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The EU hasn't decided or prioritized anything here yet. NOYB has decided that this issue is important, but they're a non-profit organization that is completely unrelated to any government. NOYB will eventually take this issue to the EU courts, but the courts are independent of the other branches of government, and are required to adjudicate any valid complaint, so regardless of what their ruling is, you can't really attribute that to "the EU" either.
If you have watched the EU's approach to U.S. tech cos (DMA, DPA) you can see a trend of increased regulation; to where it's not worth sometimes to release apps on the App Store initially to the EU due to GDPR and DMA restrictions.
Appreciate it if you take the technical bite out of the comment and engage in good faith here.
The regulators have repeatedly shown their willingness to look at the pure letter of the law and levy multibillion dollar fines.
Maybe the tech cos deserve it. But what's at hand here is where the investment of time and energy is going in the bloc.
My other comments address why this feels like an issue.
And the hilarious, (IMO) bad faith downvoting suggests the comment actually stings. We must ask why.
Sure, no dispute here—I agree that in general, the EU has recently being making it more difficult for large American tech companies to do business in Europe.
But I don't think that that applies at all in this specific case. The EU has already been sued twice over US–EU data-sharing agreements, and both times, they fought it all the way to their supreme court, and after they lost, they quickly made new agreements that were essentially equivalent to the old ones. So the EU repeatedly gone to a lot of effort to allow US–EU data-sharing, which suggests that their priorities are the exact opposite of forbidding this.
> And the hilarious, (IMO) bad faith downvoting suggests the comment actually stings. We must ask why.
I can't speak for the others, but I personally downvoted your top-level comment because the sentence that I quoted was factually incorrect. I don't agree with your other points, but they seem like valid opinions, so I wouldn't have downvoted for those alone.
(And FWIW, I'm Canadian, so I have no vested interests in either side here)
Got the effect shrug
DMA has nothing to do with small apps.
Don't dig yourself further into that hole by slinging "bad faith" around willy nilly.
I'm having a substantive debate on a difficult issue with different perspectives.
Woof.
And to be clear, I did engage with his point, if only indirectly.
Saying "noyb" isn't the EU is like saying a major influencer like Tucker Carlson isn't the U.S. government. Technically correct, but underrating the influence and alignment it has inside the bloc.
"Yes, noyb (None Of Your Business) is highly popular and influential in the EU. Founded in 2017 in Vienna by prominent privacy advocate Max Schrems, the non-profit organization functions as a leading strategic litigation center that enforces the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)."
It really pains me that even after all this effort, you get downvoted 'for cause.' the discussion unfortunately continues to get worse here.
If NVIDIA can't sell GPUs to China, will that marginalise chinese technology? Or will it help supercharge a local industry? It might do both - hobbling chinese AI in the short term, but helping chinese competitors emerge in the medium to long term. US tariffs are the same. They might "marginalise" the US economy. But maybe they'll revitalise the US manufacturing industry too? We'll see!
The EU has a tremendous number of smart software engineers. They're more than capable of recreating the US technology stack locally. Especially with the benefit of hindsight, and with access to opensource software. In the long run, I wouldn't be surprised if Europe ended up richer by building their own tech stack "in house" instead of outsourcing to US hyperscalers.
People weaponizing the downvote here without good faith discussion is disappointing but expected on HN recently. It's OK, you can take my HN points.
> The EU has a tremendous number of smart software engineers. Yes.
> They're more than capable of recreating the US tech stack locally.
No.
Where are the dozens of European tech winners? Seriously. They have the best education system in the world, strong social safety nets, cheap healthcare, and great lifestyles. Why have they not created innovative technologies that turn into worldbeating companies?
It's worth seriously asking this question. Many serious tech companies ultimately move to the U.S. because of capital availability but this should be addressable no? EU has big banks and pools of capital?
The ball has been there to take for 30-40 years. Europe has not consistently manufactured winners in the tech space.
> Opensource Let's see. We hope. But this doesn't seem to have been a good strategy in Web 1 or Web 2 besides a couple of notable exceptions. But notable exceptions don't power an economy.
> Europe ends up richer I don't see how. This is the problem. They cannot build. They don't have the raw materials. The land. The labor supply. The power. This is getting closer to the root cause.
Have spent many years in Europe. Rooting for them.
Just not sure they will figure it out.
This is a great question. I'm Australian, and I ask myself the same question constantly here in Aus. The engineers I graduated with in Sydney are easily as good as the engineers I worked with in the Bay Area. But where are all the startups?
Having worked in Aus and SF, I think the two big elements are culture and finance. We don't have a culture in Aus of risktaking and entrepreneurship. People just seem less interested here in changing the world by starting a tech company. If you do start a business, you're kind of on your own. There isn't a community of people who've done it before who can guide you. And there isn't the same sort of venture capital here. Lenders only want to make sure bets. There's money for low risk, low yield lending. But there are barely any funds for high risk, high yield. The successful tech startups I know in australia bootstrapped themselves (Fastmail, Atlassian).
As far as I can tell, Europe has the same problems. Europe has capital, but I don't think that capital it looking to make angel investments.
But maybe cutting ties with the US tech scene would help change that? So long as Google Docs works well, nobody is clamouring to make or fund a competitor. But take google docs away, and suddenly there's a clear need and a chance to make a lot of money. That could spur innovation.
Agree with your assessments on culture and finance though.
Thanks for the comment.
SV works on dumping prices they accuse Chinese of - sell under price until you destroy the competition anyway. Regulating its negative impacts elsewhere is entirely fair.
Maybe that is because there are US companies competing in the same space that are not held to the same regulations because of treaties like this one. It's hard to build a competitor to AWS, not just technically (although it very much is), but also business-wise - who would choose the unproven startup if you can go with the accepted best practise? By forcing US companies to equal footing, you give European startups more of chance. (Which is a Chinese playbook, too.)
Source: worked with EU regulators on privacy.
DPA is exactly the USP where EU companies can beat US companies. So your point is the EU should kill European jobs in favor of Instagram.
BTW the best available and align markets are the reason for this
https://abcnews.com/US/wisconsin-man-dies-after-inhaler-cost...
-> More people have died in the EU from heat waves due to lack of air conditioning than gun violence in the US. Ratio is worse if you remove suicide gun death.
Societal choices do have consequences!
The EU doesn't have to kill jobs. The companies are doing that on their own because they cannot compete. Take a look at what is happening in Germany.
The whole point is the EU should be more competitive. It would be great if they could create jobs instead of giving them to Instagram.
That's what everyone wants. No one wants to live in the 9/9/6 grind hellscape.
But you cannot regulate the world there. EU has tried. It has not worked.
This is only a clear-eyed assessment.
People in Eu died due to global warming which EU actually tried to deal with. Meanwhile, USA is major contributor to the warming and intentionally torpedoed last chance to make it better. Yes, the temperature is raising faster in Europe then elsewhere. That was not caused by the lack of air conditioning.
Heat waves are new. I don't know why are some Americans trying to create moral panic around air conditioning, it is not like it was illegal in Europe. Air conditioning wont stop global warming. EU do need to plant more trees in cities to create shades and start building houses that will keep cool better. And it is doing so. And again, EU genuinely tried to slow the global warming.
But competition is just a trap of short term view. Competition is for losers. Competition is war in disguise that will drop the mask as soon as it feels it is now offering more short term return to the predation mindset eager to destroy everything it can devour. Competition want everyone to be serf. Competition eats Moloch for breakfast thinking how to optimize the pipeline of Moloch production and how to eat them all faster.
Europe must free itself from the competition myths, and the sooner the better.
That is mostly on how heat deaths are counted in eu vs usa. In usa heat must be mentioned as a cause of death on the certificate but as those who die in heat waves mostly have underlying issues heat is rearly put as cause of death. In the eu you don't need heath mentioned on the death certificate to count it as a heath death, they count excess deaths.
Heat is more lethal the older you get. Guess who has the higher life expectancy and more old people who can die of heat.
On top of that come non-unjusted work ethics especially in countries like Germany where non working hours on the hottest hours is still seen as lazy (like the southern Europeans are often seen)
> Take a look at what is happening in Germany.
It’s called resting on one's laurels.
They still try to save ICE cars and fight renewable energy sources. It’s a shame given that Germany once was leading in solar energy.
They can compete but they think they could turn back the wheel of time and could stay on previous technology.
> But you cannot regulate the world there. EU has tried. It has not worked.
You don’t need the regulate the world. Capitalism follows every regulation if the market is big enough and the EU still is big enough. They just aren’t consistent enough in enforcing it because of lobbying of shortsighted companies.