[pelorat]

Those comments are not entirely wrong. Regulation does hurt, but the main issue is that even though the EU is a single market in theory, it's made up of nations that each have their own market and speak their own language. Not a lot of new tech companies target the entire EU, they mostly target their domestic market and certainly not the USA.

In the USA it's easy for a new tech company to put out a commercial to target the entire US population of more than 300 million people. This is practically impossible in the EU. The market here is actually very fractured.

We have "big" tech companies in each EU nation, but they cater only to the domestic market. "Big" as in they are dominant in their field inside their nation.

Take online payment systems for instance. While there are global EU companies like Klarna, most EU nations has their own system that everyone uses. So while you usually have a bunch of payment options to chose from, 99% picks the national one (usually no processing fees).

This also applies to a bunch of other apps in the EU.

If you create an app or a service in the EU and you want it to succeed, you need to target your domestic market first. However chances are there's already an app or service for your idea and you'll have zero chance to compete on the international market, even if you translate your service to as many languages you can think of.

[sofixa]

And? I fail to see how having a big EU-wide tech company is more important than good regulations that protect EU citizens and give them rights big tech companies don't want them to have (e.g. privacy, data portability, right to be forgotten, etc.)