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Most shamefully for the EU, even Russia, a much, much smaller and poorer country, has a full set of replacements for the US tech hegemony, at least on the softw

Most shamefully for the EU, even Russia, a much, much smaller and poorer country, has a full set of replacements for the US tech hegemony, at least on the software side. However, we are all complicit in this state of affairs, with pushing dreams of a broderless internet. If the EU had tried to limit Facebook or Google access to the EU markets, or just favored some inferior EU alternatives, people on this very forum would have been up in arms about government overreach, balkanization of the Internet, and Brussels bureaucrats trying to stay relevant.

alephnerd 1y ago
> even Russia, a much, much smaller and poorer country, has a full set of replacements for the US tech hegemony, at least on the software side Not really. Meta and Alphabet products like FB, IG, and YouTube remain heavily used in Russia, even in spite of domestic alternatives like VK or Yandex. That said, pre-2022, Russia definitely had a strong VC and entrepreneurship scene compared to the the rest of Europe. NGINX, Yandex, VK, and Kasperskey were all able to be formed in Russia in the 2000s due to a much less risk averse capital market. Same with Ukraine (eg. Grammarly, Ring) and Belarus (eg. Wargaming) Aside from Romania and Czechia, I don't see a similar ecosystem anywhere in Europe (even Poland and Ireland's tech industry are largely dominated by FDI from large American players like Google and Bulgaria's from contractor and freelancer shenanigans). Ofc, unlike France and Germany, Czechia and Romania are way less combative to American tech companies and capital, so it's easier for them to justify investing for the long haul. Romanian successes like UIPath show that the only way a competitive European tech player can develop is through cooperation with the US.
- tsimionescu 1y ago
  The fact that VK and Yandex (and Telegram, I would add) exist at all, and have a clear presence in the public in Russia and several Russian-speaking countries around them, already puts them way ahead of the EU on this front, even if they have not replaced FB, IG, etc like WeChat did in China. Otherwise, I generally completely agree with you. The EU tech scene is overall either US controlled or anemic. I'd note that Romania hardly has a real local tech scene. While we have a very large number of programmers and programming positions, it's almost entirely either US (and a few EU, Canadian, Israeli) companies' local offices or explicit outsourcing companies. The exceptions are UIPath, BitDefender, and a few companies that work exclusively on government contracts (and are deeply embedded with the political establishment). If relations with the USA worsened significantly, it's very hard to see how the Romanian programming/tech sector would survive. There is very very little local leadership on the business side.
  - alephnerd 1y ago
    > If relations with the USA worsened significantly, it's very hard to see how the Romanian programming/tech sector would survive Unlike Western European countries, Eastern countries like Romania and Poland have helped the US burden share significantly, and this is reflected in bipartisan foreign policy within the US. Even Elbridge Colby, Oraina Mastro, and Rush Doshi (the primary foreign policy scholars in the US who built bipartisan support for American shifting focus to Asia) have pointed this out. There's a reason it's overwhelmingly Germany and France that has been vocally combative against the US (be it Trump or Biden due to the IRA+CHIPS). > The fact that VK and Yandex (and Telegram, I would add) exist at all, and have a clear presence in the public in Russia and several Russian-speaking countries around them, already puts them way ahead of the EU on this front, even if they have not replaced FB, IG, etc like WeChat did in China. The EU could have been much more FDI friendly like India, which helped enable Meta and Alphabet to devolve even product leadership roles within India. India has been able to get American tech platforms to bend to Indian Internet regulations with little pushback while also dangling massive incentives. Either build a domestic ecosystem (eg. Russia, China) or become entirely inseparable (eg. India, Israel). The EU cannot catch up with the former, so it has no choice but to submit and work to become the latter. > I'd note that Romania hardly has a real local tech scene No tech scene is 100% local. Barely 5 years ago Microsoft China was the dream R&D job, and Ericcson's R&D remains in China to this day and continues to work on 5G and 6G R&D. An international ecosystem allows a domestic market to access capital it could not before. For example, Romania is significantly outperforming Poland in tech despite being being a smaller and poorer country because Romania made sure to leverage the diaspora in the US. Israel, India, and Czechia all did the same. The issue is Germany and France continue to remain insular and unfriendly to services FDI, and try to make it the entire EU's problem. Romania gets more benefit from an American cloud like AWS domiciled in Cluj compared to a German owned and domiciled "cloud" like Hetzner.
  - GoblinSlayer 1y ago
    Government contracts aren't even wrong, in Russia government is big, so can provide a large market for local enterprise vendors to incubate. The general idea here is that private business will follow government's digital practices.

alephnerd 1y ago

> even Russia, a much, much smaller and poorer country, has a full set of replacements for the US tech hegemony, at least on the software side Not really. Meta and Alphabet products like FB, IG, and YouTube remain heavily used in Russia, even in spite of domestic alternatives like VK or Yandex. That said, pre-2022, Russia definitely had a strong VC and entrepreneurship scene compared to the the rest of Europe. NGINX, Yandex, VK, and Kasperskey were all able to be formed in Russia in the 2000s due to a much less risk averse capital market. Same with Ukraine (eg. Grammarly, Ring) and Belarus (eg. Wargaming) Aside from Romania and Czechia, I don't see a similar ecosystem anywhere in Europe (even Poland and Ireland's tech industry are largely dominated by FDI from large American players like Google and Bulgaria's from contractor and freelancer shenanigans). Ofc, unlike France and Germany, Czechia and Romania are way less combative to American tech companies and capital, so it's easier for them to justify investing for the long haul. Romanian successes like UIPath show that the only way a competitive European tech player can develop is through cooperation with the US.

tsimionescu 1y ago
The fact that VK and Yandex (and Telegram, I would add) exist at all, and have a clear presence in the public in Russia and several Russian-speaking countries around them, already puts them way ahead of the EU on this front, even if they have not replaced FB, IG, etc like WeChat did in China. Otherwise, I generally completely agree with you. The EU tech scene is overall either US controlled or anemic. I'd note that Romania hardly has a real local tech scene. While we have a very large number of programmers and programming positions, it's almost entirely either US (and a few EU, Canadian, Israeli) companies' local offices or explicit outsourcing companies. The exceptions are UIPath, BitDefender, and a few companies that work exclusively on government contracts (and are deeply embedded with the political establishment). If relations with the USA worsened significantly, it's very hard to see how the Romanian programming/tech sector would survive. There is very very little local leadership on the business side.
- alephnerd 1y ago
  > If relations with the USA worsened significantly, it's very hard to see how the Romanian programming/tech sector would survive Unlike Western European countries, Eastern countries like Romania and Poland have helped the US burden share significantly, and this is reflected in bipartisan foreign policy within the US. Even Elbridge Colby, Oraina Mastro, and Rush Doshi (the primary foreign policy scholars in the US who built bipartisan support for American shifting focus to Asia) have pointed this out. There's a reason it's overwhelmingly Germany and France that has been vocally combative against the US (be it Trump or Biden due to the IRA+CHIPS). > The fact that VK and Yandex (and Telegram, I would add) exist at all, and have a clear presence in the public in Russia and several Russian-speaking countries around them, already puts them way ahead of the EU on this front, even if they have not replaced FB, IG, etc like WeChat did in China. The EU could have been much more FDI friendly like India, which helped enable Meta and Alphabet to devolve even product leadership roles within India. India has been able to get American tech platforms to bend to Indian Internet regulations with little pushback while also dangling massive incentives. Either build a domestic ecosystem (eg. Russia, China) or become entirely inseparable (eg. India, Israel). The EU cannot catch up with the former, so it has no choice but to submit and work to become the latter. > I'd note that Romania hardly has a real local tech scene No tech scene is 100% local. Barely 5 years ago Microsoft China was the dream R&D job, and Ericcson's R&D remains in China to this day and continues to work on 5G and 6G R&D. An international ecosystem allows a domestic market to access capital it could not before. For example, Romania is significantly outperforming Poland in tech despite being being a smaller and poorer country because Romania made sure to leverage the diaspora in the US. Israel, India, and Czechia all did the same. The issue is Germany and France continue to remain insular and unfriendly to services FDI, and try to make it the entire EU's problem. Romania gets more benefit from an American cloud like AWS domiciled in Cluj compared to a German owned and domiciled "cloud" like Hetzner.
- GoblinSlayer 1y ago
  Government contracts aren't even wrong, in Russia government is big, so can provide a large market for local enterprise vendors to incubate. The general idea here is that private business will follow government's digital practices.