4 ms·

But then why hasn't that happened already? The US tech sector didn't develop out of any centralized plan. It's purely a creature of chaos and self interest.

But then why hasn't that happened already? The US tech sector didn't develop out of any centralized plan. It's purely a creature of chaos and self interest. What makes you think an equivalent can be formed by central planning? Even if it could, the actions of the EU in regards to censorship show that such a beast would be 1000x worse than the US tech companies it intends to replace.

FirmwareBurner 1y ago
That's why I can guarantee you that the EU will not block or eradicate US big-tech from Europe since such a massive trade war with the US will set it back technologically, economically and politically, but it will instead enter into a silent partnership with big-tech where "we'll let you monetize the EU userbase, and in return you'll spy on EU citizens for us through your datacenters here, turning in anyone who protests against us, censor anything we tell you to under "hate speech" laws, and push our propaganda to the top of the algorithm, this way we both win: you get to make money, and we get to keep our seats in power". Basically it will be outsourcing the traditional government censorship, oppression and propaganda work to the tech private sector because it's 1000x more efficient that the government at this, and it also helps keep the image of those in power clean since if they get caught they can throw big-tech under the bus with some fines. It's literally the perfect setup. How do I know this? Is it because I'm clairvoyant or have a tinfoil hat on? No, it's because US big-techs like Apple literally did the same deal for the CCP in China, so now that the can of worms has been opened, all the other countries want the same deal with big-tech. And if you think the EU leadership is somehow morally above these types of practices, boy you couldn't be more wrong. Their unscrupulous use of Israeli Pegasus spy-ware and Palantir surveilance-ware proves they're not, they're cut from the same cloth as the rest. They'll gladly copy the CCP great firewall and give it a coat of blue paint with some gold stars on it and say it's for "protecting your democracy".
- disgruntledphd2 1y ago
  > And if you think the EU leadership is somehow morally above these types of practices There is no such thing as EU leadership, other than the governments of the 27 members. So it's kinda unlikely that the above would happen (certainly possible but I reckon it's pretty low probability).
  - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
    No need to be pedantic about the "EU leadership" part, if you can and should interpret the comment by the spirit of the argument and not by the letter, you understand perfectly what I meant by that. And yes, EU wide censorship introduced by the EU commission and forced onto EU members is definitely possible if politicians of all 27 members agree on that. If you think your nations politicians don't have the balls to push for laws that suppress your freedoms just so they can keep their seats you're delulu.
azmodeus 1y ago
There has been a much stronger capital supply than in a shattered group of countries. The EU does not exist as a unit, it's 27 sovereign states cooperating. In the EU the single market is an achievement across countries, but can't compare with single large internal markets. China as the second economy of the world managed to succeed with a centralised plan. So I think market size and economic power is a bigger indicator than centralised vs not.
- terminalshort 1y ago
  Tech companies are the least capital intensive of any industry (pre-LLM bubble). Lack of capital is not a good explanation when Meta and Google were started on investments of < $100K. China has kept out foreign competition and applied heavy censorship across its tech companies, but they arose and competed as a free market amongst themselves, not by central planning.
  - azmodeus 1y ago
    I think capital and market access are the key factors in general startup success, the USA is number one in both atm
  - lossolo 1y ago
    > Lack of capital is not a good explanation when Meta and Google were started on investments of < $100K. It is. As you said, Meta and Google started with small investments, but now they are multi trillion dollar behemoths. Any company, even with millions of dollars in funding, can’t compete with them because they have tens of thousands of developers and infrastructure worth tens or even hundreds of billions of USD. They have penetrated the entire EU market and have enough money to burn, allowing them to survive any competition that isn’t state funded. The risk for private capital is huge, and the EU simply doesn’t have the same amount of capital that the US does. The only alternative would have been the Chinese route, building local equivalents of Google, AWS, Amazon, Meta etc. like they did in China but it seems that ship has already sailed for the EU, given the current state of things.
    - 1y ago
rurp 1y ago
Relying on well developed tech from a reliable long term ally makes sense, it's hard to deploy enough resources to compete when the resulting products will likely be worse. But that calculus has completely changed, the US is no longer a reliable long term ally. The EU's reliance on US tech is an utterly massive security and economic liability. Maybe their own products would be worse, but that'd still be better than alternatives that can get sabotaged or yanked away at a moment's notice. A decade ago I would have expected EU alternatives to be much worse but I'm less sure these days. Most US tech companies have moved past the innovator stage and spend most of their efforts on rent seeking and marketing. All that said, I don't actually expect the EU to handle this well. They've been fumbling long term threats with regularity, and I don't they'll suddenly start doing better. They'll probably muddle along with most of their US dependencies until a massive disaster hits them in the face.

FirmwareBurner 1y ago

That's why I can guarantee you that the EU will not block or eradicate US big-tech from Europe since such a massive trade war with the US will set it back technologically, economically and politically, but it will instead enter into a silent partnership with big-tech where "we'll let you monetize the EU userbase, and in return you'll spy on EU citizens for us through your datacenters here, turning in anyone who protests against us, censor anything we tell you to under "hate speech" laws, and push our propaganda to the top of the algorithm, this way we both win: you get to make money, and we get to keep our seats in power". Basically it will be outsourcing the traditional government censorship, oppression and propaganda work to the tech private sector because it's 1000x more efficient that the government at this, and it also helps keep the image of those in power clean since if they get caught they can throw big-tech under the bus with some fines. It's literally the perfect setup. How do I know this? Is it because I'm clairvoyant or have a tinfoil hat on? No, it's because US big-techs like Apple literally did the same deal for the CCP in China, so now that the can of worms has been opened, all the other countries want the same deal with big-tech. And if you think the EU leadership is somehow morally above these types of practices, boy you couldn't be more wrong. Their unscrupulous use of Israeli Pegasus spy-ware and Palantir surveilance-ware proves they're not, they're cut from the same cloth as the rest. They'll gladly copy the CCP great firewall and give it a coat of blue paint with some gold stars on it and say it's for "protecting your democracy".

disgruntledphd2 1y ago
> And if you think the EU leadership is somehow morally above these types of practices There is no such thing as EU leadership, other than the governments of the 27 members. So it's kinda unlikely that the above would happen (certainly possible but I reckon it's pretty low probability).
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  No need to be pedantic about the "EU leadership" part, if you can and should interpret the comment by the spirit of the argument and not by the letter, you understand perfectly what I meant by that. And yes, EU wide censorship introduced by the EU commission and forced onto EU members is definitely possible if politicians of all 27 members agree on that. If you think your nations politicians don't have the balls to push for laws that suppress your freedoms just so they can keep their seats you're delulu.

azmodeus 1y ago

There has been a much stronger capital supply than in a shattered group of countries. The EU does not exist as a unit, it's 27 sovereign states cooperating. In the EU the single market is an achievement across countries, but can't compare with single large internal markets. China as the second economy of the world managed to succeed with a centralised plan. So I think market size and economic power is a bigger indicator than centralised vs not.

terminalshort 1y ago
Tech companies are the least capital intensive of any industry (pre-LLM bubble). Lack of capital is not a good explanation when Meta and Google were started on investments of < $100K. China has kept out foreign competition and applied heavy censorship across its tech companies, but they arose and competed as a free market amongst themselves, not by central planning.
- azmodeus 1y ago
  I think capital and market access are the key factors in general startup success, the USA is number one in both atm
- lossolo 1y ago
  > Lack of capital is not a good explanation when Meta and Google were started on investments of < $100K. It is. As you said, Meta and Google started with small investments, but now they are multi trillion dollar behemoths. Any company, even with millions of dollars in funding, can’t compete with them because they have tens of thousands of developers and infrastructure worth tens or even hundreds of billions of USD. They have penetrated the entire EU market and have enough money to burn, allowing them to survive any competition that isn’t state funded. The risk for private capital is huge, and the EU simply doesn’t have the same amount of capital that the US does. The only alternative would have been the Chinese route, building local equivalents of Google, AWS, Amazon, Meta etc. like they did in China but it seems that ship has already sailed for the EU, given the current state of things.
  - 1y ago

rurp 1y ago

Relying on well developed tech from a reliable long term ally makes sense, it's hard to deploy enough resources to compete when the resulting products will likely be worse. But that calculus has completely changed, the US is no longer a reliable long term ally. The EU's reliance on US tech is an utterly massive security and economic liability. Maybe their own products would be worse, but that'd still be better than alternatives that can get sabotaged or yanked away at a moment's notice. A decade ago I would have expected EU alternatives to be much worse but I'm less sure these days. Most US tech companies have moved past the innovator stage and spend most of their efforts on rent seeking and marketing. All that said, I don't actually expect the EU to handle this well. They've been fumbling long term threats with regularity, and I don't they'll suddenly start doing better. They'll probably muddle along with most of their US dependencies until a massive disaster hits them in the face.