But he actually makes a very specific point:
> This Internet, though, feels like the worst of all possible outcomes. On one hand, large U.S. tech companies are winners, at least relative to everyone else: yes, all of the regulatory red tape increases costs (and, for targeted advertising, may reduce revenue), but the impact is far greater on would-be competitors. To put it in allegorical terms, the E.U. is restricting the size of the castle even as it dramatically increases the moat.
He's saying that under Europe's model, giant US tech companies are going to be even more locked in to dominance. The market will be less competitive, and have less room for European-grown companies to rise up. It's pretty hard to see how any regulations Europe might impose are going to substantially ameliorate the harmful economic effects of US companies dominating tech, and Europe's economy being relegated to the 20th century.
I think that people in government should design rules to provide equal opportunities to everyone. I think that will benefit you even if you see yourself only as a consumer. I agree with what the article says, the European regulations only benefit the bigger companies, which have the resources to handle the red tape.
Prior to GDPR any data that you create wasn't yours and was freely sold, traded and aggregated. Even if you asked Google, Facebook or whoever for YOUR data to be sent back to you; they wouldn't be obligated to.
I grew up in a modest town in India and have been working in the tech domain. But it deeply upsets me that technology is not effectively used in here to solve the most fundamental issue that is of access to education, healthcare and electricity. Most of the population in India doesn't even have the proper education to understand the implications of technology.
And no my work doesn't, but I'm not the one professing disappointment with Indian entrepreneurs.
First, I'm not blaming the tech talent here. There is a difference between expressing disappointment and outright blaming. I understand that we're still in early stages of tech innovation. And there are entrepreneurs out there who are trying hard to solve fundamental issues.What I was suggesting that we can do much more if we given our talent pool. Read about the founder of ZOHO and how he has moved back in his village and trying to create job opportunities there in the tech sector. That's one way of thinking about it.
Second, I believe in the idea of building India with the power of technology not with any nationalist agenda. And being in the tech sector for a handful of years, I've plans of doing something in the mentioned areas in coming years.
Third, it's not about sacrificing one's career or life for the betterment of the country. If someone is working, paying taxes and contributing in the economy, that itself is enough. And entrepreneurship is about solving problems be it a problem in the urban economy or the rural economy. But entrepreneurship aligned more with large scale issues create large scale impact. We don't have to go back much in history to see that. :)
I will make the point if all you are doing is paying taxes you are supporting the system you dislike. Without you (and others like you) the system would fail. If you demanded change those that represent taxpayers will do your bidding.
Parent has a point if everyone is saying I'm too small to make a difference someone else richer or larger will than you become part of the problem.
On the one hand, GP laments lack of work on local social issues.
On the other hand, GP is competing with everyone in that local area for the best jobs and work. Volunteering doesn't put bread on the table.
Just as Zuckerberg couldn't conquer India, city kids will not be able to solve problems in rural India.
Why exactly are you expecting city kids to be able to solve a problem that they are fundamentally unaware of?
Why aren't you seizing this opportunity? Find a small problem, figure out a fix for it. Start a company or empower locals to start their own company that earns revenue.
All of that is ignoring the caps that are starting to show up that will absolutely stifle innovation for the public internet. Or ISPs intercepting DNS traffic. Or insert any number of privacy violations. Claiming companies like Facebook and Google dominate because of the "open internet" of the US is laughably ridiculous. They exist because of our universities and GDP (which is more a result of WWII than any government deregulation). And given the current administrations insistence on locking down borders, I'd be more surprised if the US held its lead than Europe coming up with sufficient replacements.
OVH and Hetzner might not be AWS and Azure but they absolutely have the building blocks to compete if the market wants more players.
The fact that this did not happen was not because of lack of regulation; it was because of too much regulation and regulatory capture by large ISPs. Plenty of municipalities wanted to do exactly what you describe, since the benefits to their residents are obvious. What stopped them was regulators, plus lawsuits by large ISPs on the grounds (though they didn't put it this way) that any such action by municipalities would violate the sweetheart monopoly deals they had with the Federal and state governments.
No, municipalities were building out their own ISP because of a lack of the federal government drumroll... mandating a 1-wire rule. They were left to try to come up with their own solution and their own funding. I've yet to hear of a single municipality building out last-mile fiber and leasing it back to private ISPs. I'm sure one exists somewhere, but that's not what has been happening.
The ISPs even being allowed to sue municipalities was because of drumroll... the federal government not having regulations requiring a 1-wire policy for last mile, which would've pre-empted any attempted by an ISP to sue to stop it.
You could have literally no law in place around burying fiber in the ground and an ISP like Comcast would sue a city for the simple sake of slowing down build-out and draining municipal funds. Regulation is 100% not the reason we have the mess we do in the US.
Municipalities were trying to build out their own last mile infrastructure. Some of them wanted to add ISP functionality on to that, but not all. In other words, they were already trying to do exactly what a "1 wire rule" would have mandated.
> They were left to try to come up with their own solution
In other words, municipalities were trying to do what was best for them. They did not need the Federal government to tell them that 1-wire last mile was a good idea. They already knew it.
> and their own funding.
Yes, and funding was never an issue. Many municipalities were trying to build, or had already started building, last-mile 1-wire infrastructure with their own funding that would have required ISPs to compete for access at aggregation points, exactly as you describe. What stopped them, as I said, was regulations and lawsuits.
> The ISPs even being allowed to sue municipalities was because of
Regulatory capture and a broken US legal system that allows large corporations with deep pockets to make frivolous lawsuits against municipalities that they know can't afford to defend themselves. If we forced plaintiffs to pay all legal costs for the defendants if they lose their lawsuit, those frivolous lawsuits would go away.
> You could have literally no law in place around burying fiber in the ground and an ISP like Comcast would sue a city for the simple sake of slowing down build-out and draining municipal funds.
Yes, indeed; see above. But why should we allow them to get away with frivolous lawsuits? Why not do the obvious thing to fix that particular problem, as described above?
> Regulation is 100% not the reason we have the mess we do in the US.
Stupid regulation that benefits large corporations and their political cronies instead of the people is 100% the reason we have the mess we do in the US.
Smart regulation that was targeted at obvious abuses, like the lawsuits mentioned above, would greatly improve the situation, without having to have the government try to impose one-size-fits-all policies on everyone.
Building out last-mile != becoming an ISP. The city builds roads that lead to my house, they don't sell me the car I drive down the road or the gas I fill it with.
>Yes, and funding was never an issue. Many municipalities were trying to build, or had already started building, last-mile 1-wire infrastructure with their own funding that would have required ISPs to compete for access at aggregation points, exactly as you describe. What stopped them, as I said, was regulations and lawsuits.
You're completely out of touch if you think funding isn't an issue. There's a reason the federal government has handed out hundreds of BILLIONS to expand internet coverage in the US.
>Regulatory capture and a broken US legal system that allows large corporations with deep pockets to make frivolous lawsuits against municipalities that they know can't afford to defend themselves. If we forced plaintiffs to pay all legal costs for the defendants if they lose their lawsuit, those frivolous lawsuits would go away.
Are you serious? Comcast makes billions of dollars a year, they can sue and lose repeatedly and it isn't a blip on their radar. A city with a budget measured in the hundreds of thousands per year would immediately cease and desist if they were faced with a multi-million dollar settlement should they lose the case. It would literally have the exact opposite effect of what you're claiming it would do. The city can provide a city lawyer to defend itself, but having to pay for Comcasts lawyers who will no doubt inflate their hours and wages a hundred fold? Good luck.
>Yes, indeed; see above. But why should we allow them to get away with frivolous lawsuits? Why not do the obvious thing to fix that particular problem, as described above?
Your "solution" fixes absolutely nothing. Comcast will still sue, only the city will immediately stop buildout - and small cities won't even bother trying to start if they know there's a possibility they'll be sued. Comcast won't even have to go to court, they just have to write a nastygram!
>Smart regulation that was targeted at obvious abuses, like the lawsuits mentioned above, would greatly improve the situation, without having to have the government try to impose one-size-fits-all policies on everyone
I love this saying as if it's a bad thing. I was just telling my neighbors the other day that 1-size-fits-all regulations like clean water and fiber internet are horrible and really need to be specialized. Some of us want arsenic and lead in our water and dial-up internet in 2020, the government overreach is unbearable!
Regulation has never been the issue in the US. EVERY SINGLE TIME regulation gets rolled back, the exact issue it was intended to fix comes right back. See the mortgage crisis for the latest example.
Which is exactly what I said, yes.
> There's a reason the federal government has handed out hundreds of BILLIONS to expand internet coverage in the US.
Yes, it's called regulatory capture and corporate lobbying.
> Are you serious?
Yes.
> A city with a budget measured in the hundreds of thousands per year would immediately cease and desist if they were faced with a multi-million dollar settlement should they lose the case.
If the lawsuit is obviously frivolous, they won't lose. Their lawyers will be able to advise them of that before they decide how to respond. In a sane legal environment, the municipality's lawyers would know that a judge was going to see the suit as frivolous and throw it out, with the plaintiff ordered to pay the defense's costs. Of course, we don't currently have a sane legal environment.
> Regulation has never been the issue in the US.
Evidently we don't live in the same reality. So I don't see that further discussion is going to have any point.
Of course you haven't. The ones that tried it were forced to stop by regulations and lawsuits. And then ISPs have the gall to claim that it's not feasible because nobody is doing it.
So how exactly is Europe so great? The most unicorns came out of the UK who have just decided they’ve had enough of all the regulations.
The UX being bad is a _conscious decision_ by the website owners
Probably no (human-designed) system will be perfect. In the case of obnoxious GDPR consent popups, though, the main problem is companies (under the direction of humans, obviously) that are doing their utmost to subvert the clear and reasonable intent of the law, because they simply don't want to respect it (or their users). They're a cancer on the internet. I hope to see the day when enforcement is taken more seriously.
that's a pretty low bar
The scenario in my head is what if the US decides to put the same kind of sanction/embargos they have put on Russia, Iran and China how well will the EU handle such a economic/technological warfare, can we in the EU continue to function by flipping a switch and have cyber sovereignty. Because as far as i can see the EU tech sector got colonized by US companies, and i wouldn't be surprised if the same happen with India in 10~20 years.
ARM Holdings (to be fair they did spend 99% of their life up to this point in the EU) and SAP are two reasonable examples derived from the EU that have products that are used by Americans regularly. ARM was co-founded by two American companies and is now owned by a Japanese company, so that's not exactly a shining independent example for the EU (past or present).
ARM wouldn't be relevant at all without the Internet. In practical terms its product is entirely linked to the Internet, specifically the mobile Internet.
ARM is not a website, sure, nor an app. It's as much an Internet company as AWS is. One could pretend AWS could exist in some formulation without the Internet, but that would be silly. The same is true with ARM as it exists today, the Internet made them what they are. If you remove the Internet, which neuters smartphones, ARM all but vanishes; thus, they're plainly an Internet company. You don't have to be strictly software to be an Internet company.
This article is talking about 'internet-vision'... I don't see how ARM fits into that vision, especially since it effectively predates it. Plus it's now been sold to Softbank at any rate.
ARM was founded by two American companies and a British company, Acorn Computers.[0]
It's true the world isn't the US -- can you point to successful internet-based EU companies that are big in both EU and some other part of the world? If so, it would seem a shame that they're not able to compete well in the US given the size of the market and the compatibility in culture/law/trade.
Booking.com? Adyen? (they're worth more than Stripe)
Easier said than done if you have a monopoly. Blah, Blah, competition, Something, Something.
As for the behemoths being able to solve the problem, there are options for smaller players as well, like using a specialist who handles all the tax issues for you worldwide -- for example Paddle (I'm unaffiliated and have never used them; I'm just aware of their existence).
Regulatory capture has everything to do with free markets and American capitalism. I don't even understand how Americans can use the internet without an overseas VPN.
I think one of the most important roles of a government is to say "no" to some parts of its society to try and make it function better. The EU is taking its first tentative steps towards fixing the internets problems. The US hasn't even acknowledged there is a problem yet.
I broadly agree with the spirit of this line. But I fail to see how Europe is achieving that. Can you share a few specific (and meaningful) examples of how European approach has created an outcome which works better for its citizens and members?
So far from what I have seen, European companies (eg. Spotify) seem to have a similar modus operandi as their US counterparts. Many European countries are still in NATO and hence would collaborate with the US government for security purposes when push comes to shove. And the key regulatory initiatives either haven't proven effective in curbing US giants' powers (eg. GDPR) or have pretty strong counter-arguments rooted in principles (eg. Right to be forgotten vs freedom of speech).
* Websites are required to clearly present what information they store and track. They are also required to provide an option of functionality without ad tracking technology. The UX problems have been discussed ad nauseam, but from a pure requirement, this is a net win for citizen's data privacy and data tracking transparency.
* Internet companies are required to report and delete all citizen's data on request. This is a huge win for citizen's control over their own data. While companies like Google had already started to become more transparent on the data they collect from their users even before GDPR, this specific law spurred a huge increase in functionality in order to meet the full requirements.
* The fact that it has forced major international companies to provide these data transparency and deletion features to all users is a net win for all, including non-European citizens.
* Companies (and government institutions) are required to publicly notify any breach of data within 72 hours.
Also the EU banned roaming fees and GDPR prevents the data reselling and privacy violations that carriers and ISP in other countries could introduce at some point.
On the other hand the US is unable to keep broadband companies from arbitrary price increases or per-building monopoly. Health care prices are also out-of-hand, it seems the US is happy to let their citizens getting ripped off as long as someone is making a big profit.
Would you mind expanding on that? Perhaps you have information that I do not, but from what I understand, large US tech companies with a presence in Europe do abide by the GDPR, which includes data privacy audits and large fines for non-compliance.
I don't think GDPR was ever about about curbing tech giants' power nor changing their business model. It was always only about protecting the personal data of EU residents.
Assuming the tech giants' business models do rely on indiscriminate use of user data, and that the GDPR does interfere with that, it applies only to EU residents, which I assume comprises a relatively small market-share. For a fundamental shift in business model, the US would have to adopt similar measures for its own residents, but the political climate would not allow for that, I don't think.
From the outside, the EU's big swings (GDPR, Cookie Law, Article 13, etc) look like reactionary messes, and it doesn't seem like their current behavior is doing much to help their companies, governments, or citizens.
E.g. 'Thou shalt not store & use personal data'
Overridden by 'Thou may store and use personal data, in a banking context, with clear user permission presented in an interactive graphical format, for user requests pertaining to tax information'
DENY ALL + PERMIT {SITUATION} is not a recipe for innovation.
Versus I'd say the US model is PERMIT ALL + DENY {SITUATION}.
And India's model appears to be PERMIT ALL (in theory) + ARBITRARY BUREAUCRATIC DENY (in practice).
Whereas Thompson's point seems to be that national champions effectively simplify this into the US model, albeit with a chokepoint / revenue siphon. Perhaps South Korea as a similar example?
For years people's data was used as currency without their knowledge. How is that capitalism? Markets without transparency are not free. Europe is trying to maintain a fair market. While big tech (well, big everything) is trying constantly to subvert the market while pretending to make the world a better place.
Every time I read one of these pieces about growth, growth and growth I'm reminded of Russ Ackoff.
"“Science, technology, and economics focus on efficiency, but not effectiveness. The difference between efficiency and effectiveness is important to an understanding of transformational leadership. Efficiency is a measure of how well resources are used to achieve ends; it is value-free. Effectiveness is efficiency weighted by the values of the ends achieved; it is value-full[...]
Put another way: efficiency is a matter of doing things right; effectiveness is a matter of doing the right things. For example, the more efficient our automobiles have become, the more of them are on city streets. The more of them on city streets, the more congestion there is. The efficiency of an act can be determined without reference to those affected by it. Not so for effectiveness. It is necessarily personal. The value of an act may be, and usually is, quite different for different individuals. The difference between efficiency and effectiveness is also reflected in the difference between growth and development, and development is of greater concern to a transformational leader than growth.”
We don't need more internet companies for the sake of more internet companies, and more growth for the sake of growth. We need an internet that works for its citizens and members, and on that front I have still more trust in the old continent than I have even if China and the US keep producing a million more companies. If human rights and privacy isn't a vision I don't know what is.