As a European dev I want apple to fail super hard and implode. They used to be so cool and make slick hardware for their nische but now I'm happy to use worse hardware as long as they disapear from the face of the earth.
Jobs was one of the main bastards behind screwing over engineer's pay.
Under Jobs we had soldered ram and ridiculous upgrade prices, changing magsafe port sizes just because, dropping OS support for official Apple modems when the majority of the world still had dialup, flaking cases and dodgy screens and phones that have to be held the right way, water sensors that react to humidity and void warranty, locking down ios upgrades to prevent downgrading, ebook price fixing...
i have macbook pro m2 at work and just typing into the terminal is laggy. plus random crashes, apps refusing to start no legacy app support.
my windows 10 is much much more stable.
their phones being turned into a super fragile glass brick with no consideration of hand ergonomics is peak hubris.
and the face ID, pure marketing gimmick that doesnt evenb work better than fingerprint or basic camera unlock.
they are purely marketing company now.
To think there's a hardware thing in 2024 that does not allow its owner to compile and install arbitrary software while still calling itself a smartphone is just laughable.
It's a good thing people are starting to wake up to this even on legislative level.
The problem I have with that is that they are selling a ContentFilter as an integrated part of their OS, when it can be a separate, optional part, and even offered by a third party.
Also, they equate AppStore == ContentFilter, which are clearly two separate concepts.
"I have an iPhone, and if I move from here and go over there and sit with my Democrat friends, which would make them real nervous, does Google track my movement?" -- Ted Poe
https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/google-ceo-pichai-grilled-o...
The thing is, if this was a real life situation, and he would seek out and politically collaborate with/stalk and listen in on his Democrat friends, there's a good chance Google would know. Not because of a digital AirTag Google installed on his phone, but because of the tracking and data analysis Google has access to.
The indirection and hidden mechanisms Google (and other data trading companies) use are impossible to comprehend for normal people, and they're banking on that to continue being allowed to do that.
Frankly, the region needs us far more than we need it.
Hint: neither is/was American. Just to throw some examples.
That's all the evidence you need that the EU has seriously fucked up with regards to encouraging tech innovation.
A lack of tech innovation has terrifying implications for the EU long-term, such as reduced QoL, brain drain, economic decline, etc. - all of which are already in progress.
Just have a look: https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/C4E12AQFqW-dnIUTj2w/articl...
Majority of educational software is European. That list above is missing Duolingo. A giant undoubtedly. Hey, did you know Gitlab was European, too? Or Skype? Or Waze? Or Booking.com? Or Skyscanner? Or even flightradar?
PS. I didn’t limit this to EU only.
In essence, you have improved QoL today but sacrificed it for generations to come, because your region has decided that it's not important to craft regulations that balance entrepreneurial spirit with consumer good. Ask any startup how difficult it is to deal with GDPR, I have literally seen startups give up over this. (Is GDPR good for consumers? Of course. Was it designed with literally any feedback from people interested in starting a business? No.)
Perhaps the US has too far on one side, but the EU has clearly gone too far on the other. And the EU can continue to freeload off the US's advancement, but if the EU's current model were to become global, there's precedent that human innovation would grind to a standstill.
If that were what companies genuinely felt they'd already have left, but pecunia non olet, even if you have to pay taxes on it
Moreover essentially the only relevant systemic differences between the US and Europe in the tech sector are:
- pre-existing capital
- a better financial system and regulations (of the financial system) in the US (or rather, a combination of quality and size)
- better bankruptcy laws
Even if one of the big companies left the market that'd just leave space for a (at first) slightly worse product/products to fill the niche. Not exactly "shambles"
Frankly the US needs it far more than the EU needs it's tech sector.
These sweeping generalizations are pointless, especially because international finance means a lot of things happen at American companies offices in European countries. Does the fact that you’re using Brotli to view this webpage count for Google or Switzerland? A bumper sticker-level political philosophy probably won’t help there.
That's all the evidence you need that the EU has seriously fucked up with regards to encouraging tech innovation.
This is an especially interesting time to discuss it because the current layoff bloodbath has not been evenly distributed and the European side which never flew so high isn’t getting hit as hard by the end of free money, either:
https://www.economist.com/business/2023/12/07/europes-techno...
The U.S. scene has more companies, of course, but in terms of impact an awful lot of those have been me-toos which haven’t produced durable value.
It shows that the region is barely capable of encouraging innovation that will meaningfully advance technological progress, which is the single biggest predictor of quality of life in human history.
Yes, the EU might be nicer to work in, more vacation days, less layoffs. Such a view is shortsighted and does not consider how suffocating innovation impacts humanity long-term, because your 15 extra vacation days simply will never measure up to the literal humanity-changing advancements technology provides.
In essence, you have improved QoL today but sacrificed it for generations to come, because your region has decided that it's not important to craft regulations that balance entrepreneurial spirit with consumer good. Ask any startup how difficult it is to deal with GDPR, I have literally seen startups give up over this.
(Is GDPR good for consumers? Of course. Was it designed with literally any feedback from people interested in starting a business? No.)
Perhaps the US has too far on one side, but the EU has clearly gone too far on the other. And the EU can continue to freeload off the US's advancement, but if the EU's current model were to become global, there's precedent that human innovation would grind to a standstill.
Whoa, where are you getting Apple and Google from? They’re outside of your arbitrary window, too, and Apple massively predates modern startup culture, even though I can understand why you want to claim some profitable companies to avoid having to make the claim that US quality of life is massively improved by companies trying to cause massive unemployment (OpenAI) or profit from it (Uber, DoorDash, etc.).
It is interesting seeing how focused you are on GDPR, because the only businesses that prevents are the ones which rely on users not controlling their personal data. There have been a lot of those because it offered easy paths to high user numbers, but they also tend not to be great for consumers - for all your lofty talk about “literal humanity-changing advancements”, most of the US startup market has been far less dramatic attempts to pull an Uber on some existing market.
That's rich, you ought to look in the mirror. Apple and most of big tech started the "rent seeking and legislation" war by screwing over their users and developers, milking them both for every dime and their approach to so-called "innovation" is surprise - legislation. They've decided to simply ban competition from their platforms, neat!
2) Most of the "bureaucracy" that hits small to medium sized companies is the GDPR, which any business with the slightest of integrity should have no problem to follow
While the rest of the world dives into technology and AI, the EU will become a backwater, because the EU does not know how to craft regulation that balances innovation and "consumer good." It literally only focuses on the latter at all costs. And as technology eats the world, this will be the death of the EU.
You'll have plenty of shiny consumer items to select from (most if not all actually designed and manufactured over seas to keep costs down of course).
And if you are good litle drone you might just keep the current job long enough to scrounge together enough to buy the shiny item, so that it will signal to everyone that you are truly one of the pack that everyone around you so desperately needs to feel as being a part too.
This isn't some scifi reality that won't come to pass.
What worker protection do tech workers in the US actually have? How about the conditions in Amazon's 'fulfillment centers' (this term is down right Stalin-esque btw)? UPS drivers?
How many mergers have there been in the aeronautical sector since WW2 (hint, used to be 50+ companies and now there are 5).
And what is currently happening with the US airline manufacturer (the singular other manufacturer of its size compared to the EU' Airbus)?
I could go on, and on, and on but am hoping that you are smart enough to get the point I'm making.
Don't know where you're getting your views on consumerism from, but it's not anything I've seen here.
Why as a tech worker do I need a union? Have you seen how they operate? They don't reward based on merit, but seniority. You're forced to join them and pay dues and the seniority passes the shittiest options down to you. I'd much rather work in big tech where I get rewarded for kicking ass.
The lack of worker rights in the US is a much smaller issue than the lack of technological muscle in the EU. Technology has a far greater impact on QoL historically.
> Don't know where you're getting your views on consumerism from, but it's not anything I've seen here.
You won't hear it "here" because Hacker News is a bubble. Conversations shy away from disparaging consumerism because half the people here would sell their own mom to a pimp for investment funding or stock in Apple. Go read Y-Combinator's request for startups and just try getting optimistic for "America's future". It has the same nuance and vision as a loaf of sourdough bread.
If you don't yet understand why unions are necessary, just keep watching the American labor market. It will get far, far worse before anything gets better over here in the esteemed Land of Opportunity.
Have you somehow missed all the genuine horror stories coming out of Amazon warehouses, right there on American soil? Or the thousands upon thousands of people getting laid off with impunity on a dime at the beginning of this year?
In a decade from now these megacorps will be sucking everyone in the US dry to make the scumbags C-levels a couple of cents a year richer at everyone else's demise, and yet you're glorifying this as some sort of "progress". Well no thanks, I'm happy with the EU and a lot of what they're doing to keep these psychopathic, comic-book tier villainous megacorporations from wrecking havoc upon everyone in the name of making stakeholders marginally wealthier.