About European Product Hunt - very good idea.
I was thinking recently that we need more European social networks, messengers, etc.
It’s a very good time to build imo =)
Older members of HN will remember that Product Hunt probably came to life a lot because of HN and the submissions/comments from rrhoover (founder of Product Hunt). He's still active here, but before/during Product Hunt launch he was very active if I remember correctly.
Maybe a grander idea is a European Hacker News, that has the potential to spawn the European Product Hunts of tomorrow :)
This started out as an ideal about Goods. You make a Doodad in Venice, clearly there should be as few obstacles as possible to prevent somebody in Dublin having that Doodad, so no export taxes between Venice and Dublin, shared regulatory framework so that your Venice "This Doodad won't choke a baby/ burn down a house/ spy on you/ etc." paperwork is valid in Dublin, and so on.
But immediately people who make goods said well this rule needs to include Capital, it's great that I can sell Doodads from Venice in Dublin, but if I want to build a Doodad factory in Venice but my money is in Dublin that should be easy too. And Workers realised if it's just Capital and Goods then it's a race to the bottom for Labour, the Capital and Goods will go where it's cheapest but the workers can't move. So very soon Workers can move freely too, in order that Hans the Doodad Engineer can move to Venice and the courts ended up deciding that in practice everybody gets this freedom, a 5 year old can't have a job and a 105 year old probably doesn't want one, but maybe Hans needs to support his 5 year old grand-daughter and his 105 year old grandfather, so Freedom of Movement must apply to all EU citizens.
So, with that idea in mind, I suspect the EU's perspective is that you should come to Europe and write software here, rather than that you should stay exactly where you are and if it's not an EU country then too bad, no EU Product Hunt for you.
"The new government policy shouldn't require iPhones" is a long way from "Nobody can read The Onion", and even in its hardcore "Sign up for YCombinator" mode Hacker News really isn't anywhere close to the former.
Although because idiots I am no longer in the EU I'm in Europe too.
Ok, but what are your actual arguments against it? Again your comment contains things about the EU and US which I don't know why you keep bringing up.
Do you have any arguments against a European Hacker News that isn't related to the EU and US geopolitics or government policies?
I'm sure musicians and city dwellers could have some stories they're more interested in versus less interested in, but this gets into the newsgroup hierarchy problem where too much specialisation means there's nothing left to talk about. We presumably agree that a Hacker News for people named Brian who work at Meta is a bad idea?
I am sorry but no. This is a common myth, but go way back to the original treaty of Rome and you’ll see much more than free movement for goods. It was just a convenient first step.
However once I'd fought the EU's terrible web search I did sit and read a bunch of the actual Treaty of Rome, and yes that actually does very clearly specify Freedom of Movement for Workers and is broad enough in how it treats this freedom that it's not a surprise courts subsequently concluded that basically every EU citizen should be able to live anywhere in the EU.