Partially Wrong. It all depends where you go in europe. I know plenty of European cities, that are pretty lively and almost chaotic. They seem to be in places where there is warmer weather. These quiter places, are more in north europe.
Oh, BTW, Apple's lead designer is a brit, Jonathan Paul Ive CBE. Good Old Europe, bloody yes. And his main inspiration? Old Braun designs.
"So European electronic companies should not be pursuing the faster-quicker-cheaper road, but the beautiful-elegant-simple road".
I finally found the words to express well what I was thinking.
Hopefully this racist drivel won't make it to the front page. The only merit in this piece is that it illustrates the current fashion in Europe for taking pride in narrowmindedness and bigotry (a trend that is, according to a sociologist friend of mine, strongest in the author's country - Denmark - and my own - the Netherlands)
I'm the guy that wrote this, and I'm sorry if I offended you. I never meant it to be racist in any way, and I hope it doesn't come through that way - if it does I am to blame.
The point of the article is that we must all try to look at what we do best and focus on that. It seems that Europeans are unable to compete in the better-faster-cheaper hardware market, and thus have to try to find another advantage to exploit in order to become competitive.
I'm not in any way trying to degrade Asian countries. On the contrary I am saying that they have a distinct advantage in hardware production, and try to come up with a model for European competitiveness. Because we are behind Asia in this market.
And yes, I have a certain affection for my home country - but don't we all?
It seems to me you're suggesting that Asians are less capable of producing elegant design than Europeans. Which seems to me fairly racist.
It's also not true. Most European companies are not Bang & Olufsen. The products of Philips (a Dutch company), for example, are fairly mediocre as far as their design is concerned. That does not prevent Philips from being a major international electronics manufacturer. The Japanese electronics manufacturer Sony, on the other hand, does in fact do design reasonably well.
So I don't think elegant design is a distinctly European virtue. Instead, the reason a lot of cheap Chinese crap is ugly is simply that it's just that - cheap crap. The fact that it's Chinese doesn't have anything to do with it.
It's also not true that Asian companies merely copy. At a certain stage during their development they do - that's how the aforementioned Sony started out, for example - but at a certain point they will start engineering their own products, like Sony did in the late 1970s or like Samsung started doing in the 1990s. It stands to reason Chinese companies will also, at some point in the future, begin to create their own products and start to compete with Bang & Olufsen, Philips and Sony.
He isn't attacking the Asian races. Clearly, by his argument, Asians who grow up in America or Europe should be just as capable at designing beautiful things as the "natives" are. His whole point, to me, is that there are cultural differences between the Asian and European countries, no surprise there, and those differences have influenced design decisions.
For all I know, the Japanese and Chinese abhor European / American designed products, such as the iPod, because it doesn't have enough features and lacks seven different equalizers.
I believe that there are cultural differences that make certain countries and regions better at different things than others. I like my sushi done by the Japanese, my Pizza done by the Italians, and my burger done by the Americans. Not because any one of the countries is superior, but because chances are that the Italian will make the best pizza. This does not imply that Italians are better at anything other than making pizza. Just look at their politics...
Also note that I'm talking about general trends, so of course you can find companies that contradict the pattern - but overall I stick to my point of view.
Actually I find it rather flattering that someone found this good enough to post to YC news, I haven't updated my blog for years and I mainly kept it as an exercise in writing. I never made an effort of promoting it.
But I like the discussion here, including the users that don't agree with me. It means that I have to think about my standpoints, and defend them intelligently if I am not convinced that I'm wrong.
I agree with you, but many designers working in Asia are in fact Europeans (many/most of them from Latin Europe). This has been necessary at some time in history, because otherwise their products didn't get much attention in Europe.
So Asian taste and European taste are simply much different.
My apologies for the offense. Partially this was a bit of karma whoring on the part of the submitter. But, we also don't see much of the European side of things on YC. I thought posting this during your daytime would give you guys more recognition.
This is the same sentiment as http://www.paulgraham.com/usa.html