2 ms·

It's shocking that European countries, whose populations have high digital literacy, who have many leading universities, and can attract talent globally to move

by v5v3 1y ago

It's shocking that European countries, whose populations have high digital literacy, who have many leading universities, and can attract talent globally to move to europe has failed to challenge US dominance in tech. It's only Trump's America First policies that is pushing EU to react very late.

ndepoel 1y ago
Us Europeans have been extremely naive and complacent for the past decades. We've been all too happy to rely on America for our tech and defense needs, and America has been all too happy to provide. There have been plenty of warning signs in the past that this situation is not as self-evident as we'd like to believe and not sustainable in the long term, but so long as things keep churning along we'd rather just ignore the problem instead of proactively tackling it and becoming more self-sufficient. And yes, now that America are showing their true colors with Trump leading the way, finally, finally we are starting to see that maybe this isn't how we should want things to be. It's still going to take a long time for Europe to shake off its dependence on the US tech industry and truly start to challenge it, but hopefully this is a wake-up call that will gradually push things in the right direction.
constantcrying 1y ago
How do you attract "top talent" with half the salaries of the US? Being a software developer in Germany was never an especially lucrative career. They can not even get intra European "talent" to do these jobs. Germany is notorious for its low level of digitalization and it's staggering lack in Software competency.
captainbland 1y ago
It's money. No one in Europe has been willing to front the vast amounts of investment capital that get put up in the US. We've collectively been freaking out about state finances non-stop since 2008 and imposing various fiscal straight jackets on ourselves (except for where it comes to free money for wealthy pensioners which is apparently an unstoppable force of nature at this point) I think in general it's also the case that in Europe and the UK, technology has been a very upwardly mobile career path with many people who end up with good incomes but no familial network to fall back on and not accumulating any personal wealth or stability until they're already considering retirement. This basically means technologists in Europe are not empowered to be entrepreneurial as bootstrapping is impractical around full time work and the investment often isn't out there.
thyristan 1y ago
Besides money, people and knowledge that sister comments have mentioned, there is another huge factor: Aversion to risk. No european company, bureaucracy, government is as bold and risk-taking as those over the pond. Only when something has been proven, stamped, certified and established, will it be used. So new and small OSS projects, startups, and generally new ways of doing things will have a far harder time overall. There is even the tendency to spend tons of public money on stuff like GAIA-X to establish European cloud infrastructure. And then never using it because all that new-fangled stuff where one would be the first user cannot ever be good and viable. Thereby forgetting that money has already been paid to make it exactly like the European governments wanted it to be, and that any service needs its first users to grow over the teething problems...

by v5v3 1y ago

ndepoel 1y ago

Us Europeans have been extremely naive and complacent for the past decades. We've been all too happy to rely on America for our tech and defense needs, and America has been all too happy to provide. There have been plenty of warning signs in the past that this situation is not as self-evident as we'd like to believe and not sustainable in the long term, but so long as things keep churning along we'd rather just ignore the problem instead of proactively tackling it and becoming more self-sufficient. And yes, now that America are showing their true colors with Trump leading the way, finally, finally we are starting to see that maybe this isn't how we should want things to be. It's still going to take a long time for Europe to shake off its dependence on the US tech industry and truly start to challenge it, but hopefully this is a wake-up call that will gradually push things in the right direction.

constantcrying 1y ago

How do you attract "top talent" with half the salaries of the US? Being a software developer in Germany was never an especially lucrative career. They can not even get intra European "talent" to do these jobs. Germany is notorious for its low level of digitalization and it's staggering lack in Software competency.

captainbland 1y ago

It's money. No one in Europe has been willing to front the vast amounts of investment capital that get put up in the US. We've collectively been freaking out about state finances non-stop since 2008 and imposing various fiscal straight jackets on ourselves (except for where it comes to free money for wealthy pensioners which is apparently an unstoppable force of nature at this point) I think in general it's also the case that in Europe and the UK, technology has been a very upwardly mobile career path with many people who end up with good incomes but no familial network to fall back on and not accumulating any personal wealth or stability until they're already considering retirement. This basically means technologists in Europe are not empowered to be entrepreneurial as bootstrapping is impractical around full time work and the investment often isn't out there.

thyristan 1y ago

Besides money, people and knowledge that sister comments have mentioned, there is another huge factor: Aversion to risk. No european company, bureaucracy, government is as bold and risk-taking as those over the pond. Only when something has been proven, stamped, certified and established, will it be used. So new and small OSS projects, startups, and generally new ways of doing things will have a far harder time overall. There is even the tendency to spend tons of public money on stuff like GAIA-X to establish European cloud infrastructure. And then never using it because all that new-fangled stuff where one would be the first user cannot ever be good and viable. Thereby forgetting that money has already been paid to make it exactly like the European governments wanted it to be, and that any service needs its first users to grow over the teething problems...