4 ms·

If these hadn't been allowed to emerge as monopolies we would have a wider selection.

jonnybgood 11mo ago
Is that really the case for the EU? The EU doesn’t seem to foster an environment for competitive companies that can operate at the necessary scale the above listed can.
- fxtentacle 11mo ago
  LIDL the supermarket chain is German and is running a large cloud operation inside the EU. And OVH from France is also pretty big. You’re correct that few EU companies get as large as US monopolies, but that’s kind of the goal when you want a functioning market.
  - concinds 11mo ago
    A "functioning market" doesn't prevent oligopolies. Oligopolies are natural and optimal (desirable) in many industries, if not most. That's where regulations come in.
  - ivan_gammel 11mo ago
    You probably mean Schwarz Gruppe, the owner of Lidl, and their subsidiary StackIT. Yes, they are growing. Schwarz is also building 11B€ AI data center in Lubbenau, so I fully agree with you. We will be fine without American digital services.
    - youngtaff 11mo ago
      It’s going to take time though… and the StackIT PaaS offerings aren’t yet quite as easy to use as their US competitors
- eastbound 11mo ago
  Yes, funnily, mutual tariffs on IT services between the EU and USA would incentivize competition, which is a good thing. Unless the EU is try incapable of doing IT right, in which case it would slow the the EU economy, but let’s assume we’ll improve on that.
- piva00 11mo ago
  Mostly an artefact of the non-application of antitrust laws, the US selectively decided to not apply those anymore for the past 30-40 years, corporate consolidation takes hold, companies providing a service grow enormously and are allowed to swallow prominent competitors to stamp them out. The EU has many competitive companies, I think HN is too focused on "tech" as in digital/web stuff and quite blind to other technological industries...
  - jack_tripper 11mo ago
    [dead]
- nephihaha 11mo ago
  It seems to be. As in most of the world, nearly everyone is divvied up between Apple and Microsoft, and use Google Search, with Wikipedia being the default place normies go for information. I know there are people who use Linux and prefer to use other search engines, but they are few and far between.
- concinds 11mo ago
  The EU has an extremely fragmented digital internal market, laws that suck for startups in most places, worse capital markets and funding mechanisms (and related laws), and doesn't have a Silicon Valley. It also underinvests in R&D and doesn't have a DARPA. So yes, just tariffing or restricting US tech wouldn't help much. Europe "lost" that race fair and square. It needs to focus on fixing all those things.
  - wkat4242 11mo ago
    On the other hand a lot of these startups and tech companies are a net negative for the world. Externalise problems and pollution, internalise profits. We don't want society to be only decided by those who make the most money. That's why we have those laws. I personally don't want the EU to become the US. And Investors gambling with other people's money is what gave us the world financial crisis of 2007. No lessons were learned as usual.
- Tarq0n 11mo ago
  You say that like scale is an inevitability. If Microsoft's offerings were unbundled into lots of smaller interoperable solutions we'd all be better off.
- 1718627440 11mo ago
  The opposite seems to be the case. The EU fosters really competitive markets, so large companies are really hard to emerge. There are tons of small software shops in my city alone, you can walk through the city and see ads for them in front of their houses.
  - seanmcdirmid 11mo ago
    Those exist in the USA as well. We have large, medium, and small software shops. You hardly ever hear about the medium or smaller ones though, you’ll find the, splattered all over the place in office parks as well as downtown (at least here in the Seattle area). It didn’t feel very different when I lived in Europe, even the large orgs were present (Google has lots of offices in Zurich and Stockholm among others, for example, and when I was in China my wife worked for a German big tech called SAP).
csomar 11mo ago
No you would only have the European selection.
- nephihaha 11mo ago
  There is currently no real European equivalent/serious competitor to the Apple/Microsoft duopoly, Google monopoly, Wikipedia monopoly etc.
  - ivan_gammel 11mo ago
    On Wikipedia: German chapter is the second largest (>100 FTEs) and collects donations directly, funding root org from them and keeping significant part for its own operations. It’s not exactly an American monopoly.
    - nephihaha 11mo ago
      Wikipedia is American owned. It also pushes certain ideas very subtly. Or not subtly in the hagiographies of certain "philanthropists".
      - ivan_gammel 11mo ago
        It does not matter anything in this case. It’s open source, it’s community-driven, and governance structure isn’t a moat. It can be forked in a matter of days, especially given that there exist independent European structures to support it.
        nephihaha 11mo ago
        Wikipedia is not community driven. About as public as so called public ownership in reality. It is clearly directed by a small group of people, mostly those with enough time on their hands. Most folk can no longer edit it. They're blocked. There are clear biases in its content provision, such as its coverage of certain rich people and establishment bodies.
matwood 11mo ago
Possibly. Until recently, anyone who was in tech wanted to move to the US because there was simply more opportunity. Salaries are higher, chances of making it big are higher, failing is often seen as a positive in the US, etc... The adage that the best place to make money is the US and the best place to spend money is the EU still rings true. The US become less welcoming to immigrants is a great opportunity for the EU, but it remains to be seen if they will be able to take advantage and overcome the structural differences. https://www.challenge.org/insights/structural-differences-in-eu-vs-uk-vs-us-2/ https://www.challenge.org/insights/structural-differences-in...

Is that really the case for the EU? The EU doesn’t seem to foster an environment for competitive companies that can operate at the necessary scale the above listed can.

fxtentacle 11mo ago
LIDL the supermarket chain is German and is running a large cloud operation inside the EU. And OVH from France is also pretty big. You’re correct that few EU companies get as large as US monopolies, but that’s kind of the goal when you want a functioning market.
- concinds 11mo ago
  A "functioning market" doesn't prevent oligopolies. Oligopolies are natural and optimal (desirable) in many industries, if not most. That's where regulations come in.
- ivan_gammel 11mo ago
  You probably mean Schwarz Gruppe, the owner of Lidl, and their subsidiary StackIT. Yes, they are growing. Schwarz is also building 11B€ AI data center in Lubbenau, so I fully agree with you. We will be fine without American digital services.
  - youngtaff 11mo ago
    It’s going to take time though… and the StackIT PaaS offerings aren’t yet quite as easy to use as their US competitors
eastbound 11mo ago
Yes, funnily, mutual tariffs on IT services between the EU and USA would incentivize competition, which is a good thing. Unless the EU is try incapable of doing IT right, in which case it would slow the the EU economy, but let’s assume we’ll improve on that.
piva00 11mo ago
Mostly an artefact of the non-application of antitrust laws, the US selectively decided to not apply those anymore for the past 30-40 years, corporate consolidation takes hold, companies providing a service grow enormously and are allowed to swallow prominent competitors to stamp them out. The EU has many competitive companies, I think HN is too focused on "tech" as in digital/web stuff and quite blind to other technological industries...
- jack_tripper 11mo ago
  [dead]
nephihaha 11mo ago
It seems to be. As in most of the world, nearly everyone is divvied up between Apple and Microsoft, and use Google Search, with Wikipedia being the default place normies go for information. I know there are people who use Linux and prefer to use other search engines, but they are few and far between.
concinds 11mo ago
The EU has an extremely fragmented digital internal market, laws that suck for startups in most places, worse capital markets and funding mechanisms (and related laws), and doesn't have a Silicon Valley. It also underinvests in R&D and doesn't have a DARPA. So yes, just tariffing or restricting US tech wouldn't help much. Europe "lost" that race fair and square. It needs to focus on fixing all those things.
- wkat4242 11mo ago
  On the other hand a lot of these startups and tech companies are a net negative for the world. Externalise problems and pollution, internalise profits. We don't want society to be only decided by those who make the most money. That's why we have those laws. I personally don't want the EU to become the US. And Investors gambling with other people's money is what gave us the world financial crisis of 2007. No lessons were learned as usual.
Tarq0n 11mo ago
You say that like scale is an inevitability. If Microsoft's offerings were unbundled into lots of smaller interoperable solutions we'd all be better off.
1718627440 11mo ago
The opposite seems to be the case. The EU fosters really competitive markets, so large companies are really hard to emerge. There are tons of small software shops in my city alone, you can walk through the city and see ads for them in front of their houses.
- seanmcdirmid 11mo ago
  Those exist in the USA as well. We have large, medium, and small software shops. You hardly ever hear about the medium or smaller ones though, you’ll find the, splattered all over the place in office parks as well as downtown (at least here in the Seattle area). It didn’t feel very different when I lived in Europe, even the large orgs were present (Google has lots of offices in Zurich and Stockholm among others, for example, and when I was in China my wife worked for a German big tech called SAP).

csomar 11mo ago

No you would only have the European selection.

nephihaha 11mo ago
There is currently no real European equivalent/serious competitor to the Apple/Microsoft duopoly, Google monopoly, Wikipedia monopoly etc.
- ivan_gammel 11mo ago
  On Wikipedia: German chapter is the second largest (>100 FTEs) and collects donations directly, funding root org from them and keeping significant part for its own operations. It’s not exactly an American monopoly.
  - nephihaha 11mo ago
    Wikipedia is American owned. It also pushes certain ideas very subtly. Or not subtly in the hagiographies of certain "philanthropists".
    - ivan_gammel 11mo ago
      It does not matter anything in this case. It’s open source, it’s community-driven, and governance structure isn’t a moat. It can be forked in a matter of days, especially given that there exist independent European structures to support it.
      - nephihaha 11mo ago
        Wikipedia is not community driven. About as public as so called public ownership in reality. It is clearly directed by a small group of people, mostly those with enough time on their hands. Most folk can no longer edit it. They're blocked. There are clear biases in its content provision, such as its coverage of certain rich people and establishment bodies.

matwood 11mo ago

Possibly. Until recently, anyone who was in tech wanted to move to the US because there was simply more opportunity. Salaries are higher, chances of making it big are higher, failing is often seen as a positive in the US, etc... The adage that the best place to make money is the US and the best place to spend money is the EU still rings true. The US become less welcoming to immigrants is a great opportunity for the EU, but it remains to be seen if they will be able to take advantage and overcome the structural differences. https://www.challenge.org/insights/structural-differences-in-eu-vs-uk-vs-us-2/ https://www.challenge.org/insights/structural-differences-in...