You can have an okay economy without tech heavy hitters, but the point is that being dependent on US internet tech or Russian natural gas or whatever can be a significant vulnerability.
If by "vulnerable to losing", as in it would hurt their economies and put people out of work or hurt livelihoods because the EU in their infinite wisdom decided to excise one or more of them from the continent, it's pretty much name a non-European tech company.
Even Dell, HP, IBM, Oracle. Service contracts have to be fulfilled, and making a living off of social media like Instagram, YouTube and Twitch isn't just an American phenomenon, actually come to think of it, most of the YouTubers I follow aren't even American. They're mostly in Europe or Australia.
And don't assume they'll just be fine without Facebook either, as far as digital advertising goes, Facebook and Google are pretty much the only game in town. Some small businesses do depend on being able to get business through advertising referrals.
Europe is a rich continent, it's not like they would be destitute if the rich wonders of American tech companies just evaporated from their part of the world tomorrow, but you're not replacing most of them overnight either, so Europe instead is trying this thing where they can at least try to control them.
I mean, I don't see it working out in the long run but in the short term they've shown some muscle, because after all: Europe is a rich continent. Australia, Canada and New Zealand are market-wise, about the size of three US States put together, which is nice, but Europe is pretty much the only large and rich viable market for most tech companies outside of the United States and Japan without putting yourself in a position of having to kiss Chairman Winnie the Pooh on the ring.
I almost want to see it because I'm really curious to see what happens if you remove Whatsapp from a population where it's very ingrained.
Do they riot? Do they just download an alternative? Does the disruption in business communications cause such a negative impact that it reflects in GDP?
mrtksn|5 years ago
That’s why the respective actors are taking actions to fix it.
Another argument is that not having heavy hitters but more evenly spread diverse businesses is a better thing.
US’s economy is tied to extremely large consumerism. An argument is that as humanity we should reduce consumption anyway.
That’s why I would stick with quality of life indicators instead of top list and charts of the economic indicators.
analog31|5 years ago
SllX|5 years ago
Even Dell, HP, IBM, Oracle. Service contracts have to be fulfilled, and making a living off of social media like Instagram, YouTube and Twitch isn't just an American phenomenon, actually come to think of it, most of the YouTubers I follow aren't even American. They're mostly in Europe or Australia.
And don't assume they'll just be fine without Facebook either, as far as digital advertising goes, Facebook and Google are pretty much the only game in town. Some small businesses do depend on being able to get business through advertising referrals.
Europe is a rich continent, it's not like they would be destitute if the rich wonders of American tech companies just evaporated from their part of the world tomorrow, but you're not replacing most of them overnight either, so Europe instead is trying this thing where they can at least try to control them.
I mean, I don't see it working out in the long run but in the short term they've shown some muscle, because after all: Europe is a rich continent. Australia, Canada and New Zealand are market-wise, about the size of three US States put together, which is nice, but Europe is pretty much the only large and rich viable market for most tech companies outside of the United States and Japan without putting yourself in a position of having to kiss Chairman Winnie the Pooh on the ring.
tenpies|5 years ago
Do they riot? Do they just download an alternative? Does the disruption in business communications cause such a negative impact that it reflects in GDP?