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Having just returned from 4 years living in Western Europe, it is laughable how technologically inept the European Union is when it comes to the internet. Euro

Having just returned from 4 years living in Western Europe, it is laughable how technologically inept the European Union is when it comes to the internet. Europeans are competent and intelligent. Their universities are competitively amongst the best in the world. But there is no entrepreneurial or innovative mindset when it comes to the web. I think the ones that have it move to North America. The ones that are left are disincentivized by a comfortable and productive social environment. All this to say, I don't have much hope for this project's success, and unlike a private enterprise failing and disappearing, this will not fail quietly, but with billions of dollars, and the ones that will suffer are the European Union citizens who will be forced to use inept second tier technology.

blub 7y ago
What amazing innovation has been happening on the web? Technically, the last two decades can be summarized as "playing catch-up with mobile and the desktop". The business plan of most web entrepreneurs is to collect then sell user's data while burning VC money and hoping they'll be bought soon.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
pergadad 7y ago
I do agree that there is much less entrepreneurial mindset but there is not less creation. What the creation leads to is different and I'd suggest two main reasons: 1) Europeans are less likely to make it a business - the safety net might play a role but also just different value sets. I'd suggest that on average Europeans are less focused on profit/getting rich and more on just living a decent life e.g. with work-life balance. So they might run things in their spare time but will be more likely to give their creation away than run a for-profit company with it. See e.g. PGP, Linux Kernel, LibreOffice, OpenCloud & Nextcloud, Raspberry Pi, Arduino, ... - many leading FOSS and even some hardware projects are European-lead. 2) Startup success is quite a bit more difficult in Europe due to lower investor/VC availability and a smaller market (burden of translation & different legislations, although EU legislation is slowly converging things). Nonetheless you had Skype, Spotify, TransferWise, etc. But those were all mostly bootstrapped - there's no money available that allows annual 8-or-9-digit losses like with the typical examples of Uber, Lyft, WeWork or Lime. So its not that there's nothing creative going on, but fewer try to make it a business and of those fewer succeed - and indeed many of those are then bought by or on their own move to the other side of the Atlantic. Tidbit: actually I've never seen comparison data on startup success rates between countries, just on overall startup numbers.
- kazen44 7y ago
  Also, many Europeans are far less market driven then most people in the US seem to be. A lot of people work in public sectors, where innovations happens but its simply not put to market, because the entire sector is not part of a traditional market based economy. Labour relations are also a lot different then in the US.
lowbloodsugar 7y ago
https://webfoundation.org/about/vision/history-of-the-web/ https://webfoundation.org/about/vision/history-of-the-web/ TL;DR the "web" was invented in Europe. Amazing what happy people do when they can think about the future rather than how to pay for medical bills or college loans.
pnako 7y ago
The web was invented in Europe; VC-funded American mega-corporations turned it into TV 2.0 (with more porn). American capitalism is efficient, but morally bankrupt.

blub 7y ago

What amazing innovation has been happening on the web? Technically, the last two decades can be summarized as "playing catch-up with mobile and the desktop". The business plan of most web entrepreneurs is to collect then sell user's data while burning VC money and hoping they'll be bought soon.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

pergadad 7y ago

I do agree that there is much less entrepreneurial mindset but there is not less creation. What the creation leads to is different and I'd suggest two main reasons: 1) Europeans are less likely to make it a business - the safety net might play a role but also just different value sets. I'd suggest that on average Europeans are less focused on profit/getting rich and more on just living a decent life e.g. with work-life balance. So they might run things in their spare time but will be more likely to give their creation away than run a for-profit company with it. See e.g. PGP, Linux Kernel, LibreOffice, OpenCloud & Nextcloud, Raspberry Pi, Arduino, ... - many leading FOSS and even some hardware projects are European-lead. 2) Startup success is quite a bit more difficult in Europe due to lower investor/VC availability and a smaller market (burden of translation & different legislations, although EU legislation is slowly converging things). Nonetheless you had Skype, Spotify, TransferWise, etc. But those were all mostly bootstrapped - there's no money available that allows annual 8-or-9-digit losses like with the typical examples of Uber, Lyft, WeWork or Lime. So its not that there's nothing creative going on, but fewer try to make it a business and of those fewer succeed - and indeed many of those are then bought by or on their own move to the other side of the Atlantic. Tidbit: actually I've never seen comparison data on startup success rates between countries, just on overall startup numbers.

kazen44 7y ago
Also, many Europeans are far less market driven then most people in the US seem to be. A lot of people work in public sectors, where innovations happens but its simply not put to market, because the entire sector is not part of a traditional market based economy. Labour relations are also a lot different then in the US.

lowbloodsugar 7y ago

https://webfoundation.org/about/vision/history-of-the-web/ https://webfoundation.org/about/vision/history-of-the-web/ TL;DR the "web" was invented in Europe. Amazing what happy people do when they can think about the future rather than how to pay for medical bills or college loans.

pnako 7y ago

The web was invented in Europe; VC-funded American mega-corporations turned it into TV 2.0 (with more porn). American capitalism is efficient, but morally bankrupt.