I also think at least US tech has significantly larger firms, but I dont think thats directly in line with societal good. Seems pretty fucking cancerous to me. Cant speak to industries outside of software though.
The biggest advantage I've seen in the US has been the VC ecosystem. For all we deride VCs - and sometimes (particularly given events over the past few weeks) with very good reason, the money spigot is just much more generous in the US. Of course that will change in the new low interest rate economy, but that to me seems more the deciding factor than silly claims that Americans are somehow more innately "innovative" than Europeans.
Instead you have hick senators asking if TikTok listens to your Wifi.
It may be about competition, but it's more likely grandstanding over the latest Red Scare.
US marketing currently happen to be understood almost everywhere and native speakers of English have an advantage. A company does not necessarily need to execute better, but through effective communication they may be able to pretend they are.
There are lot of examples of ideas being picked up and reimplemented in the US, where the original was better but where the adaptation got better traction. The film industry is full of it.
Why should ingenuity not be evenly spread around the globe as well as hopes for a better future? The US represents one particular policy for wealth distribution that happen to work well for, in particular, VCs.
Who cares about this big majority of people that can’t afford stuff?
That there is an absurdly increasing wealth gap is a fact, but that doesn't mean that - for the time being - US households as consumers are still spending lots of money. And if you're in the B2B side of the market then it's even easier.
All the while you can now do stuff in English all over europe increasingly well and legislations are getting normalized between countries, ignoring the odd brexit events here and there.
Ultimately what I am saying is: the factor exists and is significant, but getting lower for the US and other parts of the world are catching up rather quickly.
For sure Europeans are not keen to have to deal with china or Russia as the new world powers instead of the US. Really! But sometimes friends have to call out each other when things go in a bad direction.
But most Americans probably have to deal with the fact that they really aren’t the greatest country on earth any longer, except for military spending, gun deaths and prisoners. This realization is needed before one can really make steps into improving things again.