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Comment by josephg | Hacker News Reader

Strangely enough, america's tech sector is still exceptional on a global stage. I'm not entirely sure why. There's something magic that happens in the bay area as a result of funding and talent density.

Its weird - I'm australian. We have the same caliber of software engineers here. But there's not the same ambition amongst skilled engineers to solve problems at the world stage. And its far more difficult to convince investors to give you the capital to try.

The technology sector is propping up the US economy. The AI race is - so far - making this even more true.

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> The technology sector is propping up the US economy

Probably more accurate to say the healthcare sector is propping up the US economy. The only sector broadly hiring through all the layoffs of recent years.

Tech grabs the headlines and has extremely valuable firms concentrated in a handful of cities. On the other hand, those firms tend not to employ a lot of people. Healthcare is less flashy, but every city has a hospital (or a few) that (each) does a few billion $ in revenue while providing thousands of recession-resistant jobs.

"But before you start snickering at those stupid Americans, know this: every other country in the world has passed a law just like this in the years since."

The reason is copyright law keeping the monopoly going

See https://doctorow.medium.com/https-pluralistic-net-2026-01-01...

Quote: ``` Anticircumvention law originates in the USA: Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 establishes a felony punishable by a five year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine for a first offense for bypassing an “access control” for a copyrighted work.

So practically speaking, if you design a device or service with even the flimsiest of systems to prevent modification of its application code or firmware, it’s a felony — a jailable felony — to modify that code or firmware. It’s also a felony to disclose information about how to bypass that access control, which means that pen-testers who even describe how they access a device or system face criminal liability.

```

Likely because California is not beholden to other interests. Even rural voices in California are subdued when it comes to big city politics, especially San Francisco.

My half-baked sense is that America is good at making the best things for the highest cost, but tends to be meh at making good or adequate things at a competitive price. Our military seems like the strongest example, but I feel like it also describes healthcare/biotech, education, and maybe housing.

This works well for tech, because a good design can be scaled to serve the whole world, and we can outsource manufacturing to companies like China or Taiwan who are better at cost-effectiveness. (And have lower wages. Maybe that's the entire explanation.)

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