[jstummbillig]

Here is an idea for a EU product: Build something that is great, and make it so good, that everyone, including US citizens, will want to use it.

Your ethics can still be great, but don't make me feel like your product won't be. If you have to market "Europe" or privacy it probably won't be.

[bluegatty]

Totally valid point - but there are a lot of other strategic consideration.

Especially with 'Social' there are network externalizations like 'critical mass' - that actually compounds across a lot of things.

No European country given size and language is going to be able to create something that resonates as well as the American variation beyond the critical mass needed, at least naturally.

If 'French Facebook' started at one of the 'Grande Ecoles' it would have grown much more slowly, and maybe never moved out of being French centric and therefore not gone beyond borders.

Without the 'momentum' that doesn't attract investors, doesn't make employees want to work 'late nights for the big IPO payoff' etc..

And there are so many other related conventions, such as capitol markets, public markets, so many issues.

So - in order to overcome those limitations there may have to be a lot of strategic thinking and manoeuvring.

Given that Europe took 4 years to adjust to a nation literally invading it ... well ... I wouldn't hold my breath.

There are some winning opportunities: government procurement is powerful but Euros are afraid to negotiate hard with MS Goog etc..

There's a lot of money involved, forcing issues on privacy is entirely possible.

Same for local content, some degree of decentralization.

Requiring government actors to use 'Euro Mastadon' or whatever - it means school, students, parents come abard and then you have 'critical mass'.

Requiring 'open doc format' means you can break the MS Office monopoly.

Requiring 'Linux First' on every IT procurement decision - or even 'Open Soruce First' so local city council must give an excuse for why they are not using 'Approved Euro-Linux Variations' etc..

Lots of things.

[znpy]

> Requiring government actors to use 'Euro Mastadon' or whatever - it means school, students, parents come abard and then you have 'critical mass'.

Not really.

Reality is that people (eg: students) will have the "euro mastodon" (or whatever) AND the other social media accounts, and will drop the "euro mastodon" when not legally enforced anymore (eg: when finishing school).

> Requiring 'open doc format'

If you're talking about OpenDocument, it's not european really: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument - It was originally built by Sun Microsystems, a very american company (RIP).

[bluegatty]

You're misunderstanding the concept of critical mass as it relates.

People wanted to move to BlueSky, but they couldn't move away from the others because the critical mass did not shift.

I governing bodies require certain use, then the critical mass for those platforms then exist.

People don't need to go to the other platforms.

There's zero reason for Europeans to use Facebook.

Now Twitter is another story - but as we see with Russia, where they have 'engineered' the critical mass on Telegram, and where Twitter is 'available' - it works. Telegram is #1, and Twitter is #2.

The same would happen in Europe.

There are standards for various things, it doesn't matter where they originate from that much, any number of them can be adopted, the key is there has to be hard requirements for parties to support them.

If 'all government procurement' required participants t adhere to those standards, it'd open up for others to participate.

[znpy]

I think you’re misunderstanding user experience.

I was on online social networks before Facebook, one of them (kly.it) was very local (national) and very similar to facebook.

And yet, facebook was better, it took off and other european platforms like kly.it or netlog died miserably.

[psychoslave]

You are aware that most French locutors are living in Africa right now. And more in the realms of hazardous projections, it might become the first spoken language by 2050 IIRC, depending on actual demographic evolutions.

[bluegatty]

Africa is less important to extra-regional critical mass effects because of less access to internet, significantly lower income / advertising opportunity, and social and political influence (news tends to travel one way) and not a lot of integration of material concerns with France (individuals may have relations, but not a ton of business, entertainment etc.) - although the 'Football Factor' obviously looms large.

English wins because many people speak it and most people with influence do as well.

All of that will probably evolve a bit by 2050 but probably not enough to move the needle.

India and Philippines with huge numbers of English speakers will probably bulwark 'English as the Commons'.

[keiferski]

Yeah, basically no successful American social media company advertises itself as being American. And its users do not think of it as "an American company," they just think of it as its own thing.

[benrutter]

That might be true for social media, but there are 100s of American brands that make a large point of being thought of as an "American company" or "American made" goods.

[keiferski]

That’s because the reference to America implies quality in the good the customer is buying. American-made jeans are perceived as higher quality goods than X-made ones.

No one uses social media networks because they care about the quality of the platform. They use them to stay connected with friends and family, to meet new people, or to be entertained.

Very different use cases.

[csomar]

I think that's when selling inside America but I don't remember seeing any american company proudly advertising its product as "American". I'd wager that today they want to hide that fact.

[vovavili]

This kind of messaging is overtly Republican-coded.

[znpy]

Frankly it's always been democrats that have been painting stuff like that as "republican-coded" (and frankly it's giving a lot of people fatigue).

[rndm77be9f]

Does the average non-HN type in Europe hold comparable pan-European or even plain National Pride? I think here of the German national relationship with their own flag and feel skeptical of a comparison here.

[vovavili]

From my observation both studying and working abroad in the Netherlands, France, Germany, Finland and Latvia, people almost always tend to cluster along ethnic or linguistic lines in another European country. This stays invariant even if the command of English is perfect. Pan-European national identity is very much non-existent, ethno-lingustic patriotism very much is alive.

[Semaphor]

Sample size of 1, but my primary connection is my state (SH) in Germany, then European. I feel less of a connection to my country.

There was a map some time ago about who had what connections on the regional, country, and EU level. Iirc EU was almost never number one, but got quite a few second places.

[dolmen]

This is becoming a thing in computing because sovereignty suddenly matters in the new context.

France pushes its SecNumCloud standard for critical infrastructure or handling of critical data (ex: health) through law. So, this may not be about pride, but the result is similar.

[ludicrousdispla]

replace flag with football team

[penguin_booze]

Calling it European signals that, for one, that it's not American. For some users, that in itself is an attraction.

[anotherevan]

Truth social is unsuccessful?

[psychoslave]

What is it?

[fragmede]

Twitter clone marketed to right-wing Americans.

[psychoslave]

Ok, well, I don't know how successful it is, but it definitely doesn't have the same coverage in daily life I guess.

[mawadev]

The problem is impressumspflicht, you have to add your full contact address plus name to a website you host, inviting all sorts of trolls on the internet to ruin your life. No thanks.

[aquariusDue]

Same problem with the Play Store/Console if you're registering as an individual instead of a company to publish an app.

[redrove]

No it’s not.

You’re generalizing, DACH != the entire EU.

[drnick1]

You can register domain names anonymously. Sure, you will be asked for contact details (WHOIS), but no one verifies them.

[oaiey]

You can be suite in some European countries if you have a web page without an impressum and latest your domain registration will have your credit card to track you. Obviously, not all cases can be traced back.

[tough]

https://njal.la/ or other providers will take your crypto too

[drnick1]

Then don't register a domain in those countries, and pay with crypto.

[jstummbillig]

The most European reason to not do something.

[moffkalast]

Doesn't work. As soon as something great appears, US VCs immediately buy it and move it to the bay area. A fair few of the products you think are US grown probably aren't. If not, a competitor appears that is less constrained by regulations and can move faster, taking over most of the market instead.

[wbl]

US companies obey EU law when working in the EU. And there is a reason VC does not exist in Europe namely capital markets being divided.

[vidarh]

Having spent years working for a VC and having raised rounds from VC's in Europe multiple times over the last 26 years, that it doesn't exist is news to me.

[vovavili]

I am not aware of anything on the level of YCombinator or Sequoia Capital over here in Europe.

[vidarh]

That's a very different thing from VC not existing.

[wqaatwt]

It’s mostly pennies relative to the US, though?

Obviously nobody implied it literally doesn’t exist.

[vidarh]

It's pennies relative to the Bay Area. E.g. London alone is the 3rd large source of VC capital by region worldwide, 1/10th of the Bay Area, but 2/3rd of New York in second place.

Every US region outside of the Bay Area is "mostly pennies" relative to the Bay Area too - the Bay Area accounts for 2/3s of the total venture capital in the US.

But that's still also somewhat misleading in that a lot of the bug US funds both have a lot of foreign LP's and invest a lot outside the US, and the same pattern holds within the US, so, sure it's pennies in terms of the location of the fund managers.

When you instead look at valuation or invested capital by recipients, it's still lopsided but much less so.

You find the same in Europe - London is far more dominant as a location of fund managers than it is as a location of LP's in the funds, as well as the location of companies invested in or valuation.

[wqaatwt]

Also extreme risk aversion and generally very conservative business culture stuck in 60s (just less accepting of innovation than back then)

[psychoslave]

What's wrong with risk aversion? If that could prevent things like what happen in the USA currently, I would centuple down risk aversion. Europe already domestically had to suffer two world war consequences.

Yes being prudent and staying safe have costs. Acting stubbornly as base mindset all the time also have costs.

[wqaatwt]

Economic stagnation for the past 15+ years? Economic growth almost stopped in much of Europe after the GFC.

> suffer two world war consequences

I don’t particularly see how relates to general attitudes towards innovation.

[wilg]

They don't have to sell?

[carlosjobim]

You're not forced to sell, nobody is.

[dgellow]

That's definitely the main issue. We will end up with a really neat technical stack, a few products built on it for their 100 users each, and it will be forgotten in a few years...

[dutchCourage]

I don't think making a good product is enough. X is still prevalent despite Musk's actions both as a public person and as X's owner. The alternatives, be it Bluesky or Threads, are fine to use, yet people aren't moving.

There's no way we'll be able to compete against Google or Meta in any meaningful way if we can't even get people out of X. Even more so because I'd argue that a good product is a little more boring than the ones that are currently at the top.

[jstummbillig]

No, it's not enough. In your case it's not even anything: Being a second mover and copying the incumbent without the benefit of the existing user base does not make a good product to begin with.

[rayiner]

Is there room for European companies to be the “Hermes of the Internet?” The American web is ad-optimized slop for the masses. Can the europeans provide higher quality experiences for more discerning buyers?

I’m thinking about Tik Tok. When it was Chinese, my feed was stuff I actually wanted to watch. A lot of it was Chinese propaganda, but it was stuff that was pleasant, like people cooking in Chinese villages. Now it’s just rage bait and engagement farming.

[hiAndrewQuinn]

Depending on how hardcore enforcement of the upcoming Cybersecurity Resilience Act is, that might(?) push EU products very slightly towards this luxury pricing power on the margin.

But on the whole I think you're dreaming, Ray. I can't imagine a single case of a successful luxury software product. (Apple is premium mediocre at best, doesn't count.)

[rayiner]

You’re probably right i’m just thinking out loud. It is interesting that software has resisted quality-based segmentation, something that exists in almost every other type of product.

[davedigerati]

very interesting thought experiment here. I wonder how much it would take in a monthly subscription to offset the money they make in ads? picturing an Instagram without drivel and the crap and the manipulative behavior, that I would pay for simply to escape for 15 minutes. Curate the good content, heck create AI content I don't care I'm there to just mentally check out for a bit. Time lock it based on my prefs so that it respects me as a human being, doesn't try to feed off of me as a data source and I'll pay for that. I agree with you why is no one doing this? I can hear an argument about economies of scale, that it's just not worth the hassle, big guys too entrenched, but isn't that what we're all here to do... create new ways to disrupt?!?

[dolmen]

If you pay a premium price, you're an even more interesting target for others premium brands, so the best target for advertisers. And they are too greedy to leave you alone.

[cadamsdotcom]

Ah but for some reason that was missing from the principles. It is the ONLY thing that matters.

Being European is a nice boost on the feelgood factor, if people even know. Anyone who ranks that above product quality is a minority - that’s why this has ~400 signatures not 4 million.

[wqaatwt]

The product “quality” seems hardly relevant for social network services? Only the user base matters, otherwise Google Plus would have won against FB..

[cadamsdotcom]

It’s a hygiene factor. You won’t get a user base with a worse product.

With a product that’s good enough or maybe better, at least the chances aren’t a guaranteed zero :)

[oaiey]

The key part of European projects is not their quality or greatness. They do not think big.

[wqaatwt]

That doesn’t work when the incumbents are so entrenched.

You’d need to go the Chinese route and just ban everything to give the full market to domestic alternatives.

[warumdarum]

Have you tried wire card? Its really good! Best payment system i ever used! Bought my villa in moscow with it...

[doener]

I would have subscribed to that before Trump‘s second term. Nowadays for many Europeans great product is not a necessary feature to choose European over American.

[deadbabe]

How about wines, cheeses, olive oils

[dotcoma]

Or fast trains you can only dream of in the US, or Airbus that is kicking Boeing’s ass…

[wilg]

America has world-class wines, cheeses, and olive oils.

[tredre3]

America can make those those just as well as the Europeans, that much is true. But world-class implies renowned and nobody outside of America wants those American products. Hell, Americans who care about quality in those categories will favor the European option (whether it's based on merits or not isn't relevant, it's just how it is, it just shows that world-class means nothing).

[ftmootnomoat]

[flagged]

[kingofmen]

Indeed they do. And as a result they have rather more of it than European busybodies. :)

[tomhow]

If you're going to use the word, just type the word. We don't need grawlix here.

But also, don't comment like this on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better than this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html