you mean? Household names like IKEA? Service workhorses like SAP? Car manufacturers?

Huge data centers like OVH? Pioneers like Nokia, Ericsson and Siemens used to be? (in some ways still are)

Or monopolist companies specifically?

Really, nobody wants Acme Inc. Even if its logo is painted with fancy colors and it promotes youth culture. Google's main business is monopolizing internet advertising and data collection...

> Huge data centers like OVH? Pioneers like Nokia, Ericsson and Siemens used to be? (in some ways still are)

The US makes appa that suck down 5MB to display a status update; Scandanavia builds the equipment that makes it possible.

Big platforms are a strategic asset that Europe is missing. Hardware production is a strategic asset that USA is missing. In case of a prolonged trade war, I'm not sure Europe is in the worse position between the two.

The USA is way bigger at hardware manufacturing.

> Yes, not having Google-like companies, even with their recent turn for the worse, is a problem

May I ask why ?

Because you're going to use what these companies produce, since their products dominate the market. E.g. your smartphone is going to be either Android or iOS, no matter how I abstractly would like Sailfish / Jolla to succeed.

That is, these are not woes of globalization, but woes of monopolization of a market, partly due to the natural "winner takes all" dynamics of said market.

BTW both EC and USA have the same sort of problem with a lot of things manufactured now in China, with domestic know-how lost.

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