Europe focuses too much on regulation and investigation rather than innovation

America and Europe. Two technologically advanced mega-economies with plenty of smart citizens in them. But America is the definite tech leader. It has the biggest companies, the important platforms. and the high-impact startups. Now I’ve written quite a lot about about this disparity. And it’s not like Europe doesn’t know there is a problem. In fact, this chart suggests the EU has developed a comprehensive startup-tech-innovation strategy:

Yes, that is a joke. Well, sort of a joke. When you look at all the EU actions against Big (US) Tech in their totality, it does start to look like a form of protectionism. From the WSJ:

Some free-market supporters in the U.S. and Europe view the moves by regulators as cover for political interventions and even protectionism. Europe dominated the early mobile-phone era but now has no tech companies on the scale of Google or Facebook. …  “These companies have become so dominant, so powerful, when [they] demote rivals, who puts the limit?” said Ramon Tremosa i Balcells, a liberal lawmaker from Spain who backed the European Parliament’s resolution in 2014 calling for a breakup of Google. …  One factor in the policing has been tech firms’ disruption of traditional industrial giants in Europe. In response, many legacy players have lobbied for new rules and tougher enforcement against the interlopers—and found open ears. European telecom firms, angry about seeing their revenue from text messages undercut by chat apps, were among the first to advocate new legislation to mandate a “level playing field.” More recently, European car makers have lobbied EU officials to support industry proposals that car makers should be the primary gateway for drivers to share car data. Some executives fear Silicon Valley firms could hoard vehicle data, turning cars into low-margin devices like many mobile phones, one auto executive said. German publishers also lobbied for copyright proposals that would help them seek remuneration from Google and other news aggregators for snippets of articles used on their websites.

That reads like a blueprint for incumbent protection — and stagnation. And America’s tech edge wasn’t gained by corporate misbehavior, but because of, as one French tech entrepreneur has put it, “the confluence of a large pool of capital, world-class talent, vibrant support infrastructure, and a risk-loving culture has bred a self-fulfilling cycle of innovation and entrepreneurship.”

 
Πηγή: American Enterprise Institute