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There are a lot of admirable things about the EU, and this is by no means intended as EU bashing. But could there be a more on the nose example of why the EU l

There are a lot of admirable things about the EU, and this is by no means intended as EU bashing. But could there be a more on the nose example of why the EU lags in tech innovation and entrepreneurship? An solo maker builds a cool little tool as a personal project, open sources it on github, and is immediately attacked for the effort by cosplay compliance regulators. It defies parody. The commenters also have a cartoon understanding of the GDPR - the author of the Chrome extension is neither a data controller nor a data processor. I'd ask the commenters that jump on a project like this to introspect a bit and try to understand why their first impulse on seeing someone's effort like this is to try to take it down.

iamjackg 4y ago
You raise a very valid point, but one could make an argument that it's _okay_ for innovation and entrepreneurship to slow down, if it's done to protect people's rights and ensure that companies do things "properly." It seems to be an eternal cyclical process: people come up with something that either sidesteps or has no regulation whatsoever, you get massive growth and innovation, which turns to exploitation, which leads to regulation. We've seen it in all fields, from tech to pharmaceuticals to big box retail. Is it an acceptable compromise in society to "let things happen" for a while before regulating? Or should we all slow down and think about the consequences before pushing forward?
de6u99er 4y ago
The author should at least make users aware that data is being sent to Google servers. I don't see GDPR as preventing innovation. Quite on the contrary, it has enabled European companies, which host their data by default in the EU, to create competitive products. That being said, I think in Europe there's, compared to the US, more old money controlled by people who don't like to share or lose their wealth.

iamjackg 4y ago

You raise a very valid point, but one could make an argument that it's _okay_ for innovation and entrepreneurship to slow down, if it's done to protect people's rights and ensure that companies do things "properly." It seems to be an eternal cyclical process: people come up with something that either sidesteps or has no regulation whatsoever, you get massive growth and innovation, which turns to exploitation, which leads to regulation. We've seen it in all fields, from tech to pharmaceuticals to big box retail. Is it an acceptable compromise in society to "let things happen" for a while before regulating? Or should we all slow down and think about the consequences before pushing forward?

de6u99er 4y ago

The author should at least make users aware that data is being sent to Google servers. I don't see GDPR as preventing innovation. Quite on the contrary, it has enabled European companies, which host their data by default in the EU, to create competitive products. That being said, I think in Europe there's, compared to the US, more old money controlled by people who don't like to share or lose their wealth.