

Europe’s Distorted View of US High Tech - chmars
http://www.mondaynote.com/2015/09/07/europes-distorted-view-of-us-high-tech/

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tragic
> Apple invented the smartphone

No they didn't.

> (and the tablet)

No they didn't.

> Facebook coined the concept of social network.

No they didn't.

In fairness, the iPad was the first tablet to matter all that much, if not the
first tablet as such. But seriously now. Blackberry? Myspace? These were
enormous and important businesses (BlackBerry still is). Hell, you could date
social networking back to usenet if you wanted. It would be nice if people
writing "mythbuster" articles did some elementary fact checking.

~~~
josai
> > Apple invented the smartphone (and the tablet)

> No they didn't

While you're technically correct, the iPhone was such a leap over any previous
effort that it basically redefined the meaning of the word. If you showed an
iPhone 1 to someone today, they'd at least recognise it as an (old)
smartphone. A blackberry from the same era? I very much doubt it, and frankly
I'd agree. The word now means "iphone 1 or better".

You're right about myspace though (and friendster before them)

~~~
gozo
Apple wasn't the biggest problem for the mobile phone industry though. They
made an early bet on technology that wasn't mature yet and while they had some
head start, partly due to aggressive business practices, other companies were
catching up. If anything Apple was leading the way for more profitability.
What really changed the industry was Googles price dumping of mobile operating
systems.

All the other successful smartphone companies today are hardware focused,
while companies with strong software departments like Nokia and RIM are
struggling. Which is sad because in a couple of years hardware is going to be
good enough, while we have ended up with a similar triopoly as the desktop
operating systems market is suffering from.

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silvestrov
As a person from northern Europe, I think this is all about envy: "I don't
like you because you have success, so I have to impede you".

The European politicians hate that all the major new internet companies are US
based, but they have absolutely no idea about how to foster a European
Sillicon Valley that can compete _and they have no interest in learning how_.

Danish politicians thought they could make a new mini-SV by building a few
expensive office buildings in a location with really bad transportation. No
politicians here think it's important to listen to the IT sector, instead they
just tell us (literally!) to stop wearing white sports socks so women will
like us better.

When a rich person in SV talks about all the new startups he has invested in,
he will be admired and cheered. One of the major show-stoppers in Denmark is
that such a person will be thought of as a cheesy show-off, and therefore will
shunned and loose social status. So it becomes impossible to build the network
needed for startup investments as such networks often live on "happenstance
meetings".

Nobody here realizes how important easy access to money is for startups and to
have investors that like to take _wild_ chances. Google would never have been
able to succeed in Europe because they would never have been able to get the
investment money needed to start up.

We have the same high housing prices as SV and almost no investment money. Add
the lack of any IT center and that every country tries to do their own rather
than having one common SV for all of EU. It's like if USA tried to build a SV
in every single state, including Utah! The marmalade is spread too thin.

~~~
ionised
> As a person from northern Europe, I think this is all about envy: "I don't
> like you because you have success, so I have to impede you".

As a person also from Europe I wish people would stop saying this, because it
doesn't do justice to the issue that many of us actually have with these
specific companies. All it does is divert from the real issues.

It's nothing to do with envy (for me at least, and many others) and everything
to do with the way these companies conduct themselves and the outright lack of
respect they demonstrate towards the public and the laws of the countries in
which they operate.

They need reigning in.

~~~
pkaye
Can you give specific examples of what these companies do that needs reigning
in? I'm excluding the "sharing economy" companies (uber, airbnb, etc) which
are a known problem everywhere.

~~~
pdkl95
You have to ask? The bad behavior of Facebook, Apple, Google, _etc_ has been a
regular topic of discussion for years.

If you truly want specific examples, I suggest you start with Aral Balkan's
talk[1] which covers several of the larger problems that needs reigning in.

[1]
[https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html...](https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html#balkan)

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arthe
US High Tech in Europe : massive tax evasion + not respecting the law.

~~~
nailer
The tax avoidance is allowed by the governments though. Not saying that it
isn't a problem, but tax law is controlled by the government and its the
governments role to set policies that allow them to collect tax revenue. The
UK and Ireland have made some changes in this area recently.

~~~
icebraining
Not to mention that it's hardly a "US Tech companies" phenomena; Fiat is one
of the four companies under investigation, for example.

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nailer
In 7 years in London tech I have never heard once of 'GAFA' or 'NATU'

Edit: the article mentions that too, it just misleadingly refers to 'Europe'
in the title when it probably means France and Germany. It also refers to the
UK and Scandinavia as being 'elsewhere' when UK is in the EU and Sweden on the
Euro.

~~~
joars
Weird article title indeed. And just to clarify: Sweden, Denmark and UK are in
the EU, none of them have the euro.

~~~
nailer
You're right, Sweden isn't on the Euro. I stand corrected.

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yarper
This seems like one big strawman

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mafro
_> you’ll benefit of Amazon’s assistance better if you are rated as a non-
cheating customer_

What does that mean?

~~~
detaro
If you send to much stuff back, they become less nice/ after a while start
blocking your account. It gets ugly when they close accounts that are
"similar", there have been cases where people got their accounts closed when
their neighbors in the same building created trouble.

