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>How can a wealthy continent with 750 million people produce no big tech companies? It's a big problem. Much more difficult to scale a product across 26 differ

>How can a wealthy continent with 750 million people produce no big tech companies? It's a big problem. Much more difficult to scale a product across 26 different countries and nearly as many languages and regulatory jurisdictions. US is one country, not a collection of countries fighting each other, meaning your product is instantly available to 300M people speaking the same language under (nearly) the same regulations.

pell 2y ago
Language aside, the entire point of the EU is the single market so you don’t have 26 different rule sets. (There are some exceptions such as health care but that is no different in the US.)
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  Except you do have 26 different rules. It's a single market on paper as the eu only mandates a small subset of common rules and regulations such as removing tarrifs or freedom of movement, but have you ever tried in practice to launch your company from Belgium to France or from Netherlands to Belgium or from Austria to Germany, or from Romania to Italy? It's much more difficult when the rubber hits the road as every country has various extra laws and protectionist measures in place to protect it's domestic players from outsiders even if they came from within the EU. And that's besides the language barrier which means added costs. This is much less efficient than the US market. EU countries and voters still value their national sovereignty and culture (both with the upsides and downsides) above a united EU under the same laws and language for everyone, ruled from outside their country's borders. See what happened with Brexit and the constant internal squabbling and sabotaging over critical EU issues that affect us all like the war in Ukraine or illegal mass migration. An US style unification just won't work here since every little country wants to be it's own king while having its cake and eating it too.
  - gizmo 2y ago
    Europe is a single market with regards to imports and exports, and that's what matters most for a business. Low wages more than compensate for regulatory annoyances. No shortage of subsidies either. California has more burdensome regulations and higher taxes than other states and yet it's home to silicon valley.
    - Rinzler89 2y ago
      >Europe is a single market with regards to imports and exports, and that's what matters most for a business. We're talking about scaling internal companies across EU, not about imports and exports. And scaling local start-up across the EU is a regulatory and legal nightmare for small companies. Shipping and selling imports and exports of commodities are a solved problem for decades, but scaling a on-line notary service for instance, that works both in Germany and in Italy, isn't. The EU doesn't help much with that as they only say you should have no tariffs between each other, not that you shouldn't have various legal, cultural and bureaucratic protectionism idiosyncrasies in place. The EU won't and can't force countries to improve that to make doing business easier for cross-country start-ups. EU countries have a lot more roadblocks between each others than US states do when ti comes to scaling businesses.
- dukeyukey 2y ago
  Yes, and it's doing a mediocre-at-best job of it. You can remove tariffs and harmonise regulations, but the EU is trying to unite countries with cultural borders older than Christianity.
  - pell 2y ago
    I would argue that the EU is quite a successful organization given the task of setting up general market rules for 26 countries. Obviously there is a lot to criticize about the EU and I can offer you a gigantic list there too. However, I do not see any clear failure of the EU’s approach as a single market so far. Additionally part of the philosophy was establishing peace in a region that was torn up by wars for a lot longer than Christianity exists. I would argue the EU was quite successful there too.
    - dukeyukey 2y ago
      It's definitely successful, and I was probably too harsh there. But I genuinely think the barriers that are left are damn near insurmountable. An awful lot has to change before a Greek tech workers can move to Sweden as easily as a Virginian can move to California.
      - pell 2y ago
        What would you change if you could? The EU already offers freedom of movement to EU citizens. Of course the US being a country instead of a connection of countries offers a more streamlined experience and surely the shared language plays a huge role too. But when I want to come up with examples such as a Greek person having completely different retirement, health care and legal schemes in Sweden compared to Greece, it seems the US is not so dissimilar there either given that states sometimes have very different approaches to health care, taxes, labor laws, etc.
        dukeyukey 2y ago
        Mostly stuff you can't really change. Like, the cultural difference between Sweden and Greece is _way_ bigger than between California and Virginia. You've got the language barrier too. This isn't gonna be fixed, maybe ever, but will continue to cause friction.
qeternity 2y ago
>US is one country, not a collection of countries fighting each other The US is a republic of 50 states. Each state has a huge amount of sovereignty and autonomy. There are 50 state-level regulatory jurisdictions. Not to mention the local-level of government. But in spite of this, the US does not over-regulate. This is the big difference to Europe (I say this as an American expat living in Europe).
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  Have you tried launching a product in your new EU country and then taking abroad to another EU country? You'll find out it's not exactly like doing the same thing between US states. And I'm not even talking about the language barrier.
- dukeyukey 2y ago
  American states have generally less autonomy than Canadian provinces do. Federalism is common worldwide, it's far from an American thing. EU countries are _vastly_ more independent than American states, and when you throw in the cultural differences, it grows hugely again.

pell 2y ago

Language aside, the entire point of the EU is the single market so you don’t have 26 different rule sets. (There are some exceptions such as health care but that is no different in the US.)

Rinzler89 2y ago
Except you do have 26 different rules. It's a single market on paper as the eu only mandates a small subset of common rules and regulations such as removing tarrifs or freedom of movement, but have you ever tried in practice to launch your company from Belgium to France or from Netherlands to Belgium or from Austria to Germany, or from Romania to Italy? It's much more difficult when the rubber hits the road as every country has various extra laws and protectionist measures in place to protect it's domestic players from outsiders even if they came from within the EU. And that's besides the language barrier which means added costs. This is much less efficient than the US market. EU countries and voters still value their national sovereignty and culture (both with the upsides and downsides) above a united EU under the same laws and language for everyone, ruled from outside their country's borders. See what happened with Brexit and the constant internal squabbling and sabotaging over critical EU issues that affect us all like the war in Ukraine or illegal mass migration. An US style unification just won't work here since every little country wants to be it's own king while having its cake and eating it too.
- gizmo 2y ago
  Europe is a single market with regards to imports and exports, and that's what matters most for a business. Low wages more than compensate for regulatory annoyances. No shortage of subsidies either. California has more burdensome regulations and higher taxes than other states and yet it's home to silicon valley.
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    >Europe is a single market with regards to imports and exports, and that's what matters most for a business. We're talking about scaling internal companies across EU, not about imports and exports. And scaling local start-up across the EU is a regulatory and legal nightmare for small companies. Shipping and selling imports and exports of commodities are a solved problem for decades, but scaling a on-line notary service for instance, that works both in Germany and in Italy, isn't. The EU doesn't help much with that as they only say you should have no tariffs between each other, not that you shouldn't have various legal, cultural and bureaucratic protectionism idiosyncrasies in place. The EU won't and can't force countries to improve that to make doing business easier for cross-country start-ups. EU countries have a lot more roadblocks between each others than US states do when ti comes to scaling businesses.
dukeyukey 2y ago
Yes, and it's doing a mediocre-at-best job of it. You can remove tariffs and harmonise regulations, but the EU is trying to unite countries with cultural borders older than Christianity.
- pell 2y ago
  I would argue that the EU is quite a successful organization given the task of setting up general market rules for 26 countries. Obviously there is a lot to criticize about the EU and I can offer you a gigantic list there too. However, I do not see any clear failure of the EU’s approach as a single market so far. Additionally part of the philosophy was establishing peace in a region that was torn up by wars for a lot longer than Christianity exists. I would argue the EU was quite successful there too.
  - dukeyukey 2y ago
    It's definitely successful, and I was probably too harsh there. But I genuinely think the barriers that are left are damn near insurmountable. An awful lot has to change before a Greek tech workers can move to Sweden as easily as a Virginian can move to California.
    - pell 2y ago
      What would you change if you could? The EU already offers freedom of movement to EU citizens. Of course the US being a country instead of a connection of countries offers a more streamlined experience and surely the shared language plays a huge role too. But when I want to come up with examples such as a Greek person having completely different retirement, health care and legal schemes in Sweden compared to Greece, it seems the US is not so dissimilar there either given that states sometimes have very different approaches to health care, taxes, labor laws, etc.
      - dukeyukey 2y ago
        Mostly stuff you can't really change. Like, the cultural difference between Sweden and Greece is _way_ bigger than between California and Virginia. You've got the language barrier too. This isn't gonna be fixed, maybe ever, but will continue to cause friction.

qeternity 2y ago

>US is one country, not a collection of countries fighting each other The US is a republic of 50 states. Each state has a huge amount of sovereignty and autonomy. There are 50 state-level regulatory jurisdictions. Not to mention the local-level of government. But in spite of this, the US does not over-regulate. This is the big difference to Europe (I say this as an American expat living in Europe).

Rinzler89 2y ago
Have you tried launching a product in your new EU country and then taking abroad to another EU country? You'll find out it's not exactly like doing the same thing between US states. And I'm not even talking about the language barrier.
dukeyukey 2y ago
American states have generally less autonomy than Canadian provinces do. Federalism is common worldwide, it's far from an American thing. EU countries are _vastly_ more independent than American states, and when you throw in the cultural differences, it grows hugely again.