European Council President Warns of Risks in Rise of US Tech Giants (reuters.com) 179
The world needs to be wary of the rise of tech giants such as Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, comparing their powers to those of countries such as China, European Council President Donald Tusk said in Warsaw on Friday. From a report: "In the East, we see the rise of those capable of controlling everyone's behavior, and in the West we've seen the rise of an uncontrolled, spontaneous empire," Tusk said in Warsaw in reference to the companies during a speech marking Constitution Day. "Our children are dependent on the internet and everyday will become more dependent on it," he added.
No Shit Sherlock (Score:1, Insightful)
You're just figuring this out?
The corporation IS the new country.
Re:No Shit Sherlock (Score:5, Interesting)
That and Europe doesn't have many Tech Giants of its own.
US, China, S. Korea and Japan have seemed to hold control of most of the influential technology companies. This means European Interests are often not directly met.
Politically it is easier to point to a country or a company and say "This is the bad guy". However the real question is why is there a lack of Powerful Technology Companies in Europe?
Re:No Shit Sherlock (Score:5, Interesting)
'Politically it is easier to point to a country or a company and say "This is the bad guy".'
Sure is. Doesn't mean it isn't true.
"However the real question is why is there a lack of Powerful Technology Companies in Europe?"
Nope, the mega corporations being allowed to become more powerful than governments are the problem and the technology companies are by far the most dangerous. Growing more rabid dogs in need of shooting in Europe isn't going to solve the problem.
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Nope, the mega corporations being allowed to become more powerful than governments are the problem and the technology companies are by far the most dangerous. Growing more rabid dogs in need of shooting in Europe isn't going to solve the problem.
Let me know the next time Apple, Facebook or Google send a squad over to someone's house to arrest or kill them for not paying protection money.
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Happens all the time. Those companies control democracy by controlling what people see and hear and they make you pay for the squad while controlling not only whether a squad will be sent but also whether or not anyone knows about it or anyone defending you is heard.
Those college kids going hungry also being covered on the front page... The companies you just mentioned are a major part of why.
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"Those college kids going hungry also being covered on the front page... The companies you just mentioned are a major part of why."
I did a poor job explaining this. Tuition are so outrageous largely because the tech industry works to create a false impression of a "shortage" of talent while at the same time preposterously inflating the "qualification" level required to perform the work. This causes american children to flood to schools for technology degrees with no jobs behind them. The companies do it so
Re: No Shit Sherlock (Score:2)
+1 Grimly accurate
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'Politically it is easier to point to a country or a company and say "This is the bad guy".'
Sure is. Doesn't mean it isn't true.
"However the real question is why is there a lack of Powerful Technology Companies in Europe?"
Nope, the mega corporations being allowed to become more powerful than governments are the problem and the technology companies are by far the most dangerous. Growing more rabid dogs in need of shooting in Europe isn't going to solve the problem.
Considering the constraints the EU is demanding on the Tech giants, it shouldn't be difficult to build some homebrew entities that can compete with the so called bad guys. Otherwise, what are you going to do - declare war on the bad guys?
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However the real question is why is there a lack of Powerful Technology Companies in Europe?
I think you first need to define what is meant by powerful technology company (or even technology company itself. Do the European automakers count at all?) and then how many of them you expect to have. I suspect the real answer is that they don't have any flash, consumer facing technology companies that your average Joe on the street is likely to know. But they do have large companies like SAP, that do over $100 billion in revenue but aren't consumer companies. There are others like Spotify that people prob
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The rest of the world was recovering from WW2 when the tech industry in the United States began to blossom.
It take at least a couple of decades to rebuild a country much less a continent. And rebuilding is more important than just about anything else at that time.
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The rest of the world was recovering from WW2 when the tech industry in the United States began to blossom.
It take at least a couple of decades to rebuild a country much less a continent. And rebuilding is more important than just about anything else at that time.
It's been over 70 years, friend.
One of the important things to remember is that the US built up a hellava lot of infrastructure to help win WW2. And what's left is getting shabby.
The new energy and infrastructure of Europe should be allowing them to not only compete, but to kick our asses to Sunday and back.
My own thoughts are that Europe was asleep at the switch, allowed others to create and distribute the new technology, and by the time the EU was created, they looked at the world through the eye
Re:No Shit Sherlock (Score:5, Insightful)
This is by design. Giants are widely attempted to get regulated away in an effort to prevent market power concentration and to improve the outcome to consumers.
The USA has Amazon.
Europe has Allegro (Poland based), CDiscount (France based), Fnac (also French), Otto (German based), Real.de (still German), Zalandro (also German) Bol (Dutch), Cool Blue (also Dutch). And those are just the ones I've heard of. Each of the above do more than $1bn in yearly revenue so we're not lacking options or products, and Cool Blue delivers a heck of a lot faster than Amazon does even with my Prime membership.
Europe develops a lot of technology only to be quickly bought by USA based tech companies which unfortunately the European regulators are quite powerless to stop, as e.g. Microsoft buying Skype becomes a matter for USA based regulators rather than European ones.
I have a better question: Why would Europe want a single all powerful company? What has the world gained from Microsoft buying Skype, and Nokia, or Google buying out Nest? The latter of which certainly hasn't been good for the consumer given the once fast developing company seems to have fallen massively behind other smart thermostats since the acquisition.
Do you think Shazam is better in Apple's hands? Or for that matter the open market seller of power management chips Dialog Semiconductor, I wonder if Apple will continue to sell those chips to its competitors benefiting everyone, or will use it to prop up its own business leaving LG / Samsung high and dry.
Do you think Ninja Theory, a games studio which is platform agnostic will keep churning out PS4 titles now that it's owned by Microsoft (speculated that MS bought them last year so they start increasing their count of Xbox exclusive titles).
No thanks. We don't need tech giants. We need "Powerful Technology Companies" to stay away from small agile consumer friendly European companies, thanks.
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I have a better question: Why would Europe want a single all powerful company?
Because the US doesn't have one, and it would be a feather in their cap? It would cement the EU as a union and increase EU control. How many Brits would have voted for Brexit had someone been able to say "but you won't be able to buy from HugeCo Electronics, the EU's single all-powerful company, anymore if you leave!"?
given the once fast developing company seems to have fallen massively behind other smart thermostats since the acquisition.
But wait! You've just admitted that MS buying Nest was good for everyone, since Nest has stagnated and created market for all the other competitors.
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Politically it is easier to point to a country or a company and say "This is the bad guy". However the real question is why is there a lack of Powerful Technology Companies in Europe?
US companies profit from a much larger initial market pool using a common language, 320 million Americans plus the large international English speaking community.
A European company will have to be successful in the local market first, of German / French / Spanish / Italian / Swedish... speakers. Much smaller markets to begin with. Expanding into the international, English speaking crowd, takes a comparably larger effort than for US companies, who basically get it out of the box.
If two identical companies ar
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Those low taxes, subsidized by many trillions in debt are another reason.
And what imperial units are you using?
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However the real question is why is there a lack of Powerful Technology Companies in Europe?
I think the reason is that European consumers are less uniform (e.g. just considering all the languages) and possibly Europe is better at implementing their antitrust laws, as a result there are plenty of smaller companies, which as a result are weaker and usually bought out by monotonically grown US (or government sponsored Chinese) corporations.
Also Europe is a union (not federation), still very young and diverse when comparing to the USA.
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I don't know what you think that word means, but I'm failing to see what calculus has to do with the matter at hand.
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That and Europe doesn't have many Tech Giants of its own. US, China, S. Korea and Japan have seemed to hold control of most of the influential technology companies. This means European Interests are often not directly met.
Politically it is easier to point to a country or a company and say "This is the bad guy". However the real question is why is there a lack of Powerful Technology Companies in Europe?
In so many things in life, it is orders of magnitude easier to point to something, and say "This is the bad guy."
I've asked the question many times - why can't the EU compete?
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Aren't these the problems that Rollerball [youtube.com] are supposed to address?
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Yeah, pretty sure:
Apple $926.9 Billion USD, market value
Amazon.com $777.8
Alphabet $766.4
Microsoft $750.6
Facebook $541.5
Tencent Holdings $491.3
Samsung Electronics $325.9
Lump all the UK's together and they only hit 50b? They're tech "giants" in quotes. Of all those I've only heard of Skype, Spotify, and Mojang. And Microsoft already bought Skype and Mojang.
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It is all about capital in my opinion.
Whenever a European tech company rises it typically either gets bought out by a US company or eventually folds under a new competitor. The capital markets in the EU simply do not have the same dimension. Also, European investors are a lot more conservative and skittish.
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Trump seems more worried about Canada then China, just look at the list of exceptions to the tariffs. He does make a lot of noise though as it keeps his base happy.
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> The corporation IS the new country.
Not really no. The corporation has soft power and the ability to shift around through different countries to an extent, but if it came down to it, real countries still have power that corporations cannot match. Think about it - if somehow Google or Facebook and the US Government got into an actual REAL conflict, all it would take is 20 minutes of arned troops rampaging through Facebook HQ to force Zuckerberg's capitulation. Zuckerberg/Facebook's soft power would ha
The problem is with government (Score:4, Insightful)
We know from economics that capitalism without a democratic government on top of it will turn to oligarchy very quickly.
The global corporations have been here for many decades now. Where is the global democratic government?
Nowhere.
That's all.
Facebook is now "Link banning" (Score:2, Offtopic)
Facebook is now "link banning" commentators. Not only can't the commentator use Facebook, anyone who *links* to the commentators can be banned as well.
"Infowars is subject to the strictest ban. Facebook and Instagram will remove any content containing Infowars videos, radio segments, or articles (unless the post is explicitly condemning the content [Emphasis mine]), and Facebook will also remove any groups set up to share Infowars content and events promoting any of the banned extremist figures, according t
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Well, I still remember the time when people did not confuse the Internet with Facebook.
(Well, sadly, it was just before the time when many people began mistaking AOL for the Internet.)
Re:Facebook is now "Link banning" (Score:4, Interesting)
(Well, sadly, it was just before the time when many people began mistaking AOL for the Internet.)
What about people confusing the web with the internet? Most people have scarcely interacted with it in any other way.
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The emergence of uncontrolled global moderators that are responsible to noone but their owners like Google and Facebook is a much more important and dangerous development than the choice of technology. The WWW tech is still quite democratic and diverse in comparison, so isn't the big problem.
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There are no "global moderators". There are moderators who control what material appears on a company's message system. There are a LOT of people who are crying for this, demanding that 'something be done' about "fake news" and "hate speech" and other things they don't want to see. Facebook is doing something. Facebook is bad for doing something. But Facebook is bad for not do
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Sounds like people will just link to a blog which links to Infowars. I've seen people do that, where their blog may be 1-2 sentences and a link to the main content, just to get around FB's insta-gibs of posts.
I'm sure the next level will be a CAPTCHA to stop indexers and perhaps IP blocking so anyone from FB's IP blocks gets redirected somewhere else.
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Sorry, I don't patronize link shorteners. I'm dubious about where they may send me to.
Re: Facebook is now "Link banning" (Score:2)
Why is Faceboot working so damned hard to lend credibility to that crackpot Alex Jones?
Re:The problem is with government (Score:4, Interesting)
The global corporations have been here for centuries now.
Our problems aren't rooted in the way we humans manage ourselves. The problems are rooted in there being too many of us humans alive at one time.
See this video [youtube.com]. It's a bit about an experiment done just after WW2, whereby overpopulation was already becoming a concern.
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Overpopulation, to the extent it exists at all is also a problem of lack of global policy. The post-WWII population explosion (which is mostly over) was due to the massive decrease in children mortality that modern medicine made possible. Unfortunately, that happened in societies in which nothing else changed, that is, places in which social security is equal to having many children, or places where the problem was tackled by pseudopolicies like the one-child thing.
On top of that, you got *local* economics
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How about both? Overpopulation is, indeed, a real problem, but so is the way we govern ourselves. And the speed of communication and of transportation has interacted in a malign way with both of those. (This isn't to claim that it is, itself, malign. It has extremely useful features and effects as well.)
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How about both? Overpopulation is, indeed, a real problem, but so is the way we govern ourselves.
I guess one could argue that point well, but what I'm saying is that the problem is rooted in overpopulation. As in, the reason that we're having issues managing ourselves, is because there are too many of us.
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You could go back a bit, and consider the Mongol horde, or the Crusades or.... well, there's LOTS of instances where the way we govern ourselves in low population groups isn't all that great.
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This is a great point! See how far we've come?
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Also you speak of a need for a 'global democracy', which I'd caution you to not speak of in public places like bars, otherwise the Conservative types will likely grab the nearest sharp objects and attempt to murder you. Not that I would try to forcibly silence
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All that being said: We do have 'capitalism gone bad', and there does need to be some slap-down of the ones grown too big for their pants.
So, since these capitalist corporations are, indeed, a bit too big, and can easily avoid national government slap-downs on top of them negotiating out of it at Davos, what do we do?
You rule out the democratic option, what do you propose? Global uprising of the proletariat, Marx style?
A benevolent dictator in a very high castle?
AIs taking over?
I'm really curious.
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Most of the large (i.e. worst) corporations already have structures that do "corporate social responsibility".
Typically as a subdivision of their marketing department.
It doesn't work.
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Why is it that I don't want a democratic government? The EU management system as it exists today is not a democratic government, it is an outgrowth of the coal, electricity and steel cartel that Eisenhower instituted in Europe post WWII.
You cannot have a working economy without some mechanism that can reign in the John Galts and the Larry Ellisons of the world, and it cannot be a local government, because local governments will always end up racing to the bottom.
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Large democratic governments are subject to a host of problems, largely stemming from the fact that the individual cannot reasonably expect to address his representative. It's gotten so bad in the US that I think selecting representatives by lottery would be better. At least they couldn't be bribed ahead of time.
I'm not really sure which problem with the government is worst. Regulatory capture is certainly one of the big ones, but I think the legal bribery of elected officials is probably the worst. And
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Large democratic governments are subject to a host of problems,
Yes. And places without them are subject to even more problems.
I'm not really sure which problem with the government is worst.
The worst problem of the democratic government is the gradual erosion it is subject to by money. Eventually 1 person = 1 vote disappears, and politics becomes just one more market.
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Eventually 1 person = 1 vote disappears
It is cute that you think that any global democratic government would even START at 1 person == 1 vote, much less not quickly devolve into something very very different.
It's also cute that you think it is appropriate for the population of China, e.g., to have a voting say in what we do in the US.
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And you're wrong to think that your shallow cynicism is the same thing as being smart.
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Pardon me if I find it hard to get too concerned? (Score:5, Interesting)
The Internet was originally an invention of the USA, and so we naturally had a head-start building major destinations to visit on it. As it extended to the rest of the world, many nations didn't even seem that interested in getting involved with it. (Look at the domains assigned to countries who decided they'd rather resell them than use them as intended.)
There's nothing stopping other countries from forming Internet-centric businesses that are as large, as good as and that compete directly with the likes of an Apple, a Google or a Facebook. Well, except maybe the fact that America's Democratic Republic and relatively free market actually makes it easier to become successful with such an endeavor?
I'd love to see more options and competition, from ALL corners of the globe. It seems like in Asia, Alibabba has become a pretty strong force to be reckoned with for product sales online. It may not be Amazon-sized just yet, but it's growing considerably.
Re:Pardon me if I find it hard to get too concerne (Score:5, Informative)
The global companies are not national or patriotic. Google and Apple shafted you, the US citizen, by incorporating in places where they don't pay taxes for the business they do in your country, and using the infrastructure you pay for.
Re:Pardon me if I find it hard to get too concerne (Score:4, Insightful)
How in the hell has Apple "shafted" anyone?! They conceived, built, and sold something that billions of people want, and are willing to pay for. You can buy it, and it works largely as advertised. What the hell else do you, and individual, want from them? You want a third party to simply take some of their money back? For money that will largely be squandered?
The USA is a nation of *individuals", making deals, with supposedly minimal cooperative action for the minimum necessary functions. Apple followed all applicable laws, as far as anyone can tell. You, or the EU, or any other entity trying to hold them up for money is no different from any other thugs, trying to steal money that they didn't work for or earn.
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How in the hell has Apple "shafted" anyone?!
They participate in a game that is called "moving from tax-n-spend to borrow-n-spend governance".
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The global companies are not national or patriotic. Google and Apple shafted you, the US citizen, by incorporating in places where they don't pay taxes for the business they do in your country, and using the infrastructure you pay for.
The tricks that US mulitnationals play by incorporating elsewhere only avoid US taxes on revenue earned outside of the US -- and even then it only protects them as long as they keep the money abroad. As soon as they try to bring it into the US, it gets taxed (with the exception of rare events like Trump's tax amnesty). The US is the only major nation that tries to tax corporations on foreign earnings. If we stopped doing that, the foreign incorporation shenanigans would have no value and would cease.
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You're glad when people shaft you? Well, good for you.
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The government created the roads so you can get your raw material delivered, educated the people you hire, provided security to your property for your business to flourish, created the legal system so you can enforce contracts, lobbied on your behalf for better import/export tariffs on raw materials, uses the military for keeping the trade routes safe, and a million other things.
If you're a company, yeah, you need to pay your share for all this free stuff you got. Stop being a fucking freeloader you asshole
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Everyone, this is an example of capitalistic masochism.
Or it's a company owner running a false flag. Listen McScrooge, if the government need $100 to maintain the bridge in town, that money has to come from me or you. You can try to "pass on" that cost downstream to your employees or your customers or your shareholders. Whatever floats your boat. Just like I could "pass on" that cost and demand a higher paycheck or lower priced goods from your company. And stop deluding yourself about pre-tax/pos
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Making a product for the Internet has little to do with this head start on having it. The internet was a world wide infrastructure for decades, and currently most countries have exceeded the US in terms of infrastructure. It isn't like Google is running on software written for the 1970's Arpanet.
Re:Pardon me if I find it hard to get too concerne (Score:4, Insightful)
That isn't true, making a product for the internet is less about infrastructure and engineering capability and more about understanding the culture and people of the internet. If you think of it as a language the US has had a growing proportion of its population speaking it fluently for far longer and others speak internet as a second language.
That is why during the early software outsourcing days there was so much trouble and the impression that foreign development firms could code well enough but lacked any sort of creativity. When you speak the language fluently you have a better ability to get a sense of what the speaker is looking for and read between the lines of the specification sheet. You understand the why of what is being requested and what they are "getting at" which allows you to make reasonable guesses and even offer suggestions consistent with the theme of their vision that would improve it. If you aren't fluent you are just looking to translate a cold list into another programming language and not contributing much beyond that which is still valuable but not nearly as valuable.
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Isn't Alibaba or Taobao larger than Amazon these days? I know that Taobao is supposedly the place to go if one is needing to import stuff at the cheapest prices possible.
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Having more of these giants isn't going to solve the problem. They have more power than government and in many cases the power to alter and distort public information unilaterally. These companies have more information on what you do and where you go than the intelligence agencies of government and need no warrants, aren't bound by the bill of rights, and are not subjected to the will of the electorate.
That is a serious problem. A free market is indeed good for business but that is only one small aspect of
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As it extended to the rest of the world, many nations didn't even seem that interested in getting involved with it. (Look at the domains assigned to countries who decided they'd rather resell them than use them as intended.)
Only tiny island states that make Rhode Island look like a giant did that like for example Tuvalu with 11192 inhabitants, Nauru with 11200 or Tokelau with 1500 plus a few of the poorest, smallest countries in Africa like Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Central African Republic. No European country or any other country with more Internet users than you can count on one hand did that.
Politicians. 20 years behind. (Score:2)
Now they notice. Pathetic.
Why (Score:4, Insightful)
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Why are there no European internet "giants?" Europe has had the Internet for a loong time. Europe used to be at the forefront of computing technology. The Web was literally invented there.
Why does Europe still have a steel industry worth mentioning and the US has not? At least, the current US president sure likes to complain about it and how the US internet giants are 'Waaaaaah! UNFAIR!!!' to him. Priorities vary from country to country.
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Why are there no European internet "giants?" Europe has had the Internet for a loong time.
Completely by design. Europe prides itself on competition and preventing major monopolies from forming. The USA has Amazon as a household name. I typically use Amazon as well, but only after checking Allegro, CDiscount, Fnac, Otto, Real.de, Zalandro, Bol or Cool Blue first. (not in that order though, in fact I typically check Bol followed by Otto). Each of those companies has several billion eur annual revenue and the result is nice good competition to the point where Bol delivers locally faster than Amazon
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We didn't get in on the dot com boom so much. Hurt less when it went bust, but the down side is that we didn't get the 1 in 10,000 successes like the US did.
Having said that we are quite strong in video games, lots of big studios here, including Rockstar, makers of the GTA series.
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Why are there no European internet "giants?" Europe has had the Internet for a loong time. Europe used to be at the forefront of computing technology. The Web was literally invented there.
Same reason clothes are made in poor countries with weak or no control over locally operating foreign businesses.
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Notice what they are doing? (Score:4, Interesting)
They only go after the sites with user created content. Why don't they go after the mass media tabloids that agitate for war and invasions of other countries with government propaganda?
They want to control the platforms that we use to "broadcast". That ain't right!
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Uh, I give up, how does Facebook or Google "go after" mass media tabloids? And who is this mythical "they" you are talking about. Is there some mysterious cabal that only you know exists?
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Wait, you are saying that government isn't going after the media outlets that spew their propoganda? Instead it is trying to silence the platforms used for free speech by dissenters who want things in conflict with the current powers at be?
This surprises you? It wasn't exactly unforeseen, that is why there is supposed to be a guaranteed right of free speech and press here in the US. But that doesn't mean his argument is entirely without merit either, we need an end-to-end encrypted decentralized platform fo
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"Been saying that for years. It's always good to see others on the same page. But don't depend on any promises. There is never any punishment when they are broken. The same old people keep right on winning the vote. Technology really is the only way out."
Yes, it is but just as important is doing it in a way that doesn't just trade one group of overlords for a new one. The platforms this guy is talking about do exactly that and defending them is just defending a new set of masters without even the compromise
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They only go after the sites with user created content. Why don't they go after the mass media tabloids that agitate for war and invasions of other countries with government propaganda?
Are you off your meds? The EU hasn't handed out a single fine to your precious "broadcasting" companies. They have only gone after companies that break privacy and monopoly laws, two things sorely lacking in the USA.
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More comprehension issues I see.
Yeah, one of us is bad at communicating so the other has no idea what you're on about.
They are attacking only the publicly accessible platforms.
Again, they are doing no such thing. You just have an overwhelming case of observer bias coupled with your tin foil hat falling off. Don't worry though, there's a major American company that can sort this out for you:
https://www.amazon.com/Archie-... [amazon.com]
and your cat
https://www.amazon.com/Archie-... [amazon.com]
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They do go after tabloids. All countries in the EU have some kind of press regulation, which covers their online operations.
Risk to the EU? (Score:2)
...funny, it seems like the EU is doing pretty well farming US tech firms for tens of $billions?
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...funny, it seems like the EU is doing pretty well farming US tech firms for tens of $billions?
Yeah, for privacy violations, tax cheating and anti-competitive behaviour. You should be asking yourself why the US government isn't fining them for inviting your privacy, cheating on their taxes and limiting your consumer choices with anti-competitive behaviour, why you are happy about that and upset about other countries kicking tech giants in the balls for it.
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Ha ha, as if the EU and member states don't have a history of promoting national cartels, ethnocentrism, and punishing NIH successful firms.
You're hilarious.
Comment removed (Score:3)
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The US corporations you mean, which aren't really US corporations anymore. They actually insource most aspects of their operations from India and a number of other countries (that's why they pretended to be so offended by the travel ban it blocked their immigrant imports) and them making ludicrous profits harms the US more than helps each and every day.
USA! USA! (Score:2)
American dominates so hard, our companies freak out other nations.
America! Fuck yeah!
He was not bashing US companies (Score:3, Informative)
He did not hint how to solve those problems but one may expect that Europe not being economically and politically influenced by Internet companies may have more incentives to control and regulate Internet.
Re: He was not bashing US companies (Score:2)
Of course he was. That's what the EU does. They fail to develop anything of their own, and then when the Americans develop it, they have nothing to offer but criticism.
He obviously didn't have any solutions because that's not what he does. He's an expert at pointing out what others do wrong. He has no idea how to make things better. That's why intelligent people pay no attention to fucksticks like him.
let's all vote decentracrat (Score:2)
Decentralization: A euphemism for the process by which one centralized system is succeeded by another.
good points. Lets break up top 10s (Score:2)
10 largest global companies [wikipedia.org]
1)Walmart
2)State Grid
3)Sinopec
4)China National Petroleum
5)Royal Dutch Shell
6)Toyota
7)Volkswagen
8)BP
9)Exxon
10)Berkshire
10 largest tech companies [investopedia.com]
1)Apple
2)Samsung
3)Microsoft
4)Alphabet
5)Intel
6)IBM
7)Facebook
8)Fox Conn
9)Tencent
10)Oracle
If we break these up, then the largest companies
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More accurately, the tech giants thing is to control what we can put on their specific platforms. Facebook doesn't give a rat's ass what Google allows just as long as they aren't eating Facebook's lunch and Facebook isn't losing proles. Stop insinuating a conspiracy where none exists.
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I rather agree with you on the "centralized ISP" problem. I think the hardware providers should be split completely from the service providers, and be forbidden to favor their prior partner. (Or any other ISP, for that matter. You want to keep the split intact.) Then the hardware network providers should be a public utility, as they are strongly a natural monopoly.
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Non-EU isn't the point. These megacorps are a serious global risk, including to their own host nations... especially because they are mostly globalized now. This perception that an entity like Google is a "US" corporation is bunk, it just started here.
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The question is "Are those large networks desirable?" But network effects mean that for something like facebook, and possibly youtube, a competing service that was equally successful would reduce that utility of both. So if they are desirable, then that's not a good answer. And if they aren't desirable, then why allow them to exist?
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If I'm correct, he was there before Trump was elected.