We should have learned that the USA can't be trusted when Nixon ended bretton woods so it didn't have to give France it's gold back.
“It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal.”
But Holland, Ireland, UK are the most neoliberal countries in Europe, they worship America and believe that the market solves everything. The rest of europe doesn't share that sentiment to the same extent.
I don't think those kinds of details matter to a government looking to start yet another trade war, though. The list is based on the question "what legally European tech companies do business in America, sorted by income".
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.
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...
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.
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.
8 out of the 10 largest Wikipedias are European languages...
Interestingly, the only people having a wider selection are the ones outside of EU/US/China as they'll be free to pick up whatever they want.
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...
The question is not is there as an alternative to Google-as-a-whole, but is there an alternative to Google Search (yes), to Google Analytics (yes), to Gmail (yes), to Google Ads (yes, but not really), to YouTube (no), and to Android (yes, but not really).
Having a European mega-company that offers 100s of tightly-integrated products shouldn't be the end goal, that's just swapping one monopoly with another. We need a healthly ecosystem where there are hundreds of separate companies each solving 1-5 use cases.
That's why Europe needs that push to get their act together and start being self-sufficient, digital services-wise.
The EU is just itching for any opportunity to get rid of US tech firms because they’re increasingly seen as sovereignty risks. And while the GDPR fines (that this likely refers to) appear huge on absolute terms, they are still low enough that US firms voluntarily decide to violate those laws and just pay the fines.
The US sees TikTok as a risk. For the EU, it’s Microsoft Office.
I think the American government is mad at the DMA more than anything. Breaking up the monopolies that are currently firmly held by American tech giants goes directly against the interests of the White House, especially now that they're able to openly bribe the president.
Well, that sounds like a wonderful idea!
I am all for it. Through this model, we might actually enjoy effective antitrust enforcement, and escape regulatory capture! Who would have thought that this day would ever come? Once again, it turns out I have been too cynical all my life.
It's no wonder AI startups like Mistral (France) are so dependent on US VCs and the same is true with Lovable (Sweden) who were able to grow faster than Europe trying to strangle them.
Since there are rare startup home-runs that are from Europe, the EU instead needs find a way to impose fines on US big tech companies. They (EU) will certainly do the same with the Big AI companies very soon.
The US exports far more digital services to the EU, though.
Understanding those things, it would seem a particularly unwise framing for the US government to focus on EU digital services exports.
LLMs are rapidly commoditizing software, and in particular making it far easier to handle the regulatory compliance and regional fragmentation that have traditionally held back software companies in the EU. Combine that with growing concerns about software trust, and the EU looks like an increasingly attractive bet for future software investment.
Ironic, then, that Europe seems slowest to adopt the very tool that could finally solve its fragmentation problem.
Two governments, two very different strategies to cripple themselves. The race is on.
Otherwise, how can words like "discrimination" even be appropriate?
pera•1h ago
f_devd•1h ago