Comment by ChuckNorris89 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ChuckNorris89 | Hacker News Reader

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>We barely develop any software here anymore. So even very European companies like like Nokia and Ericsson, that are now trying to tell us that they are building our European telecommunication infrastructure. They’re actually not, they’re getting that built by other people in other countries far away. Anything having to do with server and PC development and manufacturing, there’s nothing left of that in Europe anymore.

Preach it! Outside of FOSS contributions, commercial EU software industry is in a sorry state, unless you count the crypto trading and fintech platforms getting millenials and zoomers to gamble their little money they have on stonks and crypto coins because they can't afford to invest in decent real estate, which I don't think is a healthy industry to promote as far as SW innovation goes.

All great EU innovation comes out universities and research and institutes funded mostly by EU taxpayer money, and the good innovations get immediately bought up by US or Chinese big tech, with the duds and left overs being bought by clueless European dinosaurs like Siemens, Daimler, T-Systems, etc. So basically our tax money is funding US and Chinese tech dominance because EU old money and EU governments are too cheap and clueless to invest in local tech and instead are focused on offshoring everything and investing only in perpetuating the real estate bubble and living off rent seeking while taxing the skin off your back, and most people suffering from rampant inflation and now rampant energy costs because EU leadership didn't bother investing in energy self-sufficiency.

Not exactly a healthy environment to breed good competitors for AWS, Google, Apple, Nvidia, Tesla and Microsoft, despite the social safety nets, when you're being financially squeezed from all directions.

I'm european but I moved to Hong Kong to dev software. I d like to come back, but when I joined a startup in Paris, for 3 years the other devs talked day and night about class warfare, the state was taking 2 months of my salary end of year (now they take each month directly from your salary), 20% tax on everything I bought, a few hundreds in local taxes, criminality was unlivable, the boss stopped sleeping at some point out of financial stress because the gov made a mistake and took 2 years of corporate tax at once, unemployment was reaching 10% and muslims were killing you in the weekend if you went to a concert.

So I scrapped together some savings, learned English and bailed and Im happier for it. Maybe our roads and hospitals were beautiful, but it wasnt worth the constant frustration. All I can do now is vote and wait they wake up.

Are you french by any chance? Most ambitious french devs I've met have either moved to Switzerland, UK or the US, citing the lack of VC money and a stingy and overly bureaucratic government taxing the living daylights out of you.

Also a french dev I knew, moved with his family to Warsaw, Poland citing a higher safety than in Paris.

Then again, I also have a friend who moved to Toulouse, France to work in the aerospace and defense sector (Airbus) and he's very happy with his life there.

Yup am French.

Sounds like a heap of clichés, for making a living in France too.

Besides, I'm not sure who you would vote for, no candidate here has a real pro market, small government stance.

Yeah, I m sad you dismiss them as clichés but I've met people who cant believe what it is to work in Paris for some of us, so well... I left and now I dont have to bother people with my complaints as much : if you can live well in France, happy for you!

Pro-market small gov, indeed, never found my candidate. I vote Macron, since I often agree with his stance, but the problem has never been the politicians, it's the people: they cant see it the way I do, so they wont vote for that imaginary candidate if he appears. So I left and I'm happy, that s all that matters: that s what borders are for.

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