Americans are just as regulated and with even more egregious regulatory capture (see the American broadband/mobile provider cartel). At least Europeans get a little consumer protection.
america regulates to ensure companies (as few as humanly possible) profit while europe regulates to protect the consumers. the core difference, yea! and americans seemed to be always shitting on europe completely oblivious of what is being done to them, for decades now
I get what you're trying to say, but having just had some meetings on aligning with the latest AI act, as a small startup focusing on adapting open source models for local use, the way it looks now, it seems like we won't have any consumers worth protecting :) (and I'm only half joking. AI act is a joke, and Mistral have been saying this for a while now. We have chinese models launched with permissive licenses, usable everywhere except in the EU. It'd be good comedy if it wouldn't be tragic. ffs! We can't use open source shit!!! It's bananas)
Otoh, you can buy contact lenses OTC in other European countries... not saying Europe isn't over-regulated (try legally building a bike-trail on your own forest-land in Germany!! ...insanity) but it's a bad example.