As an American dev I can't wait to see tech companies leave the EU and leave it in shambles as the EU realizes it never learnt how to innovate, only legislate and rent-seek from our companies.
Frankly, the region needs us far more than we need it.
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"
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!
Frankly the US needs it far more than the EU needs it's tech sector.