6 ms·

There was a lot of government money, directly or indirectly, involved in keeping Apple afloat and before that, bringing noticeable revenue. Then there's more st

by p_l 6y ago

There was a lot of government money, directly or indirectly, involved in keeping Apple afloat and before that, bringing noticeable revenue. Then there's more state rather than federal, if you care about the difference, money from school systems hooked onto Apple II, which made it so that it was produced up to early 1990s. Similarly a non-trivial point in financial history of Sun was contracts that indirectly depended on NSA. Then you have third-order money flows, where lots of govt money flew into various projects, which enriched people enough that they could buy Apple products. I'd argue that the biggest difference is that the government money was very free flowing, and often goal-oriented and who actually got it was a detail that wasn't even taken into account unless you failed to deliver. Meanwhile a lot of EU funding grants, depending on country, involves a lot of paperwork instead of just govt buying from you.

oytis 6y ago
> I'd argue that the biggest difference is that the government money was very free flowing, and often goal-oriented and who actually got it was a detail that wasn't even taken into account unless you failed to deliver. Meanwhile a lot of EU funding grants, depending on country, involves a lot of paperwork instead of just govt buying from you. That's an interesting point. I believe this paperwork is there to prevent corruption somehow. Yet, from the unshakeable position and government ties of the old industry one might conclude that the result was exactly the opposite.
- throwaway_dcnt 6y ago
  The purpose is not to avoid corruption, it is to have the ability to plausibly deny ts existence by having paper trail of a faux-fair process that was followed.
simonh 6y ago
Educational use of the Apple II wasn't about policy though, it was just that the Apple II was already incredibly popular and had lots of software (Visicalc for example, the first spreadsheet) available. It's commercial success drove educational adoption not the other way round. Conversely the BBC Micro was picked as a winner by the BBC back when it's predecessor systems were also-rans. This drove educational purchases, and ultimately led to ARM. Honestly the main thing that drove the US tech sector was the invention of the integrated circuit, and massive scale. Europe back then was still very balkanised, the EEC (which became the EU) was only just getting going. Fully agree with your last point, Europe was and still is much more bureaucratic.
- p_l 6y ago
  My last point was explicitly also about how it enabled your first paragraph. Apple II at the time wasn't cheap, nor were other computers. Government grants for computers in education created a market that could be then targeted by Apple (and anyone who thinks Apple didn't dedicate serious resources into capturing that market is naive at best)
  - lokar 6y ago
    But the goal of the government funding was not to subsidise or support use tech companies. It was to improve education.
    - SllX 6y ago
      This has been a long comment chain to say American governments bought computers to use them for their work.
      - turbinerneiter 6y ago
        This is however a key thing that the US is doing better than the EU. US - I help you by buying your product EU - I will buy the product of your foreign competitor, but you can apply for a research grant, that only pays for half of your investment and comes with bureaucratic overhead that cost more than we pay you
        SllX 6y ago
        I agree, and I wish this particular comment of yours were further up the chain.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
wil421 6y ago
Do you have any actual sources about the government keeping apple afloat? Or are you saying since they had educational contracts they were being kept afloat? Does Airbus have government contracts? Does Ericsson or Nokia? Do you believe European governments contracts with these companies are keeping them afloat?
- iorrus 6y ago
  Airbus planes used to be given away almost for free, it’s first few decades it was entirely state funded.
- p_l 6y ago
  Apple's federal sales division was one of the strongest sources of revenue during Apple's lowest points, thanks to very good integrated sales & support team that kept islands of Macs in various governmental locations, often doing specialised tasks as graphics/audio workstations and the like. But to get those contracts there had to be appropriate spending by government, and that's what I meant in my comment.
- the-dude 6y ago
  Airbus does have defense contracts.
johbjo 6y ago
Apple and Huawei are very recent phenomenons in Europe. GSM, and today's mobile networks, are essentially products of subsidized European national telcoms. The problem is rather that Europeans have historically been ineffective or slow at understanding end-user "cultural" products. American pop culture still dominates, while locals usually seem like poor imitations. But the value produced by FANGs is essentially cultural, rather than technological or industrial. This thinking is suspicious and foreign to European engineers. Boomer engineers and industrialists really struggle to grasp this and it's still a point of contention even though few know how to articulate it.
- AstralStorm 6y ago
  Value produced by Google? How about value drained by Google, esp. privacy and advertising. About the only value produced by Google being Google Docs and Android. Well, and the rare FLOSS improvements related to these. Facebook? Similar. Taking over culture is not value. We had better services at around time it was created, but the huge money combined with network effects did the number on them. Netflix, well. Let's say we had VoD services before them, some even better. Their major cultural win is making exclusive series with the huge money they got invested. Amazon has one improvement in their sales systems with the remote warehouses. Plus AWS. Apple at least designs phones. All of the companies benefited hugely from big cash investment, somehow EU companies don't get these. It's not a matter of culture either, there's plenty enough startups around. But US money is always more and bigger.
  - johbjo 6y ago
    Somehow, we need the mindsets of Zara and H&M inside VW, Mercedes etc. These have been different universes.
  - creato 6y ago
    You're really taking a lot for granted. I think not seeing and understanding that is a reflection of the larger problem you are complaining about.
- soco 6y ago
jariel 6y ago
This is valid, but in reality Apple wins because they are fundamentally better managed in most ways that most European companies, point blank. That's a hard pill to swallow because it doesn't boil down to simple things like R&D spending by sector. Also, it means there's not that much the state apparatus can necessarily do. It's a fantastical misunderstanding of markets to suggest that 'government does stuff and then we win'. Obviously government is very important in systematic ways, and even more so in direct ways to help nations get over their limited size to do things like 'Airbus'. And while Steve Jobs probably would not have thrived in Europe, he did however in the US and there isn't quite a corollary in Europe. There are so many factors. And most paradoxically - many of the factors that hinder Europe from expansion, have benefits in the other direction. German culture is much more formal, the gears run pretty well there, but they also are more resistant to change. Attitudes towards work/live balance means a high standard of living, and that's worth something of course. Etc. One thing worth nothing that nobody seems to talk about so I tend to highlight it, is the media participation in industry. In the US, CNN will talk about 'RobinHood' and 'Bumble' and 'Tesla' endlessly. The amount of free PR and narrative building is incalculable. Most of the rest of the world is not like that. How do you compete as a little European entity that nobody talks about, when CNN is giving millions of 'free impressions daily' to your competitors? As one of many differentiation. Of course, in China, you have a managed economy in which the winners are effectively chosen, and the state backs them. Normally - this does not work. But when you have a nation that is 'behind' typically you an have some central planners make rational investments in 'infrastructure' and specific industry. Much like the post-war planning of Korea and Japan. After a while, the marginal returns to 'low hanging fruit' dissapears. China continues with that approach into the high tech world. While they build 'highways' (much like US strategic investment in the highway system in the 1950's) - they're also building out consumer payments (Ali), taxi services (DiDi), networking (Huawei) etc. - in a quasi capitalist way - things which, in the Western world we opted to have done in private markets.
- galuggus 6y ago
  China has intense competition within a company. Many teams all working on the same problem and all competing. Usually in a given sector their are three champion companies who fiercely compete with each other. Eg China telecom unicom and mobile Or tencent Ali (and now) bytedance

by p_l 6y ago

oytis 6y ago

> I'd argue that the biggest difference is that the government money was very free flowing, and often goal-oriented and who actually got it was a detail that wasn't even taken into account unless you failed to deliver. Meanwhile a lot of EU funding grants, depending on country, involves a lot of paperwork instead of just govt buying from you. That's an interesting point. I believe this paperwork is there to prevent corruption somehow. Yet, from the unshakeable position and government ties of the old industry one might conclude that the result was exactly the opposite.

throwaway_dcnt 6y ago
The purpose is not to avoid corruption, it is to have the ability to plausibly deny ts existence by having paper trail of a faux-fair process that was followed.

simonh 6y ago

Educational use of the Apple II wasn't about policy though, it was just that the Apple II was already incredibly popular and had lots of software (Visicalc for example, the first spreadsheet) available. It's commercial success drove educational adoption not the other way round. Conversely the BBC Micro was picked as a winner by the BBC back when it's predecessor systems were also-rans. This drove educational purchases, and ultimately led to ARM. Honestly the main thing that drove the US tech sector was the invention of the integrated circuit, and massive scale. Europe back then was still very balkanised, the EEC (which became the EU) was only just getting going. Fully agree with your last point, Europe was and still is much more bureaucratic.

p_l 6y ago
My last point was explicitly also about how it enabled your first paragraph. Apple II at the time wasn't cheap, nor were other computers. Government grants for computers in education created a market that could be then targeted by Apple (and anyone who thinks Apple didn't dedicate serious resources into capturing that market is naive at best)
- lokar 6y ago
  But the goal of the government funding was not to subsidise or support use tech companies. It was to improve education.
  - SllX 6y ago
    This has been a long comment chain to say American governments bought computers to use them for their work.
    - turbinerneiter 6y ago
      This is however a key thing that the US is doing better than the EU. US - I help you by buying your product EU - I will buy the product of your foreign competitor, but you can apply for a research grant, that only pays for half of your investment and comes with bureaucratic overhead that cost more than we pay you
      - SllX 6y ago
        I agree, and I wish this particular comment of yours were further up the chain.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

wil421 6y ago

Do you have any actual sources about the government keeping apple afloat? Or are you saying since they had educational contracts they were being kept afloat? Does Airbus have government contracts? Does Ericsson or Nokia? Do you believe European governments contracts with these companies are keeping them afloat?

iorrus 6y ago
Airbus planes used to be given away almost for free, it’s first few decades it was entirely state funded.
p_l 6y ago
Apple's federal sales division was one of the strongest sources of revenue during Apple's lowest points, thanks to very good integrated sales & support team that kept islands of Macs in various governmental locations, often doing specialised tasks as graphics/audio workstations and the like. But to get those contracts there had to be appropriate spending by government, and that's what I meant in my comment.
the-dude 6y ago
Airbus does have defense contracts.

johbjo 6y ago

Apple and Huawei are very recent phenomenons in Europe. GSM, and today's mobile networks, are essentially products of subsidized European national telcoms. The problem is rather that Europeans have historically been ineffective or slow at understanding end-user "cultural" products. American pop culture still dominates, while locals usually seem like poor imitations. But the value produced by FANGs is essentially cultural, rather than technological or industrial. This thinking is suspicious and foreign to European engineers. Boomer engineers and industrialists really struggle to grasp this and it's still a point of contention even though few know how to articulate it.

AstralStorm 6y ago
Value produced by Google? How about value drained by Google, esp. privacy and advertising. About the only value produced by Google being Google Docs and Android. Well, and the rare FLOSS improvements related to these. Facebook? Similar. Taking over culture is not value. We had better services at around time it was created, but the huge money combined with network effects did the number on them. Netflix, well. Let's say we had VoD services before them, some even better. Their major cultural win is making exclusive series with the huge money they got invested. Amazon has one improvement in their sales systems with the remote warehouses. Plus AWS. Apple at least designs phones. All of the companies benefited hugely from big cash investment, somehow EU companies don't get these. It's not a matter of culture either, there's plenty enough startups around. But US money is always more and bigger.
- johbjo 6y ago
  Somehow, we need the mindsets of Zara and H&M inside VW, Mercedes etc. These have been different universes.
- creato 6y ago
  You're really taking a lot for granted. I think not seeing and understanding that is a reflection of the larger problem you are complaining about.
soco 6y ago

jariel 6y ago

This is valid, but in reality Apple wins because they are fundamentally better managed in most ways that most European companies, point blank. That's a hard pill to swallow because it doesn't boil down to simple things like R&D spending by sector. Also, it means there's not that much the state apparatus can necessarily do. It's a fantastical misunderstanding of markets to suggest that 'government does stuff and then we win'. Obviously government is very important in systematic ways, and even more so in direct ways to help nations get over their limited size to do things like 'Airbus'. And while Steve Jobs probably would not have thrived in Europe, he did however in the US and there isn't quite a corollary in Europe. There are so many factors. And most paradoxically - many of the factors that hinder Europe from expansion, have benefits in the other direction. German culture is much more formal, the gears run pretty well there, but they also are more resistant to change. Attitudes towards work/live balance means a high standard of living, and that's worth something of course. Etc. One thing worth nothing that nobody seems to talk about so I tend to highlight it, is the media participation in industry. In the US, CNN will talk about 'RobinHood' and 'Bumble' and 'Tesla' endlessly. The amount of free PR and narrative building is incalculable. Most of the rest of the world is not like that. How do you compete as a little European entity that nobody talks about, when CNN is giving millions of 'free impressions daily' to your competitors? As one of many differentiation. Of course, in China, you have a managed economy in which the winners are effectively chosen, and the state backs them. Normally - this does not work. But when you have a nation that is 'behind' typically you an have some central planners make rational investments in 'infrastructure' and specific industry. Much like the post-war planning of Korea and Japan. After a while, the marginal returns to 'low hanging fruit' dissapears. China continues with that approach into the high tech world. While they build 'highways' (much like US strategic investment in the highway system in the 1950's) - they're also building out consumer payments (Ali), taxi services (DiDi), networking (Huawei) etc. - in a quasi capitalist way - things which, in the Western world we opted to have done in private markets.

galuggus 6y ago
China has intense competition within a company. Many teams all working on the same problem and all competing. Usually in a given sector their are three champion companies who fiercely compete with each other. Eg China telecom unicom and mobile Or tencent Ali (and now) bytedance