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I don't think it's toxic to criticize the regulatory practices that have created the business environment that the article laments. Actually I think it's more t

I don't think it's toxic to criticize the regulatory practices that have created the business environment that the article laments. Actually I think it's more than fair to do so. "Blunt" may be a better word to describe the comments here.

ajuc 7y ago
In which way does regulation create the business environment that the article laments? EU was always behind in internet stuff, even when there was no regulation.
- adventured 7y ago
  Indeed, Europe has been behind the US in tech since WW2. The lead the US acquired in the following ~20 years has proven impossible to overcome. It spawned so many various advantages that compound and build on each other (to say nothing of the single market of enormous size). If they knew what they were doing, they'd start by massively increasing the pay for software developers across Western Europe. Software is why the US dominates global tech. 1.25 million software developers earning a median of $105,000 in salary. Software is why Japan wasn't able to dominate tech, despite that being the near universal thought - that it was the inevitable outcome - in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They couldn't do software well, it's the difference between Apple doing the iPod and Sony flailing after the Walkman. It's also why Apple murdered Nokia, it's the software: the smartphone is about the software, not the hardware (which always drifts towards commodity, low value, low margin; Apple was focused on building a device that could effectively run serious software programs). The rise of Microsoft from 1975 to its eventual position as global tech titan by the time Win95 came out, charts the course of the US solidifying its position in tech via software margins. Most of the value gradually shifted from hardware to software, from the 1970s to the 1990s. The immensely profitable nature of most software pours an endless deluge of profit into the US tech machine (which is then used to keep expanding it and buying up global competition). US cloud dominance is similarly all about the software, rather than hardware in the cloud (again, low margin, low value). It's why Europe can't compete with AWS. Imagine if the US tech dominance were dependent on competing in server hardware, black rectangle smartphones or PC boxes. The US would have entirely gotten its brains stomped in by now. Instead, the US moved upstream and got all the profit in the tech industry: it's all in the software margins. It's the software, Europe. Pay your software developers a lot more if you want to compete.
  - NotSammyHagar 7y ago
    That arc of software history is recognizable to me. There are excellent devs all over and pretty much every large company has divisions with european offices with devs. There's something about the business of starting large software based enterprises that seems to work better in the us though. Also, I think China is coming for the us software industry's dominance. If they can figure out how to get around the worry of chinese govt access to external to china customers, chinese software companies could out compete the us, just like microsoft with windows beat out ibm maybe.
    - Slartie 7y ago
      That "something" is the huge, relatively homogeneous, english-speaking and thus very "international-by-default" single market. It's the one and only actual moat that the US has over Europe when it comes to developing huge corporations in the winner-takes-all online markets. Everything else (like better VC situation, more attractive environment for international talent) is just a result of this original moat and would have just as well developed the other way round if this one advantage had been on the other side of the Atlantic.
  - bjelkeman-again 7y ago
    It isn't really about software developers pay IMHO. I think it is about: a relatively poorly capitalised investment community (relative to the US); relatively (to the US) inexperienced VCs/accelerators; a splintered market with a variety of regulators, languages, rules, currencies, cultures etc; more conservative approach (not left/right politics) in politics and in business.
  - belltaco 7y ago
    >If they knew what they were doing, they'd start by massively increasing the pay for software developers across Western Europe. So the governments of Western Europe should just increase the pay for software developers?

ajuc 7y ago

In which way does regulation create the business environment that the article laments? EU was always behind in internet stuff, even when there was no regulation.

adventured 7y ago
Indeed, Europe has been behind the US in tech since WW2. The lead the US acquired in the following ~20 years has proven impossible to overcome. It spawned so many various advantages that compound and build on each other (to say nothing of the single market of enormous size). If they knew what they were doing, they'd start by massively increasing the pay for software developers across Western Europe. Software is why the US dominates global tech. 1.25 million software developers earning a median of $105,000 in salary. Software is why Japan wasn't able to dominate tech, despite that being the near universal thought - that it was the inevitable outcome - in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They couldn't do software well, it's the difference between Apple doing the iPod and Sony flailing after the Walkman. It's also why Apple murdered Nokia, it's the software: the smartphone is about the software, not the hardware (which always drifts towards commodity, low value, low margin; Apple was focused on building a device that could effectively run serious software programs). The rise of Microsoft from 1975 to its eventual position as global tech titan by the time Win95 came out, charts the course of the US solidifying its position in tech via software margins. Most of the value gradually shifted from hardware to software, from the 1970s to the 1990s. The immensely profitable nature of most software pours an endless deluge of profit into the US tech machine (which is then used to keep expanding it and buying up global competition). US cloud dominance is similarly all about the software, rather than hardware in the cloud (again, low margin, low value). It's why Europe can't compete with AWS. Imagine if the US tech dominance were dependent on competing in server hardware, black rectangle smartphones or PC boxes. The US would have entirely gotten its brains stomped in by now. Instead, the US moved upstream and got all the profit in the tech industry: it's all in the software margins. It's the software, Europe. Pay your software developers a lot more if you want to compete.
- NotSammyHagar 7y ago
  That arc of software history is recognizable to me. There are excellent devs all over and pretty much every large company has divisions with european offices with devs. There's something about the business of starting large software based enterprises that seems to work better in the us though. Also, I think China is coming for the us software industry's dominance. If they can figure out how to get around the worry of chinese govt access to external to china customers, chinese software companies could out compete the us, just like microsoft with windows beat out ibm maybe.
  - Slartie 7y ago
    That "something" is the huge, relatively homogeneous, english-speaking and thus very "international-by-default" single market. It's the one and only actual moat that the US has over Europe when it comes to developing huge corporations in the winner-takes-all online markets. Everything else (like better VC situation, more attractive environment for international talent) is just a result of this original moat and would have just as well developed the other way round if this one advantage had been on the other side of the Atlantic.
- bjelkeman-again 7y ago
  It isn't really about software developers pay IMHO. I think it is about: a relatively poorly capitalised investment community (relative to the US); relatively (to the US) inexperienced VCs/accelerators; a splintered market with a variety of regulators, languages, rules, currencies, cultures etc; more conservative approach (not left/right politics) in politics and in business.
- belltaco 7y ago
  >If they knew what they were doing, they'd start by massively increasing the pay for software developers across Western Europe. So the governments of Western Europe should just increase the pay for software developers?