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What also has been true the whole time is that nobody has been stopping companies in other countries from creating social media sites, electronic wallets, movie streaming, operating systems, image hosting, or food delivery services. You are right, creating these companies does not come from some special skills only found in the US. Not sure why you are mad at US for creating these services, especially because, like you said, nobody is forcing you to use them. And nobody in the US is going to be upset if an EU company creates a new fun or convenient web service.

“And nobody in the US is going to be upset if an EU company creates a new fun or convenient web service.”

You were pretty pissed when the Chinese made a better social media app.

Maybe is because of your deep love of democracy and freedom, but it more likely that you can’t countenance not being in charge.

If you think we are pissed about someone making a fun short video scrolling app then why have so many Americans downloaded it?

What our government is concerned about is that China does not allow big social media tech companies access to their markets, so allowing Chinese social media companies access to US markets is unfair, and a legitimate social influence concern. Of course you already know this if you are from Europe, given the myriad of restriction you guys have on tiktok.

But you are right, we do walk around wringing our fists that Spotify is dominating music streaming, going goddamnit we don't even like music but something should be done.

I recommend you read "careless people", the book about Facebook, where it is documented that Facebook illegally installed spyware alongside the Facebook app on the smartphones of their users. They monitored the apps their users where running alongside Facebook, which allowed Facebook to not only monitor all competitors but also see the rise of WhatsApp, which ultimately led to the "surprise" acquisition of WhatsApp.

Not to mention that Facebook and Google unknowingly ingested phone contact lists from smartphones of their users on a massive scale. So their "advantage" was extremely unethical behavior, which today would be considered an illegal crime.

So yes, it is literally Apple and Google stopping my European company to do the same, because they make it really hard to leech user data from their platforms.

> nobody is forcing you to use them

Do you remember internet.org? There's an interesting section in "careless people" about how Zuckerberg was working on bundling Facebook with smartphone contracts so people can use it for free. One country rolled out Facebook for free and it resulted in the Rohingyan Genocidg because Facebook enabled unchecked fake news along religious divides, while over years ignoring all warnings about the problem.

Facebook caused genocide... Ok man. And BMW, Mercedes, Bosch, Siemens, VW, Zeiss, Fiat, etc. were responsible for genocide during WW2. But this is all completely off topic.

> Apple and Google stopping my European company to do the same, because they make it really hard to leech user data from their platforms.

I cant tell if you are for or against collecting user data.

If it's any consolation US startups have to compete with existing US companies too. Also it doesn't hurt to work with them instead of against them. Some European companies are getting quite rich from such relationships. Arm is making a killing off Apple. Ayden gets paid every time you order an Uber. Google licenses Nokia and Ericsson technologies. I'm sure there are many other examples.

Read the book "careless people" there it is clearly explained how Facebook is responsible for Rohingya genocide.

The problem is that the digital world creates real-world harm to people, and US tech companies are very far from acting responsibly with the power they have. Even more so - they actively support and empower toxic behavior.

The problem is that convenience trumps everything.

  - It is convenient to use Facebook to chat with family
  - It is convenient to use credit cards to pay the local shop
  - It is convenient to use Netflix to watch movies
  - It is convenient to pay a (lower) monthly fee than a (higher) purchase price for MS products
  - It is convenient to have Apple / Google take care of email
  - It is convenient to use Uber instead of a taxi

The golden cage of convenience is why nothing will change in the US -- we prize convenience above all else.

Sorry to be blunt, but it is extremely inconvenient to be force-exposed to internal politics of some religious shithole country which twice votes against their own interests. Where people don't believe in healthcare but accept school shootings. Where society cares about body positivity until Ozempic arrives. A country which talks bigly about geopolitics and ignores agreements they have signed.

It is inconvenient to buy a Tesla to help save the planet and then see emerald nepo baby Elon Musk doing hitler salutes, and US citizens downplaying it due to their special understanding of freedom of speech.

Or a sweaty Peter Thiel morphing from startup evangelist to religious nut babbling about the antichrist.

Or a Jeff Bezos who ships stuff from china to europe being so unhappy with his life that he needs to marry the wife of his neighbor.

On top of this there's this still unresolved child sexual abuse scandal that basically implicates all of US upper class including senior leadership of US tech companies, who suddenly come out of retirement like Sergey Brin because they keep being mentioned in the Epstein files.

For more and more non-US people the inconvenience of seeing all this outweighs the benefit of being able to use some sort of web application. We have survived before on Nokia phones and TomTom navigation systems, and we'll be able to do so again.

US tech companies had US government support and helpful non-US regulatory environment to capture value from our countries. In their core, they are rent-seeking middlemen, parasitic to our economies.

The parasite needs a host, but the host can always find a new parasite.

It is also a courtesy that free countries respect US copyright. I wouldn't be surprised if EU countries have already started ramping up corporate espionage and are making contingency plans to seize all data and assets on their territory. If they manage to get ahold of source code and data, they may be able to keep some services running without US involvement.

Netflix is a good example: the functionality isn't difficult to reproduce, and the only thing that restricts its library is copyright, which the EU could just stop enforcing for American companies.

> It is also a courtesy that free countries respect US copyright

Which, itself, is downstream of the US signing onto the Berne convention. American copyright actually used to be reasonable and (western) Europe was the insane one with life terms. All that is ugly about the US was buried so deeply in Europe that it is outside, here, with us.

Then America had the extremely short-sighted idea to assign copyright to software, and then use software to enforce copyright, and then make it independently illegal to tell anyone how to bypass that enforcement software. This was all then foisted back onto Europe, whose creative industries begged them for it, not knowing that it basically meant surrendering to the US before the war had even started.

Seizing American copyright would be a good start, but what you really want is to drop anti-circumvention law. Because that's the first domino[0] in the chain. Europe is chock full of businesses that would absolutely fall in line around a tyrant king just like American businesses have, and laws like that enable such businesses to exist.

[0] https://pooper.fantranslation.org/@kmeisthax/110771126221131...

You don't need it, but you want it, which is why you buy it. The vast majority of the economies of all post-industrial nations are dedicated not to needs, but wants. And convenience is one of the biggest ones. Go ahead, call me a prick, but you're a good customer, and I know you'll keep buying. We didn't loot your data. You gave it freely in exchange for the extremely convenient services that are built on it. You can go ahead and not use Google Maps next time you need to get somewhere you don't know the route. You can buy a map book and put it in your car and navigate the old way. But we both know you won't.

> Go ahead, call me a prick, but you're a good customer, and I know you'll keep buying.

Your overconfidence might set you up for disappointment, just like those US states who are begging Canadians to buy their booze. I understand that you're emotional, and it's fine - no need to call anyone a prick.

> We didn't loot your data. You gave it freely in exchange for the extremely convenient services that are built on it.

That's incorrect. Both Facebook and Google uploaded smartphone contact books of their users to their servers when it still was possible. There was no user consent to provide list of all contacts plus phone numbers. Now both have walled gardens and fight against other companies scraping their data.

> You can buy a map book and put it in your car and navigate the old way.

There are many other options.

> We made them rich. They looted our data and poisoned our societies with fake news. They show no respect towards our systems or culture.

And yet everyone and their dog in Europe has an iPhone.

It's a weak argument that Europeans are legally bound to forever buy iPhones "designed in california" because they used to buy them in the past.

Other US companies like Tesla massively lost market share already, whole US states are begging for Canadians to buy booze.

In light of current crises created by the US, why do you think it goes any different for the rest of the US tech companies? The goodwill is used up.

I'll believe this when Europeans stop posturing and actually turn their backs to U.S. big tech. Europeans develop Linux distros like SUSE, there are various smartphone companies and alternatives to email/cloud services like Proton and Nextcloud that are mature and work well. Yet almost everyone is still buying iPhones and using Google.