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This is one more reason for innovation to keep dying in Europe. They are working on this regulations that stifle tech and are losing. The EU had 16B VC invest
by pedro_hab 8y ago
This is one more reason for innovation to keep dying in Europe.
They are working on this regulations that stifle tech and are losing.
The EU had 16B VC investments agains 60B in the US, the market capitalization of Top 500 companies has been declining. [1]
Of the 50 countries studied in the Digital Evolution Index, which tracked the levels of digital development and attractiveness to global businesses and investors, the bottom 9 were European. [2]
From the video [1]:
"Loser: Europe, which is becoming irrelevant when it comes to innovation. Only six of the world's most valuable companies are based in Europe, and venture capital funding has declined."
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiTz-NTEXAM&feature=youtu.be&t=42 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiTz-NTEXAM&feature=youtu.be... .
2. https://hbr.org/2015/10/europes-other-crisis-a-digital-recession https://hbr.org/2015/10/europes-other-crisis-a-digital-reces...
- IdiocyInAction 8y agoAnother big reasons are language barriers and more importantly, vastly different tax codes and laws between EU countries. But the regulations don't help either, that's true.
- pedro_hab 8y agoYou are right, I've been looking into EU taxes and the Netherlands, which was dead last in the list above, has a nice 30% tax cuts for expats. The EU seems to tax quite heavily compared to the US, and also the salaries are also quite lower there too, I checked the cost of living in some EU cities compared to Austin and the salaries are not great. I am only looking into Europe because the immigration system there seems to be much better than the US, otherwise the US would be much better option. In a related note Teachers salaries don't seem that different.
- rahkiin 8y agoDon't forget to calculate the money you are left with every month after paying taxes, health insurance, housing and basic needs. I read that health insurance in the US costs 1000$+ per month, and even then you pay thousands out of pocket. Same for social security. I believe that if you take this into your calculations the difference is not so bad
- ThirdFoundation 8y agoHealth insurance in the US varies wildly. I pay less than $20 per paycheck for my insurance and my health expenses are capped by plan on an annual basis. I may spend little to none one year and a thousand dollars the next. It all depends on your employer, your health, etc. Additionally, all preventative appointments are covered under my insurance for free (1 per year).
- Barrin92 8y agoIs there any significant competitor to youtube in the American market? This is not the reason for lack of innovation. If that was the case, China would have not moved up the ranks with a legal environment that makes this law look like nothing. The reason why nobody competes with youtube is because youtube is big because of platform and network effects, so the distribution of users basically looks like a power law distribution. The only way to compete is actually to move towards a closed internet. Shut Youtube down in Europe and build a national champion that provides the same service. It's fine to defend the open internet, but it's got nothing to do with innovation. Europe lacks in this regard for very different reasons, among them non-existent of VC funding and no concentrated knowledge networks. Europe has no Silicon Valley. The Silicon (semi-conductor) part of that name being vital.
- nyxtom 8y agoVimeo used to be pretty popular
- Barrin92 8y agohttps://www.statista.com/statistics/266201/us-market-share-of-leading-internet-video-portals/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/266201/us-market-share-o... here's a comparison of the platforms. Vimeo has shrunk to less than 1% and Youtube captures the lion share of the market.
- gregknicholson 8y agoThe network effect isn't very relevant for video sites, because you can easily use a search engine to find videos across many sites all at once. Hey, I wonder which search engine 90% of people use…
- jononor 8y agoWonder which video that search engine chooses to promote...
- stochastic_monk 8y agoIt’s counterproductive to label all regulations as if they’re the same. Antitrust laws and consumer protections are very different from something like this designed to maximize profits for record labels and publishing companies in character and effect on the world at large. Some regulations are essential to a functional society, while others, like this, are disastrous and serve only to reinforce monopolistic strangleholds.
- binmanthrowaway 8y agoBut he said "regulations that stifle", not "regulations that are essential". It seems like people don't even read comments nowadays and just get triggered by keywords.
- stochastic_monk 8y ago“this regulations that stifle” was in somewhat broken syntax, which led me to believe that it was saying something to the effect that (s)he was speaking of regulations in general and saying that they stifled innovation as a whole. Perhaps your mental parse didn’t have that connotation, and I could have been wrong in seeing it that way.
- pedro_hab 8y agoI don't think all regulations are bad, but in my opinion the EU hasn't been adding great regulations, GDPR IMHO wasn't great, I think it does harm innovation and even worse doesn't add much value. If you delete your FB account and they remove you from the public but still use your data privately, for the average Joe, does it really matter? Also does Joe care? I think Joe doesn't care, and the negatives will outweigh the positives. Tech (FAANG) probably should have some regulation, but I am really concerned with the tech people (HN) being so acceptive of regulations that are obviously bad. I'd say defending terrible regulation is not better either.
- stochastic_monk 8y agoI agree. And this is certainly absolutely terrible. I am a big fan of the GDPR. While imperfect, it’s a hell of a lot better than the protections I enjoy.
- awvcs 8y agoYou can make those kind of numbers say anything. Saying that a country like Sweden is "receding" in "digital evolution" is pretty ridiculous when almost everything is more advanced than 99% of the world. And on top of that most of these "stand out" countries have few to no technology businesses of note.
- pedro_hab 8y agoYes and no. You can say that about basically any studies, you can shuffle numbers around to fit whatever narrative you'd like. I think the Top 500 companies in the EU not following the US Top 500 is pretty indicative.
- awvcs 8y agoWhat makes you think this is a new development? When many of these large companies got started Europe was still recovering from World War II, even up until the '90s and continuing today. Europe isn't problem free, but in the grand scheme of things certainly getting better. The "digital evolution" article is just ridiculous. Sweden which is "receding" has had three exits of more than a billion dollars in the last 12 months. Switzerland which is a "stand out" has, as far as I can tell, one tech startup valued at a billion dollars ever. Both countries have similar population and history.
- Zarath 8y agoNo offense, but maybe the market cap of the wealthiest corporations in the world isn't the measure we should be looking at for society health. And given where the world is headed, maybe we should be thinking about stifling tech. That being said, this isn't the way to do it.
- pedro_hab 8y agoNone taken. I think its an valid indicative that EU is doing worse than the US, even if you disagree with the way wealth is distributed. I think tech (FAANG and what not) is over hyped. But broad tech is also the future, people's lives have seen a night and day difference around the world because of it. If we need to put up with some evil (wealth inequality) in order to have that much good, I'd say we should be at least careful stifling tech.
- bobthepanda 8y agoMarket cap is a pretty poor indicator of that. FAANG are so big mostly due to concentration and lack of competition in their sectors; EU antitrust/consumer legislation is more focused on providing consumer choice of businesses, whereas US antitrust is focused on competition of service. I think that in the current environment, the US is swinging way too heavily to overconcentration, crazy unicorn valuations and hype.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- rb666 8y agoGreat and all, but the US cannot even manage to fund their public pension funds. What's the point of innovation when only the rich benefit, like in the States?
- sschueller 8y agoInovation is not dying in Europe. Just the bubble is not growing at a rate like it is in SV. What inovations have therenos or uber made? Yet they are or where worth billions.
- phobosdeimos 8y agoI am thoroughly unimpressed when Americans are talking about how my country should be run. We are doing just fine thanks for the concern.