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The thing is, Europe was once relevant as far as tech goes, but European hostility toward disruptive innovation undermined all that. The EU is far less willing

The thing is, Europe was once relevant as far as tech goes, but European hostility toward disruptive innovation undermined all that. The EU is far less willing to let a long-established but obsolete industry die out, far less willing to tell a company that it needs to adapt to new technology to stay in business, and far less willing to tell people that the world has changed. As a result, the EU is a technology backwater, and all the innovation and big business is happening elsewhere; and now that they are faced with foreign innovation the EU is doubling down with regulations that are doing nothing more than cementing the dominance of those foreign companies.

jamespo 6y ago
Do you have some examples of the "hostility toward disruptive innovation"?
- betterunix2 6y ago
  Some that immediately come to my mind: 1. The right to be forgotten, which tries to turn back the clock to an earlier age when search engines did not exist. 2. Copyright extremism (yes, there are places where it is worse than the USA) e.g. the EU copright directive. 3. Photography rules, which, unlike the USA, restrict the use of cameras in public and may render selfies illegal in some cases. 4. GDPR
  - drannex 6y ago
    I see no issues with right-to-be-forgotten, this should be in practice. GDPR is fantastic and is forward-thinking.
    - betterunix2 6y ago
      GDPR has slowed the deployment of privacy-preserving technologies because it was poorly thought out and is based on a lot of bad assumptions. It has also created a larger burden for running a user-facing web company in Europe, to the benefit of the very incumbent companies it was meant to target without actually changing anything about their business models. As for the right to be forgotten, that is nothing more than an attempt to restore yesterday's status quo. The fact is that computers are very good at storing data, indexing that stored data, and finding more data to add to searchable indexes. The only reason this so-called "right" can even be enforced is that the search market is dominated by a single search engine; if that market were more competitive, something that could theoretically happen at any time (and ironically something the EU seems to want to have happen), it would quickly become impossible to actually enforce the "right." Basically this is like the "right to fly around on a broomstick" -- it is not really grounded in reality.
igravious 6y ago
The 2019 Global Innovation Index† top 10: Switzerland 67.24 1 HI 1 EUR 1 Sweden 63.65 2 HI 2 EUR 2 USA 61.73 3 HI 3 NAC 1 Netherlands 61.44 4 HI 4 EUR 3 United Kingdom 61.30 5 HI 5 EUR 4 Finland 59.83 6 HI 6 EUR 5 Denmark 58.44 7 HI 7 EUR 6 Singapore 58.37 8 HI 8 SEAO 1 Germany 58.19 9 HI 9 EUR 7 Israel 57.43 10 HI 10 NAWA 1 7 out of the top 10 countries are in Europe: https://www.globalinnovationindex.org/gii-2019-report https://www.globalinnovationindex.org/gii-2019-report – first and second are both European. Combined European countries have more top 100 science & technology innovation clusters (31) than the US (26) and China (18). That's using data on pages 64 and 65 of the report. Where in Europe have you been to out of curiosity? I've been to multiple locales in Spain, France, Germany, UK, Switzerland, Poland, Italy, Ireland, Croatia, and Finland – passed through Austria and Slovenia. In fairness I do not know central and eastern Europe very well. † “The Global Innovation Index (GII) is an annual ranking of countries by their capacity for, and success in, innovation. It is published by Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), in partnership with other organisations and institutions” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Innovation_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Innovation_Index
- betterunix2 6y ago
  Disruptive innovation -- innovations that render entire industries obsolete, challenge cultural norms on a fundamental level, etc. I have also been to plenty of European locales -- in France, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Norway -- and I have seen and met with plenty of people doing innovative work, but not much in the way of disruptive innovation.
  - limomium 6y ago
    Ever heard of Linux? Consider it disruptive? Did you know it was invented in Europe?
    - betterunix2 6y ago

jamespo 6y ago

Do you have some examples of the "hostility toward disruptive innovation"?

betterunix2 6y ago
Some that immediately come to my mind: 1. The right to be forgotten, which tries to turn back the clock to an earlier age when search engines did not exist. 2. Copyright extremism (yes, there are places where it is worse than the USA) e.g. the EU copright directive. 3. Photography rules, which, unlike the USA, restrict the use of cameras in public and may render selfies illegal in some cases. 4. GDPR
- drannex 6y ago
  I see no issues with right-to-be-forgotten, this should be in practice. GDPR is fantastic and is forward-thinking.
  - betterunix2 6y ago
    GDPR has slowed the deployment of privacy-preserving technologies because it was poorly thought out and is based on a lot of bad assumptions. It has also created a larger burden for running a user-facing web company in Europe, to the benefit of the very incumbent companies it was meant to target without actually changing anything about their business models. As for the right to be forgotten, that is nothing more than an attempt to restore yesterday's status quo. The fact is that computers are very good at storing data, indexing that stored data, and finding more data to add to searchable indexes. The only reason this so-called "right" can even be enforced is that the search market is dominated by a single search engine; if that market were more competitive, something that could theoretically happen at any time (and ironically something the EU seems to want to have happen), it would quickly become impossible to actually enforce the "right." Basically this is like the "right to fly around on a broomstick" -- it is not really grounded in reality.

igravious 6y ago

The 2019 Global Innovation Index† top 10: Switzerland 67.24 1 HI 1 EUR 1 Sweden 63.65 2 HI 2 EUR 2 USA 61.73 3 HI 3 NAC 1 Netherlands 61.44 4 HI 4 EUR 3 United Kingdom 61.30 5 HI 5 EUR 4 Finland 59.83 6 HI 6 EUR 5 Denmark 58.44 7 HI 7 EUR 6 Singapore 58.37 8 HI 8 SEAO 1 Germany 58.19 9 HI 9 EUR 7 Israel 57.43 10 HI 10 NAWA 1 7 out of the top 10 countries are in Europe: https://www.globalinnovationindex.org/gii-2019-report https://www.globalinnovationindex.org/gii-2019-report – first and second are both European. Combined European countries have more top 100 science & technology innovation clusters (31) than the US (26) and China (18). That's using data on pages 64 and 65 of the report. Where in Europe have you been to out of curiosity? I've been to multiple locales in Spain, France, Germany, UK, Switzerland, Poland, Italy, Ireland, Croatia, and Finland – passed through Austria and Slovenia. In fairness I do not know central and eastern Europe very well. † “The Global Innovation Index (GII) is an annual ranking of countries by their capacity for, and success in, innovation. It is published by Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), in partnership with other organisations and institutions” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Innovation_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Innovation_Index

betterunix2 6y ago
Disruptive innovation -- innovations that render entire industries obsolete, challenge cultural norms on a fundamental level, etc. I have also been to plenty of European locales -- in France, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Norway -- and I have seen and met with plenty of people doing innovative work, but not much in the way of disruptive innovation.
- limomium 6y ago
  Ever heard of Linux? Consider it disruptive? Did you know it was invented in Europe?
  - betterunix2 6y ago