[fishermanbill]

When will Europe realise that there is no second place when it comes to a market - the larger player will always eventually end up owning everything.

I can not put into words how furious I am at the UK's Conservative party for not protecting our last great tech company.

Europe has been fooled into the USA's ultra free market system (which works brilliantly for the US but is terrible for everybody else). As such American tech companies have brought EVERYTHING and eventually moth balled them.

Take Renderware it was the leading game engine of the PS2 era consoles, brought by EA and mothballed. Nokia is another great example brought by Microsoft and mothballed. Imagination Technologies was slightly different in that it wasn't bought but Apple essentially mothballed them. Now ARM will undoubtedly be the next via an intermediate buyout.

You look across Europe and there is nothing. Deepmind could have been a great European tech company - it just needed the right investment.

[Barrin92]

tech is only 10% of the US economy, and European nations are much more reliant on free-trade. Germany in particular, whose exports constitute almost 47% of their GDP, globally only comparable to South Korea for a developed nation.

I get that Hackernews is dominated by people working in software and software news, but as a part of the real economy (and not the stock market) it's actually not that large and Europe doesn't frame trade policy around it, for good reasons.

The US also doesn't support free-trade for economic reasons, but for political and historical reasons, which is to maintain a rule based alliance across the globe, traditionally to fend off the Soviets. Because they aren't around any more, the US is starting to ditch it. The US has never economically benefited from free-trade, it's one of the most insular nations on the planet. EU-Asia trade with a volume of 1.5 trillion almost doubles EU-American trade, tendency increasing, and that's why Europe is free-trade dependent.

[fishermanbill]

Tech sadly is everything hence why it dominates the stock market. Information is the new oil and all that. Its much more than purely economic, whoever controls the tech controls those who use the tech. Hence why China has created its own tech companies - they arent stupid.

I think you're also getting mixed up between 'free-trade' and 'free-markets'. Free trade is about trade deals: NAFTA, WTO, EU, CPTPP, Mercour or whatever trade grouping you want - generally to do with the removal of taxes and standardisation of goods between countries.

Free markets on the other hand is do with the liberalisation of markets i.e removing government intervention (as much as possible) i.e regulations and restrictions of buying and selling of stuff - in this case companies (which can be covered in a trade deal admittedly)

What I'm advocating is that British gov (and most European gov's) restricts the selling of their tech companies based purely on the importance of the tech company.

Why?

Because as I say its do to with control. We're not able to make democratic, sovereign decisions when the fabric of how most things are done is controlled completely by someone else.

[KptMarchewa]

Only because of EU. Intra-EU trade is more comparable to trade between US states then true international trade.

[mantap]

I'd say the opposite, intra-EU trade is more like international trade, at least for B2C. Each country has its own national market situation, companies cannot easily expand to the entire EU because in every EU country they will find different local competitors who know the local market much better than they do. Every product has to be localised for the local language and culture. All marketing has to be localised.

Despite efforts to the contrary the EU functions as a glorified free trade zone, half a century of integration cannot beat 1000 years of fragmentation.

[fishermanbill]

Just to be clear my statement has nothing to do the 'EU' which is largely a trade body. I specifically used the term 'Europe' and 'free markets' not 'free trade'. This has nothing to do with Brexit to avoid confusion.

[reader_mode]

Not true at all - EU does make things simpler but it's still very different legal systems, currencies and even languages.

[emptyfile]

Why? What's the difference between USA-Mexico trade in car parts and intra-EU trade in car parts?

[alfalfasprout]

And you really think more protectionism will help?

Maybe part of the problem is that due to so many regulations, there's not a healthy startup ecosystem and the compensation isn't remotely high enough to draw the best talent.

[mytherin]

Regulation has little to do with it. Most of the tech industry is inherently winner-takes-all or winner-takes-most because of how easy it is to scale up tech solutions. US companies get a huge head-start because of their large home market compared to the fragmented EU market, and can easily carry that advantage into also dominating the EU market.

There is a reason Russia and China have strong tech companies and Europe doesn’t. That reason isn’t lack of money, lack of talent or regulations. The only way for Europe to get big tech companies is by removing or crippling big US companies so EU companies can actually compete. The US companies would be quickly replaced by EU alternatives and those would offer high compensation all the same.

Whether or not that is worth it from the perspective of the EU is not so black and white - tech is obviously not everything - but the current situation where all EU data gets handed to the US government on a silver platter is also far from optimal from the perspective of the EU.

[fishermanbill]

Absolutely. The only bit I don't agree with is that tech isn't everything - to all intense and purposes it is (at this point in time).

[smabie]

The only way for Europe to get good tech companies is to create a business friendly environment. They seem unwilling to do that.

[ngcc_hk]

When is the time china and Russia has a lead in IT by not protectionist and copycat. I can only think of tik tok.

The strange thing is if you do not count brexit, Arm is one of the many example Uk can do it. And whilst we say Nokia, Sieman and japan fuji (sitting in Hosiptal now and thinking those mri, ...) non-chinese and non-Russia do dominate the tech world even they are not USA. But communist ideology totalitarian I found tik tok is really the exception.

Hence I think Eu has their problem. But not because they are not as good as Russia or china.

[guorzhen]

Tmall of Alibaba processed 544,000 transactions per second during the peak of its Singles' Day in 2019. I believe this has set a new world record for an e-commerce platform.

In case you didn't know about Singles' Day: https://graphics.reuters.com/SINGLES-DAY-ALIBABA/0100B30E24T...

[DiogenesKynikos]

Huawei. They lead in 5G equipment because they did the necessary R&D investment.

Their phones are pretty good, too (or were pretty good before they got cut off from their suppliers). Their edge was that they built really great cameras into their phones.

[fishermanbill]

Yes the US is all about protectionism, same goes for China, same goes for the EU (also note my use of Europe, EU != Europe). Hence why all three major trade blocks dont have complete free trade deals setup between them (not that comment has anything to do with free trade deals - at least not primarily).

Ultimately free trade is where the world would like to get to purely from an economic basis but you have to do that in tandem with the rest of the world. If you go first everybody else has a economic advantage over you as possibly the UK will find out after Brexit actually happens. Also politics gets in the way of the world achieving full free trade. Some gov will always want votes by protecting an industry - like the UK's fishing industry for instance.

[dijit]

There are a lot of tech companies that start and are successful in Europe. They just get bought when they get big enough and killed later.

Skype is another example to add to the list.

Skype is effectively dead technology and isn’t even promoted any more.

[AsyncAwait]

> Maybe part of the problem is that due to so many regulations, there's not a healthy startup ecosystem

Reaganomics talking point since the 80s, yet the U.S. constantly relaxes regulations, recently it released even more environmental ones and it looks in parts like Mars.

But of course, cut regulations, cut corporate taxes, cut benefits, cut, cut, cut. There's never a failure model for such capitalism apparently. 2008 even was blamed on regulation, rather than lack of thereof.

Am quite frankly done with this line of argument.

[quadrifoliate]

I know what you are referring to in the US, but that doesn't explain the intra-Europe differences in regulation when it comes to doing business. Like Denmark is number 4, Germany is number 22, and Greece is number 79 on this index? [1] I don't think Denmark (or Norway, at number 9) is exactly an unregulated capitalist paradise where the environment is being destroyed in the name of business.

I say this because I think Europe with a set of consistent regulations and ways of establishing business would serve as a good counterweight to the freewheeling, "anything goes" nature of US capitalism. But I think the fragmentation is its Achilles Heel.

------------------------

[1] https://www.doingbusiness.org/en/rankings?region=oecd-high-i...

[geon]

I don’t really see your point. Even the examples you list are nonsensical.

* We are no longer in the ps2 era. EA now uses Frostbite, which was developed by the Swedish studio Dice. It is alive and well, powering some 40-50 games. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frostbite_(game_engine)

* Nokia was dead well before MS bought them.

[ksec]

I sort or agree but those aren't exactly great example.

I dont see how Renderware would compete with Unreal. Even their owner EA choose Unreal. They were great in PS2 era, but next Gen console ( PS3 ) they were not.

Nokia was dead even before Stephen Elop became the CEO. So the Microsoft acquisition has nothing to do with it.

IMG - Yes. But I would argue they were dead either way. They couldn't get more GPU licensing due to ARM's Mali being cheap and good enough. They couldn't expand into other IP licensing areas. Their MIPS acquisition was 5 years too late. Their wireless part couldn't compete with CEVA. And they somehow didn't sell themselves to Apple as an Exit. ( But then Apple lied about not using IMG's IP. While Steve Jobs often put a spin thing, I find Time Cook's Apple quite often just flat out lying )

[fishermanbill]

I'm a game rendering engineer that uses Unreal (and used Renderware) so I know a little about this subject.

If Renderware hadn't been brought by EA (and hence controlled by your competitor), the rest of the industry would probably have kept using Renderware as it was the best option and development would have continued. It would have been built on to deliver next gen experiences.

It mirrors pretty much perfectly what is wrong with the ARM Nvidia deal.

Nokia yes wasn't doing well in the smart phone sector but was doing excellently in the feature phone sector. Hence why HMD Global is now doing very well selling those handsets.

[nitrobeast]

And if Europe develop a company that threatens US leading tech / surveillance companies like Facebook / Google, or becomes the leader of the next tech wave, be prepared for US government actions to take it down. See: Japanese semi conductor industry in the 80s, Alstim, Bombardier, Tiktok.

[bitL]

One could argue that's what happened to NOKIA - the only non-US company controlling the largest growing market at the time. For anyone saying that it was dead already, you don't understand that despite minimal presence on the US market it controlled over 60% of the world's market and that could have lasted much longer due to loyalty of customers and upcoming MeeGo (that even US reviewers liked) if it wasn't Eloped.

[read_if_gay_]

Everyone I know here in Europe thought Nokia was dead when MS bought it.

[bitL]

Yes, when they bought it it was already dead, but I was talking about the time they were #1 and just got their new ex-MS CEO with a $20M bonus in case he sold the company. Then he proceeded to dismantle all that worked.

[ifmpx]

It doesn't even have to be the US government itself doing this; US companies are becoming large and strong enough to do as they please without regard to what lesser organizations and even countries have to say.

Perhaps governments around the world should do what the US did (and still does) to foreign companies before its too late.

[ineedasername]

They have yet to do this with rare earth metals, which represent a huge strategic threat to both the US and much of the rest of the world to rely on China for a vast majority of the supply.

[nitrobeast]

It has been said that other countries, including US, in fact have more rare earth deposits. If they choose to relax environmental laws and disregard patents held by Chinese corporations, more rare earth would be produced.

[ineedasername]

Yes, other countries have them. They're not willing to produce them at the higher cost required to obey environmental laws. I'm not sure how patent laws are a huge issue here: rare earths may have increasing market demand, but they've been extracted and processed for countless years. Only innovations China has made in the last ~20 years would be covered by patents. I'm sure there have been some innovations, but I'm also sure our other mining industries in the US would be happy to leverage their patent portfolio in a patent war if China wasn't willing to work on reasonable licensing terms.

A global strategic bottleneck in China for these things doesn't require patent or environmental law violations, it just requires us to pay more for them. For a critically strategic resource like this, the US should ensure a consistent supply chain independent of geopolitical concerns with China. And if China were to cut off supply then concern for their patents goes out the window too.

[Speednet]

Wait - it was OK when ARM was owned by a Japanese company, but suddenly bad when a US company buys them? Being anti-US is not a legitimate point. If anything, nVidia will create new market opportunities and expand existing ones for ARM. They have already said they will be expanding their UK presence. Maybe don't react so emotionally next time.

[fishermanbill]

No it wasn't OK when Softbank bought them, I vehemently disagreed with the sale then, as this was the next step after Softbank acquired them.

Although I dont agree with selling to Softbank at least they didn't have a dog in the game. What is bad about Nvidia is that they have a dog in the (chip) game. A major reason you went to ARM was for a non biased design team - you knew you were getting their best if you paid for it. Now I'm afraid you don't.

Also my comment is not anti US, it just so happens that the US has all the big tech companies and foolishly the European countries, especially the UK believes it can compete in a level playing field with the US even though the US's GDP is about 9 times bigger than the UK's - god knows how much bigger its equities markets are.

At the EU level the US is not but then this kind of stuff isn't decided about at the EU level - maybe it should be, not that that will help the UK see the error in its ways after Christmas.

As for emotional reaction with the greatest of respect did you read your message before you posted it?

[swiley]

ARM was second place in laptops for quite a while (arguably still.)

[mas3god]

If Europe doesnt like American business they can make their own company or use open source... Risc V is a great alternative to arm anyways.

[rland]

Bad for the US as well.

A monoculture is bad. Any monoculture.

[chakintosh]

DICE, the Swedish game developer, bought by EA and is now belly up

[auggierose]

brought = bought ?

[fishermanbill]

lol yes and in the next line you see I used 'bought' just a simple typo.

[hobby-coder-guy]

Brought?