[maciejw]

Europe's problem in this area seems to be inability to build a mechanism to realize large, unprofitable projects. It looks like the whole continent operates on thin margins, and has no resources set aside to pursue strategic initiatives.

US is building its pile of resources by capitalising on its current advantage, but also by pushing larger and larger parts of society into poverty. Europe is maybe more fair, but ultimately unable to keep up and very vulnerable because of that.

Even Russia, a country with much smaller economy is able to concentrate its resources to affect politics and develop few important techs (missiles). Of course it achieves the goal even more by expoiting its own population. Few people benefit from it, but their wealth is immense. Before 2022 whole regions of Europe catered to needs of foreign millionaires, not few homegrown ones. Lack of large projects translates to little opportunities to become rich.

I have no idea how Europe can build institutions to develop large projects without impoverishing lots of its citizens.

[Telemakhos]

The data business in the US was not developed by “building institutions” through centralized government projects but by private enterprise. There is a fundamental difference in mindset regarding the relative importance of the public and private sectors between the two regions, and I suspect that difference underlies the stark difference between the US and EU in terms of tech companies. The US has Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, X, all of which innovate to offer products appealing enough that customers are willing to use or buy them in a free and consensual transaction (which does not require any impoverishment). If they fail at innovating to appeal to customers, they go bankrupt. EU institutions funded through taxpayer money have less incentive to produce goods and services that appeal to taxpayers. I’m not sure where “impoverishment” fits into this at all.

[maciejw]

On "impoverishment": the difference between private sectors in Europe and US are of course important, but I'm referring to a challenge on much lower level.

Lagging country that wants to increase pace, must find resources to invest. The easiest way to find these resources is to squeeze out parts of its population, to decrease consumption and rise investment. This was done historically in the Soviet Union, in Korea, in China. Europe is of course much more prosperous, but I don't think it can escape this logic. I'm not sure if either European politicians and populations are ready to implement such catch-up initiatives that would result in partial dismantling of the welfare state.

[ben_w]

> The US has Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, X, all of which innovate to offer products appealing enough that customers are willing to use or buy them in a free and consensual transaction (which does not require any impoverishment). If they fail at innovating to appeal to customers, they go bankrupt.

I make iPhone apps.

No Apple software update has appealed to me since back when they were still named after cats. In agregate they have added some useful stuff, but even then what has gotten worse over the years means my only interest in updates is (1) the security issues and (2) the way all developers (including me!) are pushed towards supporting only the most recent releases that in turn means that even modern websites, let alone apps, don't work right on older systems: https://blog.greggant.com/posts/2024/07/03/running-10.6-snow...

And, bluntly, the library updates are also unimpressive, SwiftUI has obviously been the intended way forward for a while now, but even Apple themselves have to keep updating UIKit because SwiftUI isn't good enough yet: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2024/10118

Microsoft has a very different set of issues, but at least they sucessfully diversified into gaming platforms without destroying their dominance in office work. But how much of that dominance is the updates, vs. backward compatibility with so many people's old documents that would be extraordinarily difficult for 3rd parties to replicate? https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/02/19/why-are-the-micros...

And they have LinkedIn now, which has weirdly become my standard minigames(!) experience, presumably because someone finalky noticed games helped Facebook get stickier back in the day.

Amazon's consumer offerings suck. Almost everything I've bought from the website has had some issue or turned out to have been more expensive than the same stuff from a local shop I just hadn't found yet. But most people tell me AWS is good, so there's that.

FB and X's main asset is network effects, not tech. The web version of FB has bugs that I'd expect from a junior with no oversight, not a $1.5T market cap giant. Meta is more than FB these days, but is that enough? Horizons was a disaster for them, and they were outraged by Apple's ad changes that only implemented what various laws already required, their foundations may turn out to be a marshy flood plain.

No, what these companies have is mindshare, branding, and deep enough pockets to make government-scale spending capital allocations and survive their inevitable incorrect allocations.

(And by being so big that governments listen to them, regulatory capture etc.)

[drpossum]

[flagged]

[Telemakhos]

I do. These companies offer me choices and compete for my business. I can deploy to AWS (Amazon), Azure (MS), Google Cloud, or other competitors. My business will go to the one who gives me the best results for the least money. If they fail to provide me the services I want at a price that seems reasonable, or if I'm unhappy with them for any other reason, I can take my business elsewhere. Freedom and consent lie at the heart of private enterprise.

On the other hand, when a government tells me that I can't use the services I want to use and cannot trade with the people I want to trade with because of politics, and that I have to use different services because they're located in a particular region and favored by the government, that's not freedom, nor is it consensual.

[perching_aix]

Despite this, do you still recognize the countless tactics businesses use to lock their consumers in into their ecosystem as nonconsensual, or do you view that in a different light still?

You also mention innovation with regards to companies like Meta. How do things like the network effect fit into this model? To be more explicit, suppose I want to migrate off of Messenger to Signal. Meta won't allow bridges, and the people I know don't wish to switch. Surely it is not unreasonable for me to consider my continued usage of Meta's Messenger platform as nonconsensual, and my choices as impaired?

I personally regard this the same when people say stuff like "freedom of speech does not imply freedom of consequences from that speech". Very clearly that betrays the expectations one would reasonably build when they hear such a phrase.

[myrmidon]

> Europe's problem in this area seems to be inability to build a mechanism to realize large, unprofitable projects.

I don't disagree with this take completely, especially in regards to IT infrastructure, but I don't think that this explanation captures the main problem.

There are clear counterexamples for large European no-profit infrastructure (CERN, ITER) or even currently ongoing projects (e.g. railway infrastructure like the Brenner base or Fehmarn tunnel).

My take is that there simply was no strong enough incentive to spend a lot of money/effort to duplicate American offerings just to stay independent, but the current US admin is providing sufficient incentives to start spending on this, and while independence is nice in general, I think this is overall just a huge waste.

[vladms]

There are lots of people (both in and out) perceiving Europe in different ways, but is this a result of facts or of repetition of some ideas in the news?

Can you give without searching 5 examples of large unprofitable projects in Europe and the USA?

Each time I look for examples, I find more than I knew before. And anyhow the purpose is not for the project to be unprofitable or large! If (just as an example) Europe obtains 50% of the result with 25% of the investment is that bad? I (as European) also want to live a good life, I don't care that Europe is that first at throwing money around like crazy.

And is it about size in monetary value or impact? Anybody talks about UK Bio Bank? No, while the impact on healthcare is amazing and they don't even try to make it for profit (ofc lots of US companies are crazy to use it)...

[schnitzelstoat]

Europe isn't that far behind and often produces new technologies. It has some of the best universities and research labs in the world.

The problem is the uncompetitive business environment.

[maciejw]

How do we make it more competitive? Work 996 like the Chinese? Have no maternity leave like Americans? It would certainly make us more competitive...