4 ms·

It’s pretty similar here in the US. What do you think the solution is? I don’t like the consolidation and regulatory capture I see everywhere.

petre 6y ago
The solution is de-regulation. In France if you want to run an open WiFi you need a license from the national comms authority for instance. But it won't happen. Too much bureaucracy. It's in the European mindset.
- ivanovb 6y ago
  On the other part of E.U., in Romania, no matter what kind of business you want to start you need to battle with the bureaucracy. Out of high-tech domain, I was thinking that my grandma could sell the jam she makes - but she can't sell it legally if it's produced in her own house - no matter how low is the production. Maybe just at some kind of farmers market, but that is iffy. If I want to invoice some custom development for software, I can not do it as an individual. I either need a BS in Compute Science or setup a SRL. The romantic view of starting out in the garage is quite illegal in these parts. You need to spend a lot just to test a business idea. And what yous spend is not actually investing in the business, but just wasting time and resources with the bureaucracy.
  - umvi 6y ago
    What's the point of having social safety nets if you can't exercise them taking risks? Seems like a crying shame.
    - durnygbur 6y ago
      Social safety nets in post-Communist EU countries are purely theoretical. People throw money at bureaucratic structures which evaporate the money. Practicaly, think US-level of "social safety net", including healthcare. I'm not exagerating.
    - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
      It’s like the safety net is not just below you, but also above.
      - durnygbur 6y ago
        It's like the nets are all over you except in place where they'd prevent you from falling down.
    - pdimitar 6y ago
      Bold of you to assume there's a social safety net to speak of in Eastern Europe. It's only on paper. You have to be a cripple or not worked for like a year or two in order to be eligible for some very minimal sum a month, and even that is taken away from you if you don't actively look for work and haven't found it in 6 to 18 months. The whole thing is crafted in a way that unless you are living in shanty towns and rely on your relatives stealing food and clothes for you, then you will not want to descend that low on the social ladder just to get something like 200 EUR or so. And that implicit and indirect discouragement works really well; people just don't bother pursuing social help because it's meaningless and 99% of the time you won't get it anyway. Only the gypsies are persistent in it. It's every man for himself here in EE. I am not complaining by the way; I've never known any other state of things so I don't actually care about social safety nets at all. But when we here in EE heard about the "Corona stimulus packages" (basically you get money because of the pandemic even if you didn't lose a job) then a lot of us couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of the idea that something like that would ever happen here.
      - fierarul 6y ago
        +1 There's only the social safety tax which you get clubbed if you don't pay. Other than that you are on your own and will pay out of pocket for whatever thing you imagine the safety net should have provided.
  - fierarul 6y ago
    Bless you, so true. And once you have a business set up then the fun starts. For extra sadism, try winding down your business! I wonder if Europeans know US companies of much bigger dimensions are capable of keeping their own accounting and the sky is not falling. But in Romania, every month the accountant must get the paperwork, do the magical incantations (that nobody! reads). The Annual report even costs extra since it's more stuffy and it gets uploaded to the Finance Ministry so they get a chance to do nothing with it. Sorry for the rant, I'm also traumatised by living here and knowing it could be different.
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  Keep in mind that bureaucracy creates (unionized) low skill white collar government jobs. Doesn't matter the private sector is crippled by endless regulations if more and more jobs are created!
patrickaljord 6y ago
I agree that the EU has too many regulations preventing innovation and high taxation preventing investment. However, I think the main reason is that "big tech" is a winner take all market. For example, look at Google, they are investing way more than $10 billion in their cloud and yet still can't make a dent in AWS, even Microsoft is still far away. Same thing with search (Microsoft invested billions in bing) or Office (Google investing billions in docs) etc. There is no way in hell €10B is going to be enough. The market already picked AWS. The only country where these are not dominant is simply the one where they prevent these winners from entering, that would be China, they have their own cloud, search, retail etc.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
nicbou 6y ago
Personally, I think various quality of life improvements would help a lot. Make running a business simpler! Your first year in business should not be spent on lawyers and accountants, but in Germany, it's unavoidable. It's a serious barrier to small entrepreneurship. I run a simple website, and keeping it online takes a surprising amount of time. The law is damn hard to follow, even with the best of intentions. I don't even want to think about hiring people. Simplifying immigration would also help. I need to renew my freelance visa. I can't get an appointment. Nobody can. I have to go to a government office at 6 AM and queue until 10 AM to get an appointment. It takes 2-3 months to get a visa in general. If you don't speak German, you'd need an interpreter. There are a few other steps I didn't have to go through, but they're not easier. Everything involves fighting for an appointment 2-4 weeks in the future, then trying to figure out your position in an opaque system. If you're in trouble, good luck emailing or phoning anyone. The immigration authority answers in 3-4 weeks, if at all. The list goes on and on. I can't imagine building a disruptive business in such an environment. Running a blog is already a pain in the ass.

petre 6y ago

The solution is de-regulation. In France if you want to run an open WiFi you need a license from the national comms authority for instance. But it won't happen. Too much bureaucracy. It's in the European mindset.

ivanovb 6y ago
On the other part of E.U., in Romania, no matter what kind of business you want to start you need to battle with the bureaucracy. Out of high-tech domain, I was thinking that my grandma could sell the jam she makes - but she can't sell it legally if it's produced in her own house - no matter how low is the production. Maybe just at some kind of farmers market, but that is iffy. If I want to invoice some custom development for software, I can not do it as an individual. I either need a BS in Compute Science or setup a SRL. The romantic view of starting out in the garage is quite illegal in these parts. You need to spend a lot just to test a business idea. And what yous spend is not actually investing in the business, but just wasting time and resources with the bureaucracy.
- umvi 6y ago
  What's the point of having social safety nets if you can't exercise them taking risks? Seems like a crying shame.
  - durnygbur 6y ago
    Social safety nets in post-Communist EU countries are purely theoretical. People throw money at bureaucratic structures which evaporate the money. Practicaly, think US-level of "social safety net", including healthcare. I'm not exagerating.
  - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
    It’s like the safety net is not just below you, but also above.
    - durnygbur 6y ago
      It's like the nets are all over you except in place where they'd prevent you from falling down.
  - pdimitar 6y ago
    Bold of you to assume there's a social safety net to speak of in Eastern Europe. It's only on paper. You have to be a cripple or not worked for like a year or two in order to be eligible for some very minimal sum a month, and even that is taken away from you if you don't actively look for work and haven't found it in 6 to 18 months. The whole thing is crafted in a way that unless you are living in shanty towns and rely on your relatives stealing food and clothes for you, then you will not want to descend that low on the social ladder just to get something like 200 EUR or so. And that implicit and indirect discouragement works really well; people just don't bother pursuing social help because it's meaningless and 99% of the time you won't get it anyway. Only the gypsies are persistent in it. It's every man for himself here in EE. I am not complaining by the way; I've never known any other state of things so I don't actually care about social safety nets at all. But when we here in EE heard about the "Corona stimulus packages" (basically you get money because of the pandemic even if you didn't lose a job) then a lot of us couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of the idea that something like that would ever happen here.
    - fierarul 6y ago
      +1 There's only the social safety tax which you get clubbed if you don't pay. Other than that you are on your own and will pay out of pocket for whatever thing you imagine the safety net should have provided.
- fierarul 6y ago
  Bless you, so true. And once you have a business set up then the fun starts. For extra sadism, try winding down your business! I wonder if Europeans know US companies of much bigger dimensions are capable of keeping their own accounting and the sky is not falling. But in Romania, every month the accountant must get the paperwork, do the magical incantations (that nobody! reads). The Annual report even costs extra since it's more stuffy and it gets uploaded to the Finance Ministry so they get a chance to do nothing with it. Sorry for the rant, I'm also traumatised by living here and knowing it could be different.
908B64B197 6y ago
Keep in mind that bureaucracy creates (unionized) low skill white collar government jobs. Doesn't matter the private sector is crippled by endless regulations if more and more jobs are created!

patrickaljord 6y ago

I agree that the EU has too many regulations preventing innovation and high taxation preventing investment. However, I think the main reason is that "big tech" is a winner take all market. For example, look at Google, they are investing way more than $10 billion in their cloud and yet still can't make a dent in AWS, even Microsoft is still far away. Same thing with search (Microsoft invested billions in bing) or Office (Google investing billions in docs) etc. There is no way in hell €10B is going to be enough. The market already picked AWS. The only country where these are not dominant is simply the one where they prevent these winners from entering, that would be China, they have their own cloud, search, retail etc.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

nicbou 6y ago

Personally, I think various quality of life improvements would help a lot. Make running a business simpler! Your first year in business should not be spent on lawyers and accountants, but in Germany, it's unavoidable. It's a serious barrier to small entrepreneurship. I run a simple website, and keeping it online takes a surprising amount of time. The law is damn hard to follow, even with the best of intentions. I don't even want to think about hiring people. Simplifying immigration would also help. I need to renew my freelance visa. I can't get an appointment. Nobody can. I have to go to a government office at 6 AM and queue until 10 AM to get an appointment. It takes 2-3 months to get a visa in general. If you don't speak German, you'd need an interpreter. There are a few other steps I didn't have to go through, but they're not easier. Everything involves fighting for an appointment 2-4 weeks in the future, then trying to figure out your position in an opaque system. If you're in trouble, good luck emailing or phoning anyone. The immigration authority answers in 3-4 weeks, if at all. The list goes on and on. I can't imagine building a disruptive business in such an environment. Running a blog is already a pain in the ass.