This racketeering can serve as a model for tech independence across the globe. Everyone can force Meta/Google/twitter to sell their local businesses to local owners and the government get a payout.
I can’t believe the US took this route. EU is still trying to force open markets and rules based system but the future is gang rule.
stale2002•1h ago
Not really. This only works because the US market is valuable. A tech company can simply leave the market rather than sell. Just like tiktok would have been free to shut down in the USA.
The USA market belongs to the US, though, and other people are free to play by the rules or simply leave.
mrtksn•1h ago
Have you looked at the financial reports of those companies recently? US is the largest revenue stream but nowhere dominant.
USA is headed to have companies that used to serve 3-5 billion people markets to shrink to 0.35 billion market. US also doesn’t produce that much, unlike EU and China so when this system breaks those 0.35 billion people aren’t going to be as valuable as today.
Open regime change calls, attempts to manipulate elections, trying to start civil wars - it’s brewing.
The software industry is about to be decimated by AI anyway and US isn’t ahead in AI in any meaningful sense. When the status quo shatters there’s a good chance that tech would not be American industry anymore. The hardware too is made in China with European tooling. USA used to have an amazing brand but that’s being destroyed at outstanding pace.
Just like the way tech workers should have revolted against WFH instead of embracing it, the tech capitalist should also revolt against the breaking of the order. Both are extremely short sighted.
TacticalCoder•1h ago
> US also doesn’t produce that much, unlike EU and China
China OK. But a criticism we hear all the time inside the EU is that manufacturing is gone and that the number one export of the number one economy in the EU --that'd be cars from Germany-- are taking a serious beat up atm.
> The software industry is about to be decimated by AI anyway and US isn’t ahead in AI in any meaningful sense.
How is it not? China has some models but it's basically US, US, and more US: Google, Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI... With chips made by NVidia and Google. So US and still more US. Is that not basically it?
The EU loves to posture a lot but until I see that turd that Windows is kicked out of all the EU institutions and Microsoft Office replaced for good by something else, I'm not believing it.
> USA used to have an amazing brand but that’s being destroyed at outstanding pace.
USA has 35 of the 50 biggest companies in the world ranked by market cap. China has 6 and the EU has... One! (Switzerland ain't the EU). One company for the EU in the top 50: that's ASML and even that is very mainly US owned.
I think you give the EU way too much credit and the US way too little.
Jimmc414•1h ago
Interesting that this post has been effectively banished from the site. Only visible scrolling back from the https://news.ycombinator.com/newest page
defrost•1h ago
Interesting in the sense that similar things happen all the time- stories get posted and either get no traction or else somebody starts a boisterous subthread with flags and downvotes that results in the HN algo downgrading "arguing".
FWiW it's currently #2 on https://hckrnews.com/ .. but that's chronology of submissions with votes, unweighted by comment numbers / arguments.
mrtksn•1h ago
I can’t believe the US took this route. EU is still trying to force open markets and rules based system but the future is gang rule.
stale2002•1h ago
The USA market belongs to the US, though, and other people are free to play by the rules or simply leave.
mrtksn•1h ago
USA is headed to have companies that used to serve 3-5 billion people markets to shrink to 0.35 billion market. US also doesn’t produce that much, unlike EU and China so when this system breaks those 0.35 billion people aren’t going to be as valuable as today.
Open regime change calls, attempts to manipulate elections, trying to start civil wars - it’s brewing.
The software industry is about to be decimated by AI anyway and US isn’t ahead in AI in any meaningful sense. When the status quo shatters there’s a good chance that tech would not be American industry anymore. The hardware too is made in China with European tooling. USA used to have an amazing brand but that’s being destroyed at outstanding pace.
Just like the way tech workers should have revolted against WFH instead of embracing it, the tech capitalist should also revolt against the breaking of the order. Both are extremely short sighted.
TacticalCoder•1h ago
China OK. But a criticism we hear all the time inside the EU is that manufacturing is gone and that the number one export of the number one economy in the EU --that'd be cars from Germany-- are taking a serious beat up atm.
> The software industry is about to be decimated by AI anyway and US isn’t ahead in AI in any meaningful sense.
How is it not? China has some models but it's basically US, US, and more US: Google, Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI... With chips made by NVidia and Google. So US and still more US. Is that not basically it?
The EU loves to posture a lot but until I see that turd that Windows is kicked out of all the EU institutions and Microsoft Office replaced for good by something else, I'm not believing it.
> USA used to have an amazing brand but that’s being destroyed at outstanding pace.
USA has 35 of the 50 biggest companies in the world ranked by market cap. China has 6 and the EU has... One! (Switzerland ain't the EU). One company for the EU in the top 50: that's ASML and even that is very mainly US owned.
I think you give the EU way too much credit and the US way too little.