[growlist]

Like a number of other posters I think this probably is mostly motivated by protectionism, but unlike them my response is: so what? So European consumers miss out on the tax-evading, anti-democratic, addiction-pushing, misery-spreading, dystopia-creating big-brother tactics of US big tech. Oh no, what a terrible tragic loss, how will this still enormously wealthy and advanced continent with thousands of years of civilisation behind it ever cope etc. etc. etc...

[dalbasal]

I don't think it's protectionism.

Europe doesn't have that much of a directly competing industry. Also, since we're not unified in terms of political culture, most people outside of (eg) Poland wouldn't consider a Polish company to be any more local than and American one. The EU is protectionist in some regards (especially agrifood), but these are structural and foundational.

I think it's motivated by anti tech-monopoly sentiment, which has been growing everywhere in the West.

In the sense that it's protectionist, I think the "TikTok affair" is a low-key tidal shift. It essentially the US taking a position similar to China's. An Chinese entrant into US media is seen as a political and intelligence threat, like China sees western media. Also, "*why should we allow their stuff when they don't allow ours."

The EU still operates within the US' "Overton Window." It doesn't do things outside the pale of US policy norms. That window now allows social media to be treated differently.

[atoav]

It is decidedly not an anti tech sentiment that leads to this in my eyes. If I had to pinpoint it, I'd say it is a combination of these three points:

1) Europeans realised US corporations and special services won't stop spying on their allies and they will just ignore law and order

2) As the biggest single market on earth the EU has a strong leaver. A leaver which might be to the benifit of other smaller nations as well, so they feel morally obliged to use it

3) Contrary to a common image in the anglosphere the EU is not soley a economic pact, but there is a strong precence of shared values. So human rights, privacy rights of individuals, all that jazz. Not saying this is perfect or even at the level it should be, but it is more than a purely economical pact.

The idea that the EU was purely an economical alliance was a misconception that bit the UK as well during the Brexit negotiations. The UK negotiators couldn't get that there are ideas the EU isn't willing to sacrifice on the altars of commerce and capital.

[dalbasal]

I agree with the last point. On the first 2, I don't disagree, but I weight these lower than you in terms of what is driving this effort.

It's hard to know though. The way EU political culture works currently doesn't have "domestic politics" norms... which makes motivations hard to understand. That said, there is far more political attention on corporations spying or manipulating us than foreign countries spying or manipulating us.

In terms of the EU being powerful... I agree on paper. But, political culture isn't there atm. See the EU's handling of border issues: Ukraine and Belarus. There has been exactly zero "great power" MO on these. Imagine either of these if it was the US, China or Russia(1) border.

(1)You need to imagine Russia on both sides.

For good or ill, the EU doesn't have this kind of a political culture in 2020. Maybe it will. The material conditions exist. Currently though, it's a totally different beast to the US or China politically.

[growlist]

> The UK negotiators couldn't get that there are ideas the EU isn't willing to sacrifice on the altars of commerce and capital.

Well that's a very Brussels-centric picture that you paint, i.e., the glorious, righteous warriors of the EU leadership bravely defending Europe's morality against the terrible, beastly greed of perfidious Albion. However, from where I'm sitting it looks more like a demented quest for vengeance from an EU political leadership driven insane by the personal humiliation of losing one of the biggest members of the EU despite their best efforts and the stunning repudiation to their megalomaniacal globalist wet dream.

[cblconfederate]

There are many counterpoints to what you say. Why is agriculture deemed important enough to regulate it so heavily but IT isnt? Listen ,EU is far too disjointed to have one single strategy but it does harmonize the market on any sector that has strong lobbyists. Those sectors are, sadly, old money. It does harmonize banks, construction, shipping, foods, cars. It allows tons of leeway on international companies to evade taxes on its many tax havens (monaco, lux, whatever) but it somehow seems to be sensitive only on IT profits .

That's because there's nobody to lobby for IT, which is ... well chicken and egg problem. EU should allow member-states to create a stable , easy framework for tech companies to operate in EU (like ireland , cyprus, increasingly bulgaria and other countries try to do) the same way Delaware does that for the US. IT is inherently a virtual sector, and it needs this kind of constructs, not Kafkaeque VAT rules and constant charges and arbitrary taxation. This is what turns away people to greener, or just more stable pastures

> EU still operates within the US' "Overton Window.

Sort of. the north does, but eastern / southernn countries have done significant openings to china because they needed investment. They are also the countries who host the cheapest and most dynamic tech workers (who are sadly often forced to work remotely for the US)

[dalbasal]

It's not a question of importance. This just happens to be the history of the EU. I'm not saying it's good or bad.

The EU kind of started as a single agricultural market. Instead of the weird (complicated, and corrupt) protectionist arms race that existed before was gradually replaced with a single agricultural policy with protection from competition outside the block. Fishing is also a big deal, even though it is economically tiny.

Also, all the countries have an agri-food industry. Not many are likely to benefit from decreased competition vis-a-vis facebook.

Brexit/Banking stuff has been an eye-opener. On the face of it, a big chunk of the London financial market is up for grabs. It has not been a negotiating priority though. The Netherlands, and to some extent Belgium and Germany would be the likely benefactors barriers, but for most countries it would just be a minor inconvenience.

"Because more profits and taxes in Amsterdam" just isn't an operative reason for EU decisions, at least currently. I'm not sure if this is good or bad.

Regardless of dealings with China, European regulations don't tend to incorporate things that would be inconceivable in the US... at least thus far.

Breaking up or forcing the sale of a foreign media company was, until recently, out of the question. Now it's not.

[cblconfederate]

> was, until recently, out of the question. Now it's not.

Totally agree to that. I think a lot of people who supported the ban here have no idea of what Pandora's box they opened.

[vbezhenar]

It all comes down to war. Agriculture is important because when your country will be at war with another country, you might not be able to trade food. So if you can't grow your own food, you're lost. So it's important to keep some farms in your country to be able to scale if necessary.

IT was not as important until recently. At this point some things are almost as important as food. If your military infrastructure depends on some network equipment, you need to think what will happen when you'll be at war with a country that makes that equipment.

Of course it's not possible to build all equipment from sand to CPU in the country, unless that's a huge country like Russia or China. So there will be compromises. That's not the case for the food, though.

Facebook is not important. If US will be in war with EU and shuts down Facebook access, nobody will care.

[cblconfederate]

The CAP isn't promoting agricultural production in the EU. it's subsidizing old inefficient methods and keeping out cheaper food from nearby countries. The sole reason why this scheme has lasted so long is because it provides free money to politicians to buy voters.

> t as important until recently

This Recently is 20 years ago. It is arguably THE sector for growth and we all know it. Let alone that it's a security issue as well, and EU could learn a lot from Israel.

[auganov]

> how will this still enormously wealthy and advanced continent

EU's GDP per capita is roughly half of that of the US. Not exactly super wealthy by any standard. Considering the slow growth all throughout the EU it's not coping too well at all.

[growlist]

GDP only tells a very particular story - there's still vast wealth within Europe/EU. If you disagree, please travel around the swankier parts of the continent and then come back and tell me how poverty-stricken it is. It's also worth pointing out that a good part of US GDP is down to its reserve currency status, and there's evidence that this will not remain unchallenged over time.

[throwaway33339]

GDP per capita doesn't nearly tell the story:

1. Much of the gap is due to former Eastern-bloc countries

2. 50 million of Americans live in horrid poverty

I guess it's hard to get the full picture when you get a cushy six-figure tech job in the Bay area.

[dang]

Hey, could you please not post flamewar comments to HN? You've got good points here, but unfortunately the nastiness of the last sentence overrides them.

Also, please don't create accounts to break HN's guidelines with. Doing that will eventually get your main account banned as well. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.

[auganov]

Even if you take the three biggest EU economies (Germany, France and Italy) you're still off by over $20k per capita vs the US (at over $60k).

And ironically out of these three Germany has the highest per capita and they're the only one to have merged with an Eastern block country.

Portugal has already fallen behind Slovenia.

The only EU countries to have anything approaching or surpassing US per capita numbers have tiny populations. In which case one might mention NY state has a per capita gdp of $85k with over 8M people.

[throwaway33339]

As multiple commenters have said already you should get acquainted with the concept of median (as opposed to mean).

[dalbasal]

FWIW, throwaway accounts and politically inflammatory remarks are a bad mix.

[cblconfederate]

why does it matter. if only half are rich, it's still half as rich from a business-building standpoint

[throwaway33339]

What I mean is that most Europeans are fine, comparatively to Americans, and don't actually need to let tech giants intrude every aspect of their lives for the sake of growing their economy.

Seriously, do you think everyone would be up in arms if facebook microsoft and amazon pulled out? No, people would just shrug and move on to something else.

[offshore4432]

Western Europe is poorer than Alabama.

[bildung]

That's not true. Median single income in Alabama is $26,846, most of Western Europe is above that.

Alabama: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/AL/BZA210218

EU: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income#Median_equivalen...

[DeonPenny]

No this doesn't tell the full picture because the gap is the same for company like germany where the GDP per capita in 2008 was 45k and now is 48k. In 2008 the US was 46k and is now 63k.

The rate that these economies are diverging is the problem. Its to the point that the 50 million americans in horrid proverty are richer than the middle class in countries like spain, italy, greece.

[bildung]

GDP per capita isn't that insightful for this topic because it doesn't tell whether disposable income actually grew. It could also be the case that i.e. only the top 1% household income grew.

Median household income is a better metric to get a feeling for the live of the actual, average citizen. Median personal income in the EU grew 18.5% from 2008 to 2018 and 8.7% in the US. (It grew more in 2019 but I couldn't find the corresponding EU data for 2019).

The divergence from GDP per capita means most people didn't receive the growth in productivity.

US: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N

EU: https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/submitViewTableActi...

[DeonPenny]

Yeh in the EU in general it grew but that doesn't actually answer you first questions and it obfuscates the growing difference. This is because the EU as a whole because of the easter bloc country was growing from a much much smaller number.

But if you actually look at disposable income germany has nearly 10k less than the US. Thats not even to mention places like greece, Portugal, and spain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...

[bildung]

German median personal income grew by 21% from 2008 to 2018, as per my original link.

My overall point was that GDP per capita growth does not relate to income of actual people, though.

The difference between both metrics means that mostly only inequality grew in the US from 2008 to 2018.

I think you looked at mean income in the wikipedia table, not median income. Median income is "only" 7k less in Germany than the US. The difference between mean and median essentially tells the same story: GDP growths only landed in the upper few percent housholds.

[buran77]

Look at China's example, their GDP per capita increased by 300% in the same time span. Suddenly they started being seen as a threat, companies banned, broken up, forced to be sold. This move is probably motivated partly by similar reasons and is indirectly supported by the fact that the US considered this a viable strategy.

The other reason this is being considered is the deep distrust of US tech companies. For the average literate European citizen, US tech companies probably look just as bad as Chinese companies look for the average literate US citizen. Again this is indirectly supported by US reacting in the exact same way towards the party they distrust.

This being said I don't think this will pass and it certainly won't be put to use any time soon. There are still to many strings attached from the US to European countries, economies, and people. The purpose of all that spying and infiltrating everyone is to keep both allies and enemies in check. But recent US moves and changing of times have created some very obvious cracks that won't get mended too easily.

[throwaway33339]

>Its to the point that the 50 million americans in horrid proverty are richer than the middle class in countries like spain, italy, greece

Lol do people really believe that?

[redisman]

> Its to the point that the 50 million americans in horrid proverty are richer than the middle class in countries like spain, italy, greece.

Hilarious!

[DeonPenny]

Exactly this and its getting father behind. In 2008 it was basically the same. In the next 10 years It could be 3x-4x the times of Europe. If you were a smart, educated, with ambitious why would you ever stay there.

[karmasimida]

EU can at worst drive those giants away and creates their own. It isn't that a scary thought as it was a decade ago.

[rsynnott]

I think that's possibly a bit cynical; 50 years ago the US competition regulators would probably have been taking a good hard look at the tech quasi-monopolies, but these days the EC is generally somewhat more aggressive on anti-monopoly/cartel stuff.

[DeonPenny]

The problem is its going to make the US also justify protectionist policy. Europes GDP growth has been stale for years. IDK if their citizen would be ok with starting trade wars with allies only wanting equal market access

[growlist]

Well, there's a pretty good debate to be had about the worth of GDP. It's perfectly possible to have huge GDP and a miserable majority, and vice versa.

[dicomdan]

Free trade goes both ways. European companies make a fortune selling to Americans, so if EU blocks American companies from operating there retaliation will follow. It would be a lose lose for everyone because free trade is a non zero sum net positive activity, and throwing it out of the window for nationalistic reasons can only be harmful to all parties involved.

[megous]

Maybe, maybe not. Recently, GDPR, other regulation that had wide reaching effects across EU, probably was not that great for EU businesses overall (except those that work in compliance business), yet it was adopted for the consumers sake.

Tackling social media tech certainly seems important when some post recommendation algorithm can probably decide elections. It's not like social media make information spread freely. It's directed by some algorithms for a looong time already.

I wouldn't mind EU forcing more transparency into these things.