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Europe's Software Problem
- jasode 5y agoFyi... a related 11 minute video from a Hungarian on why Europe doesn't have many big consumer-facing tech startups: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSU5MFPn6Zk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSU5MFPn6Zk
- davidkunz 5y ago>> typical clunky open source software What?
- imNotTheProb 5y agoMeanwhile the majority of computers use open source software as their OS....
- FredPret 5y agoBut not the majority of people
- gspr 5y agoSo? Software demand is driven by the tasks software need to solve. Whether those tasks involve human interaction or not is surely irrelevant for the demand for software?
- marvinblum 5y agoDepends on what you consider a "user". You're a user of this website too, presumably running on Linux.
- FredPret 5y agoGood point. Everything has free software somewhere in the system. Most content is served using open source software. But almost no-one uses Linux for general computing because open source requires configuration to be usable.
- marvinblum 5y agoI'm on Manjaro Linux and didn't configure anything :D But, I know what you mean.
- jiofih 5y agoYou don’t agree? A more substantial comment would be informative. Can you give us one example of a stellar open source UI you use daily?
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y agoFirefox is roughly as good as any other browser, which is to say it does some things better and some things worse, and many things roughly the same. Blender is one of the 2 or 3 dominant tools in its field. It's a niche field, so it's not for office work, but is nevertheless an incredible tool by any standard. For almost anyone's purposes, LibreOffice is better than any closed source equivalent tool (though some of them do have specific features that are critical for some users). The only issues with it come from being forced to interoperate with data generated by closed source applications. I don't happen to enjoy using LibreOffice very much, but there's denying its "stellar" quality compared to the alternatives. [ EDIT: I really can't fail to mention VCV Rack, a libre+gratis virtual modular synthesizer. It wasn't the first such tool, but it is by far the most successful, and by far the best, at least in terms of user experience. It has also created an ecosystem of module developers (more than 2200 modules already), which is both a reason why and an indication of just how stellar a tool it really is ] Of course, as a software developer, I could name a long list of FLOSS tools that are also stellar, but you and others would likely dismiss them as not of interest to "the general public". In the context of this article, that would probably be fair.
- bzzzt 5y agoYou had me at LibreOffice. It struggles to render a blank page on a mac (something to do with retina resolution which is default since 2012). I've tried to use it on all supported operating systems, but everywhere it's a slow starting, glitchy mess. Still the best OSS way to interop with Office documents, but not something I would classify as "stellar".
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y agoGiven that I know dozens of people who use it without such issues on various platforms, and come across similar kinds of show-stopping problems on forums for related software, I personally wouldn't lay this at the feet of LibreOffice. Your mileage may vary.
- iamcurious 5y agoUnited States' platforms on Chinese hardware sounds like everybody's problem. Except for China which has both. To be honest, it would be nice for Europe to handle the platforms and for the United States to go back to radical innovation. The times of emacs, vi, Bell labs, Xerox and pushing the computing medium to the edge.
- Mary-Jane 5y agoAll the FAANGs are American companies, and they've all been pushing the boundaries. What do you feel America has lost in this respect?
- ballooney 5y agoIt’s not really technology though now is it. They’re pushing the boundaries of capitalism and morality but not technology. It’s been ages since Silicon Valley was about silicon. Almost all the current energy of the valley is in surveillance/ad-tech. Maybe the odd rocket as a fig-leaf.
- est31 5y agoWhere are the HQs of Qualcomm, AMD, Intel, Nvidia located? Yes, everyone talks about Uber et al and indeed those companies barely add innovative ideas compared to the innovation that is needed to increase a CPU's performance. Uber et al instead mainly do a better job at extracting money from their extremely good market positions than the hardware companies do.
- jiofih 5y agoErm… a lot of the “pushing the boundaries” of technology happens at the foundries in South Asia, and equipment providers in the Netherlands.
- bandris 5y agoThe US and California in particular lost it's appeal. 20 years ago it was the dream destination for many. Now, even some Indians steer away. I don't know a single European who would want to live in the US. Not even from Eastern Europe. The go-to place is London, Berlin, Stockholm, Amsterdam, etc. FAANGS were started 1-2 decades ago. In past 5 years the trend changed. Ask PG. He will never move back to the US. And no, Texas will never be the next big innovation hub. Living in the US is dull and uninspiring if you lived away for long. Also the missing social net makes the situation worse and worse every year. "America" is losing the talent pool.
- s_dev 5y agoPatrick Collison replying to an Economist Article that is pessimistic about European Tech Future: https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/1403340409787469836 https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/1403340409787469836
- thiago_fm 5y agoThis problem will never get fixed. The author forgot to mention in depth the main reason why EU isn't even in the game: culture. In order to be innovative and compete, we need very flexible working laws, people with a big growth mindset, a less relaxing lifestyle and AMBITIOUS people. A lot of third world countries are years ahead of the whole EU continent in that aspect. I say this because I live in Europe for the quality of life, come from a third world country, and I see how kids and adults are spoiled here. Much of what they have was just given to them. At least for the strong countries in west EU, lifestyle is very relaxed and any ambitious is frowned upon, it is extremely demotivating, not to mention bureaucracy. Corporations and regulations will just drive your small company out of the market no matter what. I find for me more likely to save some money, move to my country and create my own business and sell in Europe. People here are too lazy to compete in the fast world we live in, there in my country there is so many skilled people, so little capital, here is the reverse. Good amount of capital and foreigners working in tech. For instance, I live in Berlin and almost all the "working people" from tech companies here are foreigners. Germans are generally the executives and/or management. It is quite rare to find a german software developer on Startups. I personally think(my opinion, not the ultimate truth)... that Europe is definitely a very interesting market for companies to come here and sell their stuff, but not to make it. Instead I think Europe should focus on its strengths, which is healthy market regulations, creating a good playing field for companies from above, rather on its weaknesses. It should also figure out a way to keep part of the profits inside the continent to benefits its inhabitants. More important than competing is to know where and when to compete.
- wdb 5y agoCould be that their scarcity of software developers in Germany that requires foreign work or alternatively foreigners ask a lower salary
- csunbird 5y agoThe question needs to be asked here is: Why there is a shortage of developers in Germany, while people having access to free education? One reason is that I can be paid three times more in the US, and with the extra disposable income, I can live a better life, even without the legal protections. Second reason is that, why should the kids even bother studying computer science for 4-6 years to earn 3k per month? A plumber here can charge 100 per hour and does not require any formal educational training.
- slavoingilizov 5y ago"Since all communication platforms are now free, the only way to get people to use competitive European software and services is to also offer these for free, and to make sure this technology is very good and compelling" I have never seen a government or any regulation deliver anything "good and compelling", or take any other action to "make sure" someone else delivers it.
- hughrr 5y agogov.uk is pretty excellent.
- Bayart 5y agoTry living in a country without roads, electric grid and water management. Those aren't granted.
- iamcurious 5y agoThe moon landing is nice example.
- Cthulhu_ 5y agoOr going back a bit further, the mail.
- dnautics 5y agowell with the mail, lysander spooner tried to (and succeeded at) setting up a private alternative and was beaten the fuck back by the government. It wasn't until the late 20th C that private mail services came back, and they are specifically abjured against delivering 1st class mail.
- ema 5y agoI think a law that forbids blocking third party clients (either through terms&conditions or technical means) would level the playing field a bit. Though I see issues around balancing the need of platforms to update their APIs and an API update essentially blocking third party clients who don't keep pace.
- fsflover 5y agoSuch law would even help with the walled garden of Signal.
- w4rh4wk5 5y agoWhile I'd appreciate such a law, I doubt it would work in practice. First-party can turn it into a cat-and-mouse game where they'll introduce some minor changes that require third-party apps to be updated over and over again. We've seen this happen with some education related app / system in Sweden where people built a better third-party app / client. Finding a decent, enforceable solution this way is certainly not trivial.
- grishka 5y agoMandate that every API version that introduces breaking changes remains available for X years. Big companies do this anyway because there always are people using outdated first-party apps.
- chrisseaton 5y ago> Mandate that every API version that introduces breaking changes remains available for X years. This is the kind of insane regulation that holds Europe back - it’s the problem not the solution.
- Nursie 5y ago> Mandate that every API version that introduces breaking changes remains available for X years. Then you've just crippled the ability to deliver new functionality at a rapid pace without huge associated support costs. no?
- gabaix 5y agoIf Europe wants to have its citizens (and companies) rely significantly on European-operated software, it has no choice but to develop better software, and to also offer that for free. I can’t help thinking of Qwant, the alternative privacy-aware European search engine. Their financial standing is so dire that this week they had to ask money from Huawei. [1] [1] https://www.politico.eu/article/french-search-engine-qwant-huawei-bailout-loan/ https://www.politico.eu/article/french-search-engine-qwant-h...
- klaaz0r 5y agoRaising capital is getting easier but still nothing compared to the US. If we want change we need more capital to make competing software. If my competitor from SV has 10M in the bank and I can only raise 500k in Europe how do I compete? The end users doesn't care that much.
- zhdc1 5y agoThis apparently isn't as much of an issue anymore, although there are supposedly other constraints on scaling.
- zhdc1 5y ago> If Europe wants to have its citizens (and companies) rely significantly on European-operated software, it has no choice but to develop better software, and to also offer that for free It already does. Look at the very large number of open source projects (like Linux) that originated or received substantial contributions from continental European volunteers. What Europe doesn't have is a strong VC infrastructure or a large density of software engineers in any given location to simplify growth scaling. Some of these are changing. Whether they will change fast enough to compete in software is another story, but it's very likely that Europe will be better positioned to take advantage of the next tech revolution. You can already see this in biotech.
- eldaisfish 5y agowhat Europe also doesn't have is a true single market. It has fractured markets, each with a different language, different legal requirements and so on. For all the disagreements here, look at where people move. Only around 5% of EU citizens live and work in an [edit: EU] country other than their own and a large slice of that is people from the east moving west. Only a sliver is highly skilled work and the majority is semi-skilled or low-skilled. The EU loves to boast about how freedom of movement of people is an important pillar but getting it to work over the long term is still a bureaucratic nightmare. Meanwhile, the US continues to vacuum up talent from across the world despite an utterly broken immigration system. Heck, even Canada is a top destination for talent due to its proximity to the US.
- semiconduction 5y agoI think the +55% tax rates on net revenue may have something to do. Choose either of: - VAT + capital income tax + personal income tax on dividend 1- (0.8)(0.8)(0.6) = 61 cents per euro go into taxes - VAT + Social security + personal income tax on labor income = 1- (0.8)(0.9)(0.6) = 56c per euro go into taxes
- ganzuul 5y agoNokia is not dead!
- durnygbur 5y agoNokia is a shade of past itself. Its telecom software divisions in EU are sweatshops.
- larsnystrom 5y agoNeither is Ericsson. In fact they are #2 and #3 when it comes to market share in networking equipment. Since Huawei is banned in many European countries now, I bet most sold networking equipment in Europe right now is European.
- pilsetnieks 5y agoI take offense at such massive overgeneralizations as "Europe lacks imagination." What it lacks is freely flowing funding such that risky enterprises can be funded even if 1 out of ten or 1 out of hundred actually are successful. This kills business models which cannot show any profit whatsoever, and a large portion of the remainder are killed by data regulations forbidding "alternate paths of monetization" (to put it charitably.) Rather, a problem is that once a European project becomes successful enough, it soon becomes an American project, either by acquisition or by moving to where the investment money is.
- MangoCoffee 5y ago>risky enterprises can be funded even if 1 out of ten or 1 out of hundred actually are successful correct me if i'm wrong, Europe is dominated by legacy business/banks that normally won't take such risk. legacy business like BMW. European and Asian want to see you have some success or already making money before they invest. while American will throw money into something that just an idea.
- BlargMcLarg 5y agoThe entire culture is based around "legacy" and "experience". Truth is, Europeans are extremely risk-averse and favor legacy, with grants, laws and such reflecting that. That said, Europeans will throw money at an "idea", as long as that idea is approved by peers. They'll even die with that idea, once invested.
- HPsquared 5y agoThree problem is, these institutional investors lack the ability to evaluate risk:reward on entrepreneurial projects.
- fvdessen 5y agoIt's dominated by businesses where network effects are not in play; commodities, specialist equipment, medicine, biotech, hardware, etc. If there's a cultural, legal, or network element to the business, then the fragmentation of the European market puts it at a massive disadvantage. Investor knows it and thus avoid investing in those sectors because they don't want to fight uphill battles
- jacob2484 5y agoEurope lacks the US bankruptcy laws which encourage risk-taking that is needed in this space
- imNotTheProb 5y agoThey don't have LLCs?
- Juliate 5y agoThere are equivalents (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsabilit%C3%A9_limit%C3%A9e https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsabilit%C3%A9_limit%C3%A... - in French) but country-specific, there's no a European common structure. But another benefit from LLCs in the USA might be the lighter paperwork and simpler taxes filing. Which we also have (in France at least, as entrepreneur individuel), but both don't intersect.
- Bayart 5y ago>there's no a European common structure. There are European corporate entities nowadays. See SE[0], SCE[1] and SPE[2]. The SPE is what you'd call an LLC, GmbH, SARL etc. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societas_Europaea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societas_Europaea [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societas_cooperativa_Europaea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societas_cooperativa_Europaea [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societas_privata_Europaea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societas_privata_Europaea
- MatthewMcDonald 5y agoI don't know about the bankruptcy laws, but Germany's GMBH (similar to an LLC) requires 25k in capital to get started.
- thesimon 5y agoUG requires only 1ct, though extracting profit is a bit more difficult until you get to 25k.
- dharmaturtle 5y agoPG has a related essay: Why Startups Condense in America http://www.paulgraham.com/america.html http://www.paulgraham.com/america.html He actually has several essays on how to try to create a Silicon Valley in other geographic areas, but this seemed the most relevant. tldr: 1. The US Allows Immigration. 2. The US Is a Rich Country. 3. The US Is Not (Yet) a Police State. 4. American Universities Are Better. 5. You Can Fire People in America. 6. In America Work Is Less Identified with Employment. 7. America Is Not Too Fussy. (If there are any laws regulating businesses, you can assume larval startups will break most of them, because they don't know what the laws are and don't have time to find out.) 8. America Has a Large Domestic Market. 9. America Has Venture Funding. 10. America Has Dynamic Typing for Careers. (Compared to other industrialized countries the US is disorganized about routing people into careers. For example, in America people often don't decide to go to medical school till they've finished college. In Europe they generally decide in high school.) 11. Attitude (There's one item conspicuously missing from this list: American attitudes. Americans are said to be more entrepreneurial, and less afraid of risk. But America has no monopoly on this. Indians and Chinese seem plenty entrepreneurial, perhaps more than Americans. Some say Europeans are less energetic, but I don't believe it. I think the problem with Europe is not that they lack balls, but that they lack examples.)
- gspr 5y agoAs a European, I do think he hits several marks correctly. But I don't at all understand point 10. If anything, it's been my experience that the US is more focused on people having "the right" education for the job. Could anyone elaborate on what he might possibly mean? (Also, I think point 4 is very field-specific. While the US may have a few institutions that are universally recognized as excellent, there are also many European ones that are phenomenal within a given field. Having a truly exceptional group within field X does not give your a university the name recognition of Stanford, but it serves the same purpose when it comes to training people in field X.)
- chrisseaton 5y ago> If anything, it's been my experience that the US is more focused on people having "the right" education for the job. What are you thinking of here? Big US companies like Google will let you get a high-level job with no college education whatsoever. Most traditional European companies would not consider doing that. > While the US may have a few institutions that are universally recognized as excellent "a few institutions"? The US absolutely dominates the top universities. You have to go down to the 40s to find your first EU institution.
- Guid_NewGuid 5y agoAnother "poor Europe, too scared, too insular, too antiquated" article. I wish my trends site still worked since this seems to be a bit of a theme recently. Something is out of whack about the priorities here. Yes America has FANGS and is at the cutting edge of slinging ads and casino style VC culture. But have you seen the state of US banking and payments infrastructure? Plaid is pretty much cutting edge for god's sake. The US is so far behind in banking and actual useful technology it's quite funny. Things like GDPR and OpenBanking point to an alternative way of doing technology, that to my value set is better than the ability to inflate ridiculous Uber/WeWork/etc. valuations with no correlation to real world value.
- zepto 5y ago> The US is so far behind in banking and actual useful technology it's quite funny. I see this said, and it was true two decades ago, but I’m not aware of any way it’s true now. What banking can you do in Europe that you can’t do in the US?
- Bayart 5y agoInstant bank transfers over SEPA for one, without third party payment processor involved.
- zepto 5y agoRight, that’s the only one I’ve ever heard, but what does ‘without third party payment processor involved’ bring in practice? I have a European bank account and a US one, and I don’t experience any meaningful difference, indeed the third party processors in the US are generally far more feature rich than the bare bones European bank options. Hardly: “The US is so far behind in banking and actual useful technology it's quite funny.” More: An irrelevant implementation detail that doesn’t impact end users.
- jbverschoor 5y agoNot supported everywhere Direct debit not supported everywhere. Important for saas
- open-source-ux 5y agoAlthough the EU is a marketplace of 27 countries, it is not a digitally homogeneous marketplace. Adoption and acceptance of digital tools varies by country. Language is also important - the tech giants localise their apps and tools. But many software companies in larger European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain etc) concentrate on their home country first before they focus on international reach. That makes sense. In smaller countries, where the software market is also smaller, software companies have a more international outlook. I am struggling to think of European success stories in the traditional desktop app space - apps that have international reach and name recognition. I can only think of a handful desktop apps: - Sketch (Netherlands) - Affinity Photo/Designer/Publisher (UK) - Cinema4D (Germany) Who else enjoys international success for their desktop apps? What about SaaS? The apps above specialise in a particluar field (design and 3D animation), but missing are any apps in the "office productivity" category which seem completely dominated by tech giants like Microsoft and Google. Note: I purposely did not mention SAP because no-one looks to SAP as a source of inspiration. Their enterprise apps are expensive and clunky.
- notanormalnerd 5y agoI want to highlight this. There is always talk about a european market, but it is more like 27 markets with one access ticket. You have 27 languages, 27 cultures, 27 political systems, 27 markets, 27 levels of development and infrastructure. Although you have a market of 300 million consumers, they all have different spending habits, different spending power, different needs... America is one market of 300 million people, with roughly the same culture, the same language, the same laws and political system and has been exporting it's language and power through out the last 100 years, so your market is probably double the size of your population. There is also success stories of european players: Zalando, Delivery Hero. Sap has some very innovative departments, but their Reputation all in all is shite, yes. Also most of souther europe doesn't have the get rich quick mentality. They live by "dolce vita" - the good life. Nobody is gonna be bending over backwards here to become a millionaire anytime soon. They happily live with 20k€ a year and their families and Relationships. I still hate the shitty software we make here in europe/germany but we are working hard here to improve that. And if a european company tells you they offer a API or Service, they probably wont shut it down because it went out of falvour this month.
- AshamedCaptain 5y ago> If Europe wants to have its citizens (and companies) rely significantly on European-operated software, it has no choice but to develop better software, NEVER in my 30+ years as a user of computer networks or communication programs I have seen the "better software" win. It has always been the most marketing, the most shady ethics, or anything else that lead to the strongest network effect.
- pjc50 5y agoFollowing this, I think it might be instructive to ask what happened to EU tech successes that have failed. Nokia and the famous "burning platform", for example. Was it the case that natural market competition leads to there being only room for two phone OSs? And a far more controversial question: would it be allowed? Or would a successful European world-dominating quasi-monopoly on the FAANG scale get banned from the US market? We've seen twitches in that direction (remember the "Tiktok will be forced to sell to Oracle" nonsense?). Or in the aerospace market, things like https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/26/bombardier-us-tariffs-imports-uk-trump-jobs-belfast https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/26/bombardier-... or https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32542140 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32542140 ; Boeing vs Airbus shenanigans go back a long way. I found out the other day that one of the UK's longstanding tech companies collapsed after accidentally buying a CIA front organization for illegal arms sales: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferranti#Collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferranti#Collapse Or ARM: are they an "EU" tech success any more? As their ownership is passed from Japanese Softbank to US NVIDIA.
- chrisseaton 5y ago> Or ARM: are they an "EU" tech success any more? Even if they stay where they are they're not in the EU any longer anyway!
- DrBazza 5y agoThe UK government have blocked the sale to nvidia as far as I know. Whether that means it is being brought back to the UK, I don't know. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56804007 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56804007
- jacquesm 5y agoTech innovation, once it has resulted in sufficient financial advantage becomes a 'winner takes all' game, where the people that won the previous round have a better than average chance of winning all subsequent rounds as well until there is some outside imposed limit. They are either able to throw more resources at the same problem or they can afford to buy out the successes elsewhere and claim them as their own. The same argument could be made about the European film scene (check out how many Hollywood blockbusters are remakes of great European movies), the European music scene and the European literature scene to greater or lesser degree. But you know what? It's fine. There is plenty of quality software in Europe, and as long as those companies don't get bought out by the handful of runaway American successes they can grow and do just fine. They tend to be better at customer service, they tend to be better at addressing multi-lingual markets at an earlier stage in their development than their American counterparts and they are active in important fields. The thing that America excels at is advertising and simply making money. But there is more than that in this world.
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- MangoCoffee 5y agoEU is not one market. its 27 markets with different language, history, culture, preferences...etc. is it even worth the time and efforts?
- cblconfederate 5y agoIt is one market for google, facebook, apple etc. They all succeeded and there's no reason a successful EU company wouldn't become european and essentially global. But for this to happen u have to have companies that grow
- MangoCoffee 5y agobut google, facebook, apple...etc. already huge in US with vast amount of resources before they enter foreign market. a start up in US/China have one big market for them to grow domestically and gain enough resources before entering foreign market. lets say you are a small German start up. is German big enough to grow and gain enough resources before you enter say Estonia? edit: isn't Rocket Internet business model is copying successful US company for Europe before the US company have enough resources to enter?
- cblconfederate 5y agofacebook entered europe at the same time as US and there were even a lot of european competitors. It did not really displace them, what happened is their competitors lacked to motivation to outcompete facebook in europe. The only remnant of that era is VK for obvious reasons (both it and Yandex are actually pretty good though not great)
- jbverschoor 5y agoNo it didn’t. It stayed in the US until it blew up. They did win. Not because the lack of innovation. Because the international aspect of Facebook. Friends from holidays, people using Facebook abroad etc. Facebook itself is always lagging the market, and then either copy or buy the thing that’s hot at that point.
- cblconfederate 5y agoWe have to operate by american rules in the hope that something will catch on, and then pray european countries won't create legislation that outlaws or makes it impossible to monetize your product. Schemes like the H2020 research grants are more of a UBI for Phd holders than a real attempt to outcompete the world. I don't think any funding scheme coming from the EU can be competitive, instead of a job-and-bureaucracy-creation machine. Europe lacks on marketing, distribution and ability to acquire and lock-in users, fast. This has been the american recipe to success time and again, not the quality of consumer-facing products which has been going downhill for a decade now. We can't bet on EU as a whole to create an ecosystem, instead the best use of EU funds would be for states to run the most basic consumer services for free for their citizens (such as email or a mastodon instance). It will be sub-par but it will at least create an alternative due to the EU's large distribution mechanism.
- sdevonoes 5y ago> For one, we lack the imagination and vision to launch something without knowing how it might eventually make money I don't think there is lack of imagination. The biggest barrier for any person who wants to launch something is: paperwork around establishing a company. In some countries you have to pay every month some amount of money if you want to be a freelancer, in others you need to setup a sole proprietorship, in others the distinction is not that clear. In almost every country in Europe (perhaps with the exception of the UK) the whole process is cumbersome. Young people who are willing to launch some projects online don't want to mess up with taxes authorities nor lawyers nor the commerce chamber... and hence they decide not to launch anything at all. Besides, setting up a company costs money (perhaps not much). I live in Europe. I don't want to setup a damn company for every little project I may think it can become big. I want to let my projects grow in the wild, and if any of them get traction then sure, I will setup a company without fear of losing money. Also: being a software engineer/computer programmer in Europe is not as sexy as it is in USA. It's getting better, yes, but here the "engineer" is the last monkey. Managers and sales are the ones who get the credit. So, European mentality also plays a role here.
- Scarblac 5y ago> > > For one, we lack the imagination and vision to launch something without knowing how it might eventually make money > I don't think there is lack of imagination. The biggest barrier for any person who wants to launch something is: paperwork around establishing a company. I don't think that is true for the type of company that is described by the line you're replying to. Starting a company is not that hard. Starting a company without even knowing what its eventual business model will be, purely banking on growth for growth's sake, that requires a vast amount of investment with very little guarantees of a return. And that is hard to get in Europe! Much harder than merely starting a company is. I have been part of one such startup for a short time years ago, and I thought it was a complete scam, so unused was I to that type of company. I've never seen any since. > In some countries you have to pay every month some amount of money if you want to be a freelancer, Yes, but freelancing isn't the topic. However, I have a feeling that companies that just want to grow big and are unclear on what their business model will be when they are, are not exactly working on the most important problems. So maybe it's not all bad for Europe.
- seu 5y ago> European investors specifically are much more interested in traditional business plans than US venture capitalists. “Data is the new oil” does not translate well into German, French or Spanish. > In addition, with the GDPR, NIS (2) Directive & other regulations, data in Europe is definitely more “the new toxic waste”. It is in any case not a business plan. > So not only do we lack the imagination to launch free platforms, the path to one day making money with them is blocked by regulation. So protecting your citizens' rights and their privacy is "lack of imagination"? This is such a horrible argument. As if the only way to provide a service were to spy on your users.
- dralley 5y ago>So protecting your citizens' rights and their privacy is "lack of imagination"? This is such a horrible argument. I don't really think it's the argument the author is making, or if they are, they mean it sarcastically. The frustration is with the state of affairs where American companies can destroy the entire market for software products with free services built on data mining, much like Uber, Lyft, Doordash, etc. have upended the market by completely ignoring profitability in search of marketshare. And data mining pretty much is the only way to provide a free service and still make money.
- jbverschoor 5y agoProtecting? They’re dining small companies millions, but fail to do anything against “big tech” The whole gdpr is a big mess. In terms of investors, there is barely any seed capital. There is series A/B, but the amounts are smaller than a typical seed round. They need to see profits from day one
- cletus 5y agoHot take: the problems here are cultural. Consider these data points: 1. The US is a country of migrants (ignoring the blight of slavery for now), whether those be those seeking a better life from Europe originally, later China and later still Central and South America. These are all people who uprooted whatever lives they had and legally or illegally migrated to the US. IMHO you still see echoes of this "pioneering" culture and I think it's no accident that the peak of the frontier, the Wild West, and homesteading in general have been deeply mythologized. But look at TV shows like Gold Rush or Deadliest Catch. Whatever creative license is taken here, you still have people who will take the risk of working a dangerous and dirty job for a share of the proceeds. The average American just seems to have more of an appetite for risk than at least anywhere I've been in Europe. 2. The much-discussed "Protestant work ethic". As exploitative as it is (and it is exploitative), the willingness of Americans to work all the time has an effect that I don't think you can dismiss. 3. Being comfortable makes you more risk-averse, even lazy. We all joke on here about Europe with its 6-8 weeks of vacation, 35 hour work weeks, universal health care and a year of maternity of leave to some extent. These are all good things. The upside of not having those things, if there is one, is that (IMHO) people have a greater motivation. Again, I'm not saying this is a good thing. It just... is. 4. 330M people most of whom speak one language (English obviously). You can't argue that this doesn't make things easier. 5. The barrier to education that is cost with a legacy admissions system led to the endowment system that created venture capital. For the record, I'm Australian not American and the above isn't intended to extol the virtues of American culture. For example, the fact that a near-majority of the US thinks it's acceptable that a trip to the ER can bankrupt a significant portion of the population is cruel, even reprehensible. EDIT: corrected less risk-averse to more risk-averse.
- BlargMcLarg 5y ago>Being comfortable makes you less risk-averse, even lazy Do you mean more risk-averse? Anyway, to comment on this point. Non-Europeans, get quite a few things mixed up. >We all joke on here about Europe with its 6-8 weeks of vacation, 35 hour work weeks, universal health care and a year of maternity of leave to some extent. The bigger problem is two-fold and has to do with your second point: 1. Europeans have very set schedules, which has only started to erode with younger generations. Summer for vacation. Evening and weekend for relaxation. Weekdays for work. This encompasses almost every hour of a person's life, each year. If you have an idea you can execute alone and deviate from this pattern, great. If you don't and need someone else, good luck finding like-minded people, as you're already a very unique individual. If you can somehow accumulate enough wealth or get an investment, you could hire people instead. Yet, that's tough for younger people to do, and older people will slowly settle in their ways. Also, related to point 1, Europeans typically don't venture very far away from their childhood friends and family unlike Americans having no qualms uprooting their past lives. 2. Europeans don't universally have 6-8 weeks of vacation and 35 hour work weeks. Most of the younger middle class or upper middle class is likely to work 40h weeks and has 3-4 weeks of vacation, as well as some loose mandatory holidays. Loose mandatory holidays kinda suck to work with for bigger projects, at best you can weave them together with your PTO. Even working 32h weeks, which a lot of Europeans started doing, still leaves your head with the job 4 out of 7 days and mentally complex things require pretty big context shifts. The structure of this free time is more positioned as "regular bigger breaks from work" rather than "now I can take time off from my job for a long time and focus on my own stuff". Either way, nothing beats just taking a year off to work on yourself or your own ideas.
- noisy_boy 5y agoAm I the only one who thinks this is not a problem but just how things should be in general? Why should people be pushed to work themselves to death due to societal/financial pressure? If the work culture in Europe provides less stressful life and better work-life balance, barring those who are career driven/ambitious/enjoy the associated challenges, it should be perfectly ok to embrace the former without being guilt-shamed by the latter. I don't have stats but I think the percentage of people who enjoy their work but not as much so as to slow-march to their deaths to the tunes of never-ending deadlines, isn't insignificant.
- Scarblac 5y ago> Why should people be pushed to work themselves to death due to societal/financial pressure? The article isn't about that at all?
- elric 5y agoAt least in Belgium, a very large fraction (perhaps even the majority) of software developers works for the government or for banks. It goes without saying that neither governments nor banks are exactly known for developing great software, or for marketing it ...
- MichaelRazum 5y agoLiving in EU. Can only say, the main reason is in my perspective regulatory and taxes. Some points - It is difficult to issue equity and get equity (tax) - Each EU country has different taxes. You are taxed lower in Netherlands than in Germany. - Each country has different regulation rules. If you do something exciting. Wow let's say a social network. You would be killed by regulation and data privacy rules. Autonomous driving the same. Blockchain forget it. - Ideology driven investments. Maybe just a feeling. But nearly on each event green energy seems to be the hot topic. It is kind of political driven. Like everyone should jump on the green energy train. It is harder to get funding for more exotic topics...
- jahsis 5y agoThis! Companies from smaller countries even can't grow, just because local market is big as it is and if you want to grow, you need to sell goods/services in other countries, which means you need lawyers to get into all tax and other legal nuances. Just by fixing this issues for small companies would boom growth of tech and other companies.
- MichaelRazum 5y agoexactly and it gets hell of complex since every country has its own tax rules. Especially CFC rules and so on makes your life pretty difficult. Big companies can of course play the game very well.
- raverbashing 5y agoThere are a couple of self-driving and blockchain companies in Europe, but curiously enough they don't find it as difficult as some random internet commenter "killed by regulation and data privacy rules" Funny to see the same people that bemoan the privacy rules being now forced to follow them due to Apple and Google. Seems like they'll have to actually sit and think how to do instead of complaining.
- hocuspocus 5y ago> Autonomous driving the same. Blockchain forget it. There's plenty of both in the EU. And blockchain is more useful as a counter-example of innovation than anything.
- amadeuspagel 5y agoThe author's explanation for the lack of european tech companies is that almost all software relies on business models other then charging money, and for various reasons european companies aren't able to use these business models. This doesn't seem sufficient. For three of the five big US tech companies - Microsoft, Apple and Amazon - the main business model is charging money. If the author's explanation is correct, these companies could could just as well have been founded in europe, yet no company even approaching their power and influence has been.
- thu2111 5y agoMicrosoft Apple and Amazon date from a time before saturation internet access, Amazon being created right at the start. Back then internet advertising wasn't a plausible business model. Even when Google was new it wasn't taken seriously in America. Google tried to sell to Yahoo for $1M and they said no because everyone knows you can't monetize web search. Once it became clear that ads were a bit more profitable than that, the success of Google/FB led to a tidal wave of VC capital searching for opportunities that looked just like those. So suddenly everyone is trying to give their service away for free and make it up on {ads, volume}. I guess I feel very mixed about this, being a European who is now starting his own software company (taking a break from coding for a few mins at the moment). I remember when I was in my early 20s, before YouTube was acquired, my mother pointed at it and said, "Why couldn't you have made that?". My response was to laugh and say, mum, look, you can't pay for video streaming using banner ads. Streaming is expensive and banner ads don't earn much money. Was I right? Wrong? I still am not sure. YouTube may or may not be profitable. It was extremely ambiguous to what extent Google's businesses outside of web and content ads made money when I was working there, although that was years ago, so of course it may be very different now. Obviously the YouTube founders did very well out of it, but their business model was basically "sell the company to someone who can save us, or die trying". Whether it's European culture or parental expectations I don't know, but deep down I didn't and still don't feel like that is a truly honourable way to create and run a business. I would feel guilty and bad if I were hiring people to a company without having the foggiest idea of how to ever pay their salaries, nor would I feel comfortable pitching to investors a firm whose business model was clearly unworkable. Yet, this is the standard business strategy in the Valley. Years later I found myself in the offices of a16z. I wasn't there to pitch, although the receptionist assumed I was. I'd been invited to discuss an app I'd written that had attracted their attention. I told them the app was open source and I wouldn't take their money because I had no idea what its business model could be. A mistake? Maybe. European? Very. I could now go raise funds for my new venture, and maybe at some point I will. Plenty of investors have expressed interest. But, fundamentally, I still don't want to. It feels somehow like "cheating" to create a business that doesn't really make money. Or if not cheating then at least somehow not quite something you can be proud of. Certainly, the American way of creating a startup that loses money for years would not at all impress my friends, family or fiancé. They would in fact see that as failure, not success. And I'm OK with that. So I'm probably destined to create another small European software company that may or may not one day sell to a bigger US firm. Don't get me wrong. I dream big. But deep down I know that if I attract too much attention I'll always be at risk of being steamrollered by a "success is failure" US VC backed company that has no idea how to become sustainable, but might somehow stumble onto a plan anyway and if it doesn't, well the VCs will force one of their other investments to make an acquihire and somehow it'll work out so that everyone can save face. Bankruptcy is after all, basically unheard of in the Valley, and spending other people's money for a decade is lionized.
- DelightOne 5y ago> what Europe also doesn't have is a true single market. It has fractured markets, each with a different language, different legal requirements and so on. I agree with this from a commenter below. In US you have so many more customers that speak your language and have your culture. You can move around and find common issues. One government. One law. So different from the EU. I do not see a fix until government, law and language becomes unified to a common government, common law and the common language.
- oftenwrong 5y agoThe US has one dominant language and one dominant culture, but the legal system is complex. There are national laws. There are also 50 states, each with their own sets of laws. There are also laws at lower levels (county, city, etc). There are similarities that hold true, more-or-less, across the nation, but also differences that are relevant to businesses. For example, the recent battle in California over how "gig economy" workers are classified: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_22 Or, the problem of figuring out where you can sell your micro-mobility vehicle: "The classification of ebikes and other forms of transport is a complex matter in the US. There are federal rules and lots of different regulations at state and city level." https://www.mypodride.com/faqs https://www.mypodride.com/faqs (see the "PodRide for USA and Canada" section) The US may be better than in the EU in this regard, but it's also not that different.
- DelightOne 5y agoUS legal system seems less complex than the EU. Thought I admit that I do not have a complete overview of US law. I see it like having many small US countries at the same time, while the EU law above just directs these smaller US countries to implement custom laws for their own backwater. I chose the example because for each country, all the levels you describe also seem to exist.
- jimmyvalmer 5y agoOnce again, proof that no good deed goes unpunished. It's a credit to Europe's social values that they find themselves prey to the profit-first institutions of Silicon Valley. And lest we forget, the world-changing beneficence of the internet and Linux originated from a Swiss lab and a Finn.
- adreamingsoul 5y agoFinns have been behind a lot of what we have today.
- StavrosK 5y ago* the web, not the internet.
- 3GuardLineups 5y agoignore the fact that Linus is now an American citizen
- ramboldio 5y agoThe EU should just pay anybody who makes Open Source contributions. Problem solved. Europeans get their own tech stack. Can compete again with US companies, as the all the cost for building infrastructure is externalized.
- golergka 5y agoI understand the intention behind such a proposal, history of unintended consequences of government intensives should stop any sensible person from implementing anything remotely like that. Do you remember how one company promised people a free shirt for open source contributions, and how it resulted in an epic shitstorm of garbage patches? Just a few months ago. Now, imagine this, but with actual money instead of T-shirts.
- erwald 5y agoit could take other forms though, for instance you could identify people who are already maintaining or creating significant foss projects and pay them while they keep working on them. probably it makes sense to limit this to the most productive/driven few. it should be really straightforward (though time-consuming) to see if someone is cheating, because all the work is there in public view in the form of git commits.
- ramboldio 5y agoThis is for public policy people to figure out. They do stuff like that all the time. Of course it's not easy. But if it works, can be tremendously effective. Maybe a starter would be to give some maintainers of already successful projects a salary, if they want. Impossible to game.
- inglor_cz 5y agoCzech here. In my opinion, Europe lacks the venture capitalist culture that formed the Silicon Valley. Actually, most of the U.S. lack it as well, but having one Silicon Valley is much better than having zero of them. European startups struggle to raise any money at all. (And I mean on the order of 100,000 eur, much less millions.) Our banks are extremely risk-averse and if they spend money at all, it is on projects that the political sphere supports. These tend to be duds.
- jillesvangurp 5y agoI'm a European, living in Europe, developing software. Lack of imagination is not our problem. It's so good that we supply our best talent to the US where it does extremely well revolutionizing AI, designing hardware for Apple, developing games, stream online music, etc. E.g. Amazon's CTO is Dutch. Basically the person that has been running AWS. The people and the education system are fine. Europe does have a few issues that make it unnecessarily hard to build successful startups here. People do start companies here but more often than not success is followed by US investment and before you know it the company is headquartered in the US. There are many reasons for that but a big one has to be that raising similar amounts of money in Europe is super hard. Investors drag their heels, founders have to take on more risk, etc. A second reason is simply that the US as a big homogeneous market is a nice one to tackle for European companies as well. And often that means having a (big) presence in the US. The EU is basically many markets unified by really complex rules, bureaucracy, etc. There is free traffic of people but companies have a harder time dealing with local variations in legislation, hurdles for billing and taxation (e.g. VAT), banking, bureaucracy, etc. That's much less of a thing in the US (though it is a bit of a thing there too between states). And that's before you consider language and cultural differences. Simply put, the same company in the EU will have a very hard time growing compared to doing that in the US. Being successful in the US market, means having the deep pockets to go international. Doing the same from a small country means you barely have enough to expand to another small country. Going international is hard work. Not something you do with your MVP. It's not very scalable either: you need to worry about cultural differences, bureaucracy, localization, understanding the local market, ramping up sales, marketing, etc. Especially with SAAS companies this is super expensive.
- franciscop 5y agoI believe the article means "lack of imagination from business", for which I'll strongly agree as a European who migrated a while ago. In my personal experience you have either wannapreneurs trying to break through with minimal budgets, or large investments in established companies. They don't seem to mix though, business people go for safer things than trying to build the next Google. Raising money for a prototype, even if it's making some money, is almost impossible or at the very best will land you with very bad terms.
- pwthornton 5y agoSome of the stuff in this article may be fine, and trying to raise money is certainly harder in Europe, but I thought one of the biggest drags on Europe's tech industry is poor pay for engineers and other tech talent? In the U.S., going into a tech career can be one of the best ways to make a high salary quickly -- especially without needing an advanced degree. Without this incentive, you'll have a lot less people pursuing education and careers in these areas. A software engineer makes like 50% more salary (let alone all of the other stuff) in the Bay Area as they do in London. London is a really expensive city that pays certain industries a ton of money.
- xputer 5y agoExactly, the substantially higher salaries for tech workers in the US allows them to attract the best and brightest from all over the world.
- MrBuddyCasino 5y agoThe reason US developers are paid more is because US startups are much more successful. As to why they are so much more successful is a different question.
- kazen44 5y agoAlso, the US dollar being the defacto reserve currency and it currently being incredibly cheap helps quite a lot. The US is basically the only country being able to borrow directly against natural resources (which it has plenty off, especially compared to the EU).
- b20000 5y agoThey are paid more, because the US is a much more expensive place to live (at least in California).
- MrBuddyCasino 5y agoThis is circular logic. The US is more expensive because it has higher median wages. Its not like its a remote island with a few hundred people which would make logistics difficult.
- barbarbar 5y agoI think there is some guy in Europe that made an OS some years ago - Linus or something. So there is at least one with some imagination.
- tormeh 5y agoMy previous comment on this issue: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27508759 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27508759 (Slightly edited) copy-paste: Economist ran an article on this: https://www.economist.com/briefing/2021/06/05/once-a-corpora https://www.economist.com/briefing/2021/06/05/once-a-corpora... We're in the service economy now, and Europe has no real single market for services, due to all kinds of national regulations that differ throughout the block. Nor does it have well-developed financial and labor markets, partly also because they are currently partitioned by nationality. Its stock exchanges are too many and too small, etc. The list goes on. For many big European companies, an astounding percentage of revenue comes from the US or China. But if you start a startup building for US/China from the start, why would you want the HQ to be somewhere in Europe? This also means that the story is very very different for products that can be shipped in boxes. Europe does extremely well in cars, beverages, clothing, chemicals and that sort of thing. Also electrical utilities for some reason.
- oytis 5y ago> The remaining non-trivial challenge is how to turn such EU funding into quality software This is not a trivial challenge though. It's basically about creating a business climate that would allow startups grow fast and capture dominating positions on both European and worldwide markets. Funding, with all its importance (look at what DARPA funding has enabled) can only give a first impulse, help a team create a prototype of something innovative. The rest is on legislation, investing culture, taxation etc.
- logicalmonster 5y agoI think the author's reasoning that the entire continent of Europe lacks imagination was a major weakness of this article, and perhaps unintentionally some kind of -ist or -ism. Anecdotally, many of the brightest American software developers I've met hail from Europe: UK, Greece, Russia, Serbia, Italy, etc. I can go on and on and think of many geniuses I've had the privilege to work with. The question that people should be asking is why do the best and brightest often tend to migrate to American companies? My personal perspective on why European software doesn't seem to ever become market leading boils down to their government culture of wanting to regulate almost everything. Software is a world of possibilities. You can start from nothing and code literally anything. To me, the European tendency to want to have government regulate that and confine you to a narrow box of allowed services stifles that. Anybody who has a unique idea (unique ideas always step you outside of the box of existing regulated services) is going to be hampered. To give an example: something as simple as their Cookie law, which no doubt started with good intentions, just makes the first impression with any European website ugly and focuses away from the actual product. Does anybody really not know what a cookie is by now? Seriously?
- dvdkon 5y agoAs far as I know, there wasn't ever any law mandating banners for any and all cookies, it was for (frankly poorly defined, GDPR somewhat fixed that) non-necessary cookies. But nobody's going to put "Do you want to be tracked? Y/N" banners on their site.
- benlivengood 5y agoIf the goal is trustworthy software then just write and host trustworthy software. If the goal is to have a thriving economy based on writing and hosting trustworthy software then it's going to need subsidies; it costs more to pay for high quality software written by engineers protected by strong labor laws than it does to pay Silicon Valley rates with RSUs complicit in large-scale data gathering and exploitation. Ironically in economic terms Europe (the EU and Ireland specifically) already hosts a huge fraction of FAANG profits and IP ownership/licensing due to double-Irish arrangements. They just offshore the development to the U.S. So mission accomplished I guess?
- yesbabyyes 5y agoI must say that I lack the Scandinavian/Baltic perspective here. Some successful software projects founded in Scandinavia and the Baltics some of you have heard of include: Linux Skype Spotify Mojang (Minecraft) Rovio (Angry Birds) SoundCloud Klarna MySQL Opera Qt Even Tidal, Rdio and Beats Music can trace their ancestry to this region. Not to mention the only(?) remaining competition to Chinese telecom, Ericsson and Nokia, following the defeat of Lucent, Nortel, Siemens et al. With this perspective, perhaps it can be argued that speaking of Europe as a whole in this sense is unproductive.
- donkarma 5y agoNow let's start counting US startups
- 1experience 5y agoIf the issue is about security and not economics, free open source platforms already exist. Europe should fund them heavily and by doing so give them the advertising power to compete with for-profit ones. Otherwise they will end up squandering a lot of money, Covid apps are not a good example.[1] [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/henwet/the_uk_gov_just_spent_118_million_on_a_covid/ https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/henwet/the_uk_...
- insert_coin 5y agoInnovation requires instability. Europe decided long ago that life security and 'quality of life' was their goal, which is a worthy goal, but every decision you make means there is a path you didn't take. You can't have everything.
- jfax 5y agoAs much as I partly agree with this article, I find it painful to read because it shoddily reengineers bits of Free (as in freedom) software discourse. Specifically that proprietary software subjugates users with malicious features to make money - the US is more creative at doing this than European ones. But yes I agree, the US is better at it, for better or for worse.
- cannabis_sam 5y agoNeeds a corresponding article called «the US anti-trust problem», of course american companies are bigger when they can just buy up the competition while continuing to run the actual service into the ground (facebook, twitter and youtube/google all fits here) since there’s no alternative… Or maybe it should just be called «the US Social Media problem»… (There’s also the tax issue, but that’s mostly on countries like Ireland and The Netherlands being tax havens (UK too, but they left, kinda…))
- jdasdf 5y agoThe reason is very simple. Europe is overtaxed and over-regulated and the situation is not likely to change for the better any time soon.
- toomuchredbull 5y agoCanada has a lot of the same problems, it is finally getting a bit better but we still have a long way to go.
- jokethrowaway 5y agoWe already have plenty of OSS software. Signal can be a perfect replacement for Whatsapp. If the EU want to spend money on maintaining, improving and deploying Signal, that'd be great. People still won't use it, though. It's too late. If Europe wants a slice of the market they need to make business as frictionless as possible like the USA did in the past - that will bring capital, eventually. I think Europe has bigger problems to care about though.
- ik22kkKK3i 5y agoWant to establish a business in Europe? Good luck wasting 150 hours a month only for compliance with billions of laws and spending the rest 10 hours for the actual development.
- jbverschoor 5y agoGood luck opening a bank account
- tluyben2 5y agoI tried opening one in the US. That was not fun. What is the difference? As a Dutch person I had one in PT in 30 minutes. As a Dutch person opening in the US, AU and HK, it was a hell. What is the difference? If you are from those places, they won't know what you mean as it will be easy for this. As a Dutch person, you find it hard to get an account in the EU? Maybe if your info fails KYC, but otherwise it is trivial.
- jbverschoor 5y agoIt’s only trivial as long as you have a single entity. Try adding a foundation, having foreign shareholders, different layers. I’ve seen and heard of 9+ months, and a ton of paperwork
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- tluyben2 5y agoAnd that is not true in the US? I don't know but it takes a lot of effort in countries we did it outside of the EU. US banks are generally more gung ho on money laundering prevention and such so it seems hard to believe complexity will narrow the gap.
- tluyben2 5y agoYou hire someone for that. What is the difference with hiring tax people and lawyers in the US. It amazes me why anyone would do this themselves. Or spend time on it themselves. Even a poor startup has 1000E to fix this. Well, it depends what you want to start; if it is a tire burning facility it will be more expensive but the main takeaway is: you just don't attempt this yourself. I outsource and have outsourced for decades, all interaction with the state and the eu; it is cheap and I don't spend time. For software companies, there are hardly any barriers. Gdpr and labor laws depending on country if you contract people. For both, you get someone else to do it. There are companies who do this for a monthly fee.
- SiberianDweller 5y agoAt first, a bus driver should not have bigger salary than software developer, period. But in EU, a truck driver or bus driver having better status and credit karma that scientist or just a programmer.
- npteljes 5y agoAbsolutely agreed. I'm bewildered about how entrenched Windows and Office is, for one - in government and in schools. How the hell can they put so much control into an other entity like this? Especially if there are fine alternatives, although I agree that large migrations are really, really painful. France, for some reason, has a higher frequency in news regarding adoption of free software, for example the adoption of Matrix [0], LibreOffice [1] or Framasoft's activity in the education [2]. This gives me some hope. [0] https://matrix.org/blog/2018/04/26/matrix-and-riot-confirmed-as-the-basis-for-frances-secure-instant-messenger-app https://matrix.org/blog/2018/04/26/matrix-and-riot-confirmed... [1] https://itsfoss.com/french-city-toulouse-saved-1-million-euro-libreoffice/ https://itsfoss.com/french-city-toulouse-saved-1-million-eur... [2] https://framasoft.org/en/ https://framasoft.org/en/
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- somewhereoutth 5y agoEverything is broken in the US, so of course there is a culture of innovation - who knows, maybe you'll actually make things better! Everything works perfectly already in Europe, so why let anyone rock the boat?
- Havoc 5y agoYea. Europe seems to be taking a strong stance on things from a human pov but I can’t help but feel that’s a sure way to lose in the world that is coming. The only thing better than data is big data. Yet gdpr etc is basically the opposite Worse yet the same applies to the US. Think US will lose against the Chinese model too. Not as badly as Europe given the sketchy shit US big players are allowed to do but that’s still a far cry from the collect everything model the US is up against
- johbjo 5y agoI think the European equivalents of faangs were killed in the dotcom bubble. These business models were probably considered "toxic" by investors in the 2000s because of dotcom trauma, which might have been worse in Europe? We are left with US survivors in these particular cases.
- esel2k 5y agoAs a European Software Product Manager in a as some would refer to as „old school company selling hardware/physical products“ (not electronic), I think the article misses to say that if we combine our hardware expertise with software we are very easily ahead of software only competitors. Yes, we definitively need to overcome our software problem but we have unique assets, that if accessible only in combination europe can overcome that problem. Example: High end hardware equipment, chemicals etc. we failed to have the customer facing software platform but we‘ll get there and instead of selling ads we will create combination products. Think IKEA or VW etc
- m_rpn 5y agoThe problem is not the lack of imagination, quite the opposite in fact, but the lack people willing to pay the software workers, and the absence of investors that literally launch money at every startup just because they like playing the "tech lottery". European businessmans are in general very cunning and old fashioned, they don't like sharing their profits with their employees or with othere people in general. We get to life a relatively quiet and relaxed life, but for an employee or for a young tech enterpreneur is impossibile to make nearly as much as in the US, because the "hot jobs" here in europe are not in the tech space but in the "old space": attorneys, bureucreats, medics, church people, politics, and so on. Obviously a lot of tech workers make the switch for the US or other countries. Source: i live in Italy where a senior top-level engineer makes 40k euros/year gross, a self-employed medical doctor specialized on foot diseases makes 100/200 euros/30 minutes, evading taxes 80% of the time.
- mehanik 5y agoPerhaps EU should own software companies developing open-source software that each country can adapt to its needs. It is common with state-owned energy and water utilities. Why not software?
- antb123 5y agoAs a foreigner in France... Several things seem very anti-startup. Despite having a cool StationF co-working place. In France (Paris) its impossible to rent without earning 3 times your rent in after tax salary. Lots of decent programmers - but if you hire them its very hard (impossible) to lay them off on a employment contract. If you don't give them an employment contract they can't rent an apartment. As a Director you can be held personally responsible (no corporate protection) from non salary payment or other debts. It is very complex to give shares or options to your employees without large tax implications. result? StationF is mostly large companies. When you hire people you really need the help of a lawyer to protect yourself.