6 ms·

In Europe we need to do like in China. Or our tech industry is doomed to stay small...

• pawelkomarnicki 9y ago
  Isn't critical information (medical, financial) required to be hosted on European soil?
  • geocar 9y ago
    Not always. Privacy Shield is one such way that we can host that information inside the US.
• cromwellian 9y ago
  Protectionism isn’t going to make your tech industry globally competitive.
  • kome 9y ago
    No, but who cares? Tencent, Baido, etc are not globally competitive, but they are very fine. You know what else is not going to make European tech industry globally competitive? The chronic lack of money, because it's all siphoned away by google, amazon, apple, and such. Do we need a global competition? Why? An internal competition in a huge market is good enough. China encouraged the development of a strong internal market: and they are innovating like crazy. Europe is big enough to do the same.
    • atonse 9y ago
      China is one country where the majority speaks a handful of languages (please don't attack me if this comment is ignorant, be nice) But is it easy to get the EU countries to even agree on any of this stuff? (Genuinely asking, cuz I imagine it's insanely hard because each country has their own culture and priorities)
      • kome 9y ago
        Look at the counterfactual, is having multiple languages stopping google to do business all over Europe? No. Is having a different language a big deal? Also no.
    • cromwellian 9y ago
      China has a population of 1+ billion who are firewalled both by network access and by language. European citizens have better English proficiency and no great firewall, hence the transaction barriers to consuming global services are easier. I’m afraid you have to be globally competitive unless the EU wants a Great Firewall.
      • kome 9y ago
        > hence the transaction barriers to consuming global services are easier. It's just a political choice. It's not a fact of life. Better regulation and better taxation of capitals would "firewall" Europe as well. As I said below, language has never been an issue. Nobody is using google because is in English. Google is well translated everywhere.
        • cromwellian 9y ago
          The regulation and taxes are more likely to disadvantage smaller players. Europe’s problem with tech investment isn’t because of existing big tech players.
      • george3383 9y ago
        >European citizens have better English proficiency "better" yes, but not good enough to make American products successful unless they are translated
        • cromwellian 9y ago
          It's not a simple manner of translation, it has to be culturally localized. Burger King can't just sell beef burgers in India by translating their menu language. It's a lot easier for a Western business to translate their UI to German or French, than it is to Chinese or Japanese. Input methods alone are an issue that calls for interaction UX to be designed differently.
          • george3383 9y ago
            There are no big cultural differences between European countries that I'm aware of.
  • fzss 9y ago
    It made Alibaba, Tencent pretty competitive globally.
• oh-kumudo 9y ago
  Seconded. Certain level of protectionism is good for business, Trump has proved that. We need to decentralize/democratize the tech industry across the globe, not concentrated in US. EU should start providing incentives to local companies to build their own business that serve its own people, other than becoming US's satellite states.
  • wjn0 9y ago
    > Trump has proved that Could you link to some articles about this?