[jacquesm]

> 2) My main beef is not with the US (I am not from US), its with Europe, for its spinelessness and inability to break its US dependence.

Silicon Valley has an 'unfair advantage' in terms of capital available and the talent pool (though the latter is changing). This means that if you're going to roll something out you have a very good shot at cleaning up the EU market besides your home market because you will have the ability to massively undercut any EU competitors to the point that it would have to be an existential risk (after all your other EU competitors can do the same) to not do business with the US tech giants.

That's not spinelessness, that's sheer survival in a world where the table is massively tilted.

Breaking US dependence means breaking SV dependence and that's not even something the other states in the US have been able to do (Seattle got a head start and still didn't manage).

The same goes for the rest of the world...

Now, as to whether or not the EU could do better: so far, not really, because the main reason the EU does what it does is because it is a strong subscriber to free market principles, both within and without (and for better or for worse). The US has now burned a number of bridges which for most people in the EU (present company apparently excluded) were beyond the pale not that long ago.

So the tide is finally shifting: doing business with the US for critical services is now seen as a massive liability. This opens the door to local competition but that local competition still has to deal with various realities: environmental laws, anti-competitive legislation (which is stronger than in the USA) and a fractured linguistic environment as well as a lack of available capital. Those are - each by themselves - massive challenges that will need to be overcome.

I'm too old to take the lead in any of this - assuming I even could - so I'm happy to stand back to see what is going to happen and to help people see what is to their advantage and what is not. But I'm going to reserve judgment because I think that if you want to solve a problem you're going to have to work with people rather than to blame them for any of the ruts they're in.

[don_esteban]

Well, yes, all is more obvious in hindsight.

The tilted table facing the Silicon Valley: Yes, definitively. The US is screaming murder regarding the others (China...) subsidizing their industries to gain monopoly advantage. That is exactly what US (via Venture Capital) is doing regarding the SV startups -- the whole model there is burning cash to scale quickly to market dominance.

If China and Russia have been able to (at least somehow) insulate themselves from US IT dominance, so should had Europe, at least for the most critical things. Hiding behind 'free market' ideology when the other (stronger!) side is not playing by the same rules is sheer stupidity.

Yeah, yeah, nobody could have foreseen the level US would abuse its power... if you wholeheartedly believed the spiel about the common values and interests. In reality, the US has always been very transactional and aggressive. Its just that with Trump the mask has come off.

[jacquesm]

So, here you are with your successful EU startup. This time you'll do things right. So you go and raise some EU VC in order to be able to fight off the SV competition. And miracle: it works, you are successful. You consolidate your EU presence and get to the point where even the SV competitors can no longer compete.

So they buy out your investors and fire you.

[don_esteban]

Critical infrastructure is not for sale to potentially hostile foreigners.

[jacquesm]

Oh nice, tell me what legal basis you will use to stop a takeover bid. Have a look at NXP and a whole raft of other absolutely critical companies whose shares eventually wound up in the hands of countries hostile to Europe.

We have a whole department in the EU that would like nothing better than to be able to stop these kind of things from happening but time and again the business world finds a way around it. That's one of the main issues with the EU: we play by the rules even if the rest of the world does not. But that's a very expensive principle to let go and I for one am happy that so far they have not, even if you think it is 'spineless' it actually is the opposite.

[don_esteban]

Not all rules are created equal.

You are fool to play by the rules designed by the others to prey on you.

US/China/Russia would not let their critical infrastructure get in the hands of potential adversary.

If EU does, that just means it has resigned to the role of vassal. In such case it is fair to call them spineless.