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Europe keeps regulating itself to death and america isn’t. That’s why most modern innovation (Intel, Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Tesla, SpaceX, Uber, Airb

Europe keeps regulating itself to death and america isn’t. That’s why most modern innovation (Intel, Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Tesla, SpaceX, Uber, Airbnb, Etc) is coming from the US and not Europe. If you lived in both continents you would know

Toine 7y ago
You could argue that America is unregulating itself to death.
- gwright 7y ago
  Death? If your comment was a headline, I'd call it clickbait.
- beenBoutIT 7y ago
  Very true, although not with tech.
- amelius 7y ago
  The sad part is that platform economies are mostly owned by US companies, and their internal (inside the platform) markets operate on a global scale. So far we haven't seen much external regulation here.
  - solarkraft 7y ago
    Clearly not enough, but there are laws (NetzDG) for censoring illegal posts in Germany. Much more interesting and important, of course, will be regulation on actual platform mechanisms like vendor lock-in, Apple's non-compete app store policies and such.
agumonkey 7y ago
Based on the very few readings I had, it seems it's been historical cultural difference from day 1. What's the motto "America innovates ? Europe cultivates" ? Also, both have value.. I wouldn't bear USA medical system, but I also recognize France administration hell.
SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
Odd comment considering Americans are literally dying due to a refusal to regulate in certain areas - employee rights, healthcare, gun laws, obesity etc. Small price to pay for "freedom" I guess.
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  How does regulation help with obesity? And if it does, why are Europeans very nearly as fat as Americans?
  - blub 7y ago
    The US is very lax on regulation concerning unhealthy foods. Sugar's the usual suspect, but things like livestock antibiotic usage and other sins come to mind.
  - tpush 7y ago
    > [...] why are Europeans very nearly as fat as Americans? They really aren't "very nearly". According to [0], US' obesity rate is 36.2%(highest of OECD) while the EU country with the highest obesity rate is UK with 27.8%. Every other EU country's rate lies below that, e.g. Germany is at 22.3% [0] https://obesity.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=006032 https://obesity.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=0060...
    - rootusrootus 7y ago
      As with everything, it seems, it depends on who you ask. The WHO shows some overlap. Some US states have high obesity, some low. Some European countries are above some states, even if the US is incrementally higher overall. Oregon, for example, is just a small amount higher than UK. Greece should be higher than UK IIRC, but I did not memorize the table. Nobody with a 1 in 4 obesity rate is in much of a position to point fingers, it's pretty clearly a global problem. I see no reason to suggest that regulation is helping anyone. Food culture is probably the biggest single factor.
Barrin92 7y ago
>Europe keeps regulating itself to death and america isn’t. Given that the life expectancy in the US is falling which is unprecedented in an industrialised society, and on average below some second world countries that post has an involuntary morbid spin.
- artificial 7y ago
  Leading cause of death for under 45 in the US is traffic fatalities.
  - rimliu 7y ago
    How about child mortality?
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  Unprecedented might be too strong a term. It isn't too difficult to find ups and downs of life expectancy in Western European countries.
  - blub 7y ago
    That is correct, such decreases have been seen before. e.g: "If we're not careful, we could end up with declining life expectancy for three years in a row, which we haven't seen since the Spanish flu, 100 years ago." https://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/21/health/us-life-expectancy-study/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/21/health/us-life-expectancy...
throwaway479089 7y ago
The innovation you speak of is either completely superfluous or actively harmful to society. No one needs a Tesla or SpaceX, and society would be much better off without Uber, Airbnb, Amazon, Apple or Facebook. That you consider these companies, all with a notorious track record of badly treating their employees and mishandling their user's data, as good things, speaks volumes about the mindset of some Americans.
- 420codebro 7y ago
  Lol. That's a good one!
- andrenth 7y ago
  If what you’re saying was right, these companies wouldn’t have any customers. Clearly society values these companies above zero.
  - anoncake 7y ago
    That's a non sequitur. Demand is orthogonal to value. Heroin isn't valuable to society yet it exists.
    - andrenth 7y ago
      There is no demand for things that have no value. The customers of the companies mentioned above obviously see some value in using their services, otherwise they wouldn’t do so. You seem to be using “is valuable” to mean “is good for”. I’m using it in the economic sense.
      - anoncake 7y ago
        I'm not using it in the economic sense because that's not what the conversation is about.
Youden 7y ago
I've lived on both continents (and one extra for good measure) and I'm afraid I can't agree. What I see is that there's plenty of innovation in Europe but it's rarer for companies to become the monstrous beasts that are so well known in America, which might make it harder to see. Also some of the companies you've listed are genuinely innovative (Google produced the best search engine, SpaceX made reusable rockets work, Tesla made electric cars work, Apple made PDAs work) but others are large because they have limited competition due to being in an expensive industry (it's hard to build a fab and start producing CPUs like Intel or to buy as many distribution centers or datacenters as Amazon) or because they blatantly flaunt the law to the point where they likely couldn't have started in Europe, where regulators have teeth and use them (Uber, Airbnb). Another difference might be that in America you get one enormous company that does many things while in Europe you get small companies that do one thing each. Google does email, photos, search, YouTube etc., Amazon does retail and cloud and Facebook owns most major social networks. In Europe there are smaller companies that do all of these things, they're just not unified in one enormous organization. That doesn't mean there's no innovation, it just means you have to look in more than one place to find it. To give some examples of smaller, successful, mission-focused European companies: Spotify does nothing but music, Skype did nothing but voice and video calling (before being acquired), there are a few email providers like Protonmail and Mailbox.org, a few major cloud providers like Leaseweb, Hetzner and OVH, Criteo, a huge AdTech company, Mikrotik which produces networking equipment, uBlox which produces GPS modules. Those are just a few off the top of my head.

Toine 7y ago

You could argue that America is unregulating itself to death.

gwright 7y ago
Death? If your comment was a headline, I'd call it clickbait.
beenBoutIT 7y ago
Very true, although not with tech.
amelius 7y ago
The sad part is that platform economies are mostly owned by US companies, and their internal (inside the platform) markets operate on a global scale. So far we haven't seen much external regulation here.
- solarkraft 7y ago
  Clearly not enough, but there are laws (NetzDG) for censoring illegal posts in Germany. Much more interesting and important, of course, will be regulation on actual platform mechanisms like vendor lock-in, Apple's non-compete app store policies and such.

agumonkey 7y ago

Based on the very few readings I had, it seems it's been historical cultural difference from day 1. What's the motto "America innovates ? Europe cultivates" ? Also, both have value.. I wouldn't bear USA medical system, but I also recognize France administration hell.

SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago

Odd comment considering Americans are literally dying due to a refusal to regulate in certain areas - employee rights, healthcare, gun laws, obesity etc. Small price to pay for "freedom" I guess.

rootusrootus 7y ago
How does regulation help with obesity? And if it does, why are Europeans very nearly as fat as Americans?
- blub 7y ago
  The US is very lax on regulation concerning unhealthy foods. Sugar's the usual suspect, but things like livestock antibiotic usage and other sins come to mind.
- tpush 7y ago
  > [...] why are Europeans very nearly as fat as Americans? They really aren't "very nearly". According to [0], US' obesity rate is 36.2%(highest of OECD) while the EU country with the highest obesity rate is UK with 27.8%. Every other EU country's rate lies below that, e.g. Germany is at 22.3% [0] https://obesity.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=006032 https://obesity.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=0060...
  - rootusrootus 7y ago
    As with everything, it seems, it depends on who you ask. The WHO shows some overlap. Some US states have high obesity, some low. Some European countries are above some states, even if the US is incrementally higher overall. Oregon, for example, is just a small amount higher than UK. Greece should be higher than UK IIRC, but I did not memorize the table. Nobody with a 1 in 4 obesity rate is in much of a position to point fingers, it's pretty clearly a global problem. I see no reason to suggest that regulation is helping anyone. Food culture is probably the biggest single factor.

Barrin92 7y ago

>Europe keeps regulating itself to death and america isn’t. Given that the life expectancy in the US is falling which is unprecedented in an industrialised society, and on average below some second world countries that post has an involuntary morbid spin.

artificial 7y ago
Leading cause of death for under 45 in the US is traffic fatalities.
- rimliu 7y ago
  How about child mortality?
rootusrootus 7y ago
Unprecedented might be too strong a term. It isn't too difficult to find ups and downs of life expectancy in Western European countries.
- blub 7y ago
  That is correct, such decreases have been seen before. e.g: "If we're not careful, we could end up with declining life expectancy for three years in a row, which we haven't seen since the Spanish flu, 100 years ago." https://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/21/health/us-life-expectancy-study/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/21/health/us-life-expectancy...

throwaway479089 7y ago

The innovation you speak of is either completely superfluous or actively harmful to society. No one needs a Tesla or SpaceX, and society would be much better off without Uber, Airbnb, Amazon, Apple or Facebook. That you consider these companies, all with a notorious track record of badly treating their employees and mishandling their user's data, as good things, speaks volumes about the mindset of some Americans.

420codebro 7y ago
Lol. That's a good one!
andrenth 7y ago
If what you’re saying was right, these companies wouldn’t have any customers. Clearly society values these companies above zero.
- anoncake 7y ago
  That's a non sequitur. Demand is orthogonal to value. Heroin isn't valuable to society yet it exists.
  - andrenth 7y ago
    There is no demand for things that have no value. The customers of the companies mentioned above obviously see some value in using their services, otherwise they wouldn’t do so. You seem to be using “is valuable” to mean “is good for”. I’m using it in the economic sense.
    - anoncake 7y ago
      I'm not using it in the economic sense because that's not what the conversation is about.

Youden 7y ago

I've lived on both continents (and one extra for good measure) and I'm afraid I can't agree. What I see is that there's plenty of innovation in Europe but it's rarer for companies to become the monstrous beasts that are so well known in America, which might make it harder to see. Also some of the companies you've listed are genuinely innovative (Google produced the best search engine, SpaceX made reusable rockets work, Tesla made electric cars work, Apple made PDAs work) but others are large because they have limited competition due to being in an expensive industry (it's hard to build a fab and start producing CPUs like Intel or to buy as many distribution centers or datacenters as Amazon) or because they blatantly flaunt the law to the point where they likely couldn't have started in Europe, where regulators have teeth and use them (Uber, Airbnb). Another difference might be that in America you get one enormous company that does many things while in Europe you get small companies that do one thing each. Google does email, photos, search, YouTube etc., Amazon does retail and cloud and Facebook owns most major social networks. In Europe there are smaller companies that do all of these things, they're just not unified in one enormous organization. That doesn't mean there's no innovation, it just means you have to look in more than one place to find it. To give some examples of smaller, successful, mission-focused European companies: Spotify does nothing but music, Skype did nothing but voice and video calling (before being acquired), there are a few email providers like Protonmail and Mailbox.org, a few major cloud providers like Leaseweb, Hetzner and OVH, Criteo, a huge AdTech company, Mikrotik which produces networking equipment, uBlox which produces GPS modules. Those are just a few off the top of my head.