4 ms·

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.
        cromwellian 9y ago
        I'm talking about the fact that the cultural difference between the US and Europe is smaller, so US services can be easily consumed by Europeans with just language localization. The same is not true for China. It is easy for US firms to serve Europeans by localizing language, ergo European firms face global competition from US firms with a lower barrier. It is more difficult for US firms to serve the Chinese market, even if you have perfect language localization. The cultural differences are larger than US<->Europe. Even before the Chinese government got protectionist, US firms had trouble competing in China. We've seen lots of tech companies launched from the UK, Germany, and Scandinavia, but less so from other regions. Perhaps it would be better to ask what is it about say, Italy, or France's internal markets that makes tech harder to find investment for locally.
fzss 9y ago
It made Alibaba, Tencent pretty competitive globally.

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.
      - cromwellian 9y ago
        I'm talking about the fact that the cultural difference between the US and Europe is smaller, so US services can be easily consumed by Europeans with just language localization. The same is not true for China. It is easy for US firms to serve Europeans by localizing language, ergo European firms face global competition from US firms with a lower barrier. It is more difficult for US firms to serve the Chinese market, even if you have perfect language localization. The cultural differences are larger than US<->Europe. Even before the Chinese government got protectionist, US firms had trouble competing in China. We've seen lots of tech companies launched from the UK, Germany, and Scandinavia, but less so from other regions. Perhaps it would be better to ask what is it about say, Italy, or France's internal markets that makes tech harder to find investment for locally.

fzss 9y ago

It made Alibaba, Tencent pretty competitive globally.