> To be fair, Europe as a whole is 20-30 years behind on most fronts from the state of the art of information technology.
This is a gross, unjustified generalization. Sure, there's a lot of old crap around, but that's no different from other parts of the world; but there's also lots of new, modern stuff, with a huge diversity across the continent.
Just to give a common counterexample, the SEPA system allows me to trivially transmit money to anyone in the eurozone, for a considerable portion of them (including everyone in my country) in seconds, completely free of charge and involvement of any third party except my and their bank. Cash App, Venmo and comparable services basically don't exist in the EU, because the governments stimulated and mandated large scale interoperable digital infrastructure.
Agreed, there are so many areas where the US trails the rest of the world as far as technology is concerned. The Australian taxation system tech would probably be enough to make most US citizens cry for what they have to endure, and I'm not even sure it's the best one out there.
Paying on credit card in the US was painful compared to the experience in Australia a few years ago. Australia had tap-to-pay everywhere and so many places in the US were still requiring swipe and signature (I mean WTF).
I have found SEPA to be quite good. Australia has PayID as well which works well.
To cherry-pick, Estonia is leading the world when it comes to digital government. It has been an absolute pleasure to use their e-resident system to run a company. They're fostering a startup ecosystem that is punching well above it's weight[0]. From autonomous delivery robots[1] to Wise.
Government technology can often lag behind private sector technology, both from an inately conservative approach, but also because they have to care about things that often get ignored with private sector tech, like supporting everyone (e.g. robust accessibility).
But to say that Europe is 20-30 years behind is just not a realistic view of the world.
Technology isn't the reason the US appears to lag in some cases - business and governmental policy decisions are behind everything you list, and plenty of people don't like it.
The truth is that 20-30 years ago Europe was lagging behind the US in some respects - credit card acceptance, computer usage in some businesses, etc. But obviously they're on par with the US today, and where they're ahead or behind the US the reason isn't access to technology, rather it's usually government policy.
It's quite nuanced, which of course the GP comment wasn't. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Government policy and societal attitude are two parts of the reason. It's not really fair to compare US and Estonia really, One is managing 350(?) million people and the other 1.3 million. Even comparing Australia to Estonia though, the differences in behaviour from the government entities are remarkable.
Australia has a real "we're going to catch you" vibe to it's taxation and social services, where as, Estonia seems to really have an attitude of trying to build awesome things to make their citizens better off and to streamline things.
Governments and their relationship to technology, both as a provider and also as a regulator is a complex beast. As you say, so many of the problems are manifestations in the imperfections of our democracies. Regardless of which AU, EU, GB, US all have flaws that we have to live with and work to improve.
It’s not generalization, it’s mistaking what layman think of technology (websites and apps, 90% of which are useful only for extracting investors cash) with what actually is technology.
SEPA is good but not that good. It normally takes two days for my money to arrive, longer over weekends and holidays. The UK Faster Payments system actually does work within seconds most of the time, but only within the UK.
I can transfer funds from my Finnish bank account to my German bank account and I get a push notification from the German one within seconds of submitting it. If your SEPA transfers aren't instant, it just means that one or both of the banks involved haven't just adapted it yet.
Banks might also have only implemented receiver or sending, but not both. My mom can receive my instant SEPA transfers, but she can't send me one back since her bank has only implemented the receiving part.
The SEPA Instant Credit Transfer scheme introduced in 2017 introduced 10-second transfers. Not all banks are participating yet, particularly in (south-)eastern Europe, but it's a fast growing share, and in my home country (the Netherlands) just about everyone does.
All of my SEPA transfers after 2017 took days and none of them involved banks in (south-)eastern Europe. But it's good to hear that things are improving.
In Hungary, you can digitally sign documents using your ID card or your online account at the local equivalent of gov.uk. Certificates are signed and managed by the government. Quite handy for everyday contracts like an apartment renovation.
Yes, although at least in Washington State you can only renew online every other time since they want you to come in and get a new picture taken every 12-16 years. Which isn't really unreasonable when you consider that's your main photo id.
Given that the US still appears to think that cheques are the height of technology and part of a trivially researchable SSN is proof of identity, I’m not convinced that any sector besides surveillance capitalism is behind.
I realise I’m just replying to a troll’s cherry picked list at this point, but come on you’re not even trying.
All of those chips and fabs all rely on ASML? Those manufacturers you list literally couldn’t make the chips they make without an EU company being the backbone of their work.
You can’t think of global scale European applications. SAP, the worlds third largest software company by revenue? Representative of the EU’s tech sector, probably not, but it goes to show your either ignorant of the wider industry in the EU or being deceiving.
> Open banking and SEPA. Are these technologies? I think they were just regulations.
Turns out regulations can be a good thing? Our banking infrastructure ‘just works’, instantly, EU wide, with low fees and technology first.
> Wake up.
People get real holiday, great purchasing power (sure, not as high as a US tech worker, but pretty darn good), healthcare that doesn’t bankrupt them, proper mental health treatment so walking down a street isn’t a gamble, great affordable education, and the pleasure of not having a mass shooting multiple times a week. But yeah, the US has some big companies. Good for you bud.
Speaking of cherry-picking. Which European fab is ASML selling to? Being able to manufacture one machine for one stage of the process doesn't make an industry. Europe has some great niche companies, but has a real problem fostering an actual ecosystem.
Europe has sleep-walked into technological irrelevance since at least the early 2000s. In 10 years or so, all there's left in European tech that's competitive is going to be aviation, and agriculture and fashion if you count them as tech.
> People get real holiday, great purchasing power (sure, not as high as a US tech worker, but pretty darn good), healthcare that doesn’t bankrupt them, proper mental health treatment so walking down a street isn’t a gamble, great affordable education, and the pleasure of not having a mass shooting multiple times a week. But yeah, the US has some big companies. Good for you bud.
US tech workers have PTO, and Europe has mass shootings as well, and war and migrant crisis on the border. FANNG's profit is not just big, they are so massive, they dwarf many European countries' GDP.
The truth is hard to swallow, but if Europe doesn't recognize just how far behind you are, you are never going to catch up, or even better, produce some industrial leaders once in a while.
So, what you are trying to say is: "Please stop sending us your well educated and skilled people - we need to spend more money on our country and citizens, not absurd wages for tech"?
That's super kind of you, I think Europe could get back on its feet with that kind of leg up.
What I'm saying is, at this point, Europe has lost the competition on so many waves of technological disruptions, there's simply no hope. The only thing Europe can do to gain back some international negotiating power is to invest in the next wave. Unfortunately, we can pretty much declare Europe has lost on AI, and good luck with hydrogen-based energy.
The European brain drain to America simply will not stop until there's a complete ecosystem.
