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One theory about developing countries was that if oil is found, it's naturally easier for a dictator to control, since it's a concentrated source of revenue. Ju

One theory about developing countries was that if oil is found, it's naturally easier for a dictator to control, since it's a concentrated source of revenue. Just a small amount of mercenaries is enough. So there will be a series of dictators. If there's no concentrated source of revenue, the people need to be involved and thus a more democratic path is likely. With the internet and software, especially with platforms, you see this concentration of power effect. That then easily leads to certain kind of power dynamics. Ie just as a hypothetical example, if there's only a few closed conversation platforms, government can control them relatively easily.

dvfjsdhgfv 1y ago
And yet, we haven't found a good solution to that yet, and everybody uses smartphones controlled by Apple and Google, communicate via channels controlled by Meta and so on.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  It's ok, European Union will enact another regulation saying that starting tomorrow we'll all be more innovative than the US.
raxxorraxor 1y ago
Europe needs a whole new engineering culture if it wants to stay relevant in this field. It still is focused on outsourcing problems, people are too lazy for details and demand ready to use products. I believe engineering in growing countries have completely different mindsets. They put the enterprise in enterprise and the results speak for themselves. Of course you have to stay pragmatic here and not every battle is in the interest of a company. But engineers with the ability to pursue their craft, sensible knowledge management and training have become a rare sight. So R&D is just plainly better in other countries. Problem is that this laziness of course empowers other players to grow to insane dimensions, like Microsoft did. Microsoft has many competent developers, but their success isn't due to software quality. Especially if you look at the latest cloud offerings. They are so large that they don't have to be good anymore.

dvfjsdhgfv 1y ago

And yet, we haven't found a good solution to that yet, and everybody uses smartphones controlled by Apple and Google, communicate via channels controlled by Meta and so on.

FirmwareBurner 1y ago
It's ok, European Union will enact another regulation saying that starting tomorrow we'll all be more innovative than the US.

raxxorraxor 1y ago

Europe needs a whole new engineering culture if it wants to stay relevant in this field. It still is focused on outsourcing problems, people are too lazy for details and demand ready to use products. I believe engineering in growing countries have completely different mindsets. They put the enterprise in enterprise and the results speak for themselves. Of course you have to stay pragmatic here and not every battle is in the interest of a company. But engineers with the ability to pursue their craft, sensible knowledge management and training have become a rare sight. So R&D is just plainly better in other countries. Problem is that this laziness of course empowers other players to grow to insane dimensions, like Microsoft did. Microsoft has many competent developers, but their success isn't due to software quality. Especially if you look at the latest cloud offerings. They are so large that they don't have to be good anymore.