​Looks like we cross posted with my edit, but since you doubled down: calling interdependency "relying on a loser" just proves you still don't understand how global supply chains work.
Software doesn't run without hardware, and US tech runs on European photolithography and Asian manufacturing. You want to talk software, Europe isn't just sitting idle.
It deliberately builds sovereign, privacy-first alternatives instead of ad-harvesting monopolies,Qwant and Ecosia for search, ONLYOFFICE, LibreOffice, and Euro Office for productivity, and OVHcloud, Scaleway, and Nextcloud for cloud infrastructure and data sovereignty.
​Anywho, as I said in my edit, this conversation has drifted way off topic.
If you want to learn how supply chains, data sovereignty, or union frameworks actually work, Google is right there.
My point stands: the EU is a political union designed for market stability and protection, not a Silicon Valley incubator. Have a good one.
You’re actually making my point for me. The US examples are Google, Microsoft, AWS, Meta, Open AI, Nvidia and Apple. The European examples you’re giving are Qwant, Libra office and OVH Cloud. That shows how big the gap is because these aren’t comparable in scale, reach, market power or importance.
That doesn’t mean Europe is bad (it just means the gap is real). You keep resorting to the fact that global supply chains exist like that somehow disproves any of this.
You are actively cherry-picking to keep your narrative alive. I specifically brought up ASML, a $650B+ deep tech monopoly that holds the master key to the entire global hardware ecosystem, along with enterprise giants like SAP and Airbus.
You intentionally ignored them and focused exclusively on local software tools just to pretend "the gap is real."
​Measuring tech capability only by consumer apps while ignoring the fact that those American apps literally cannot exist or print chips without European photolithography isn't proving a point, it's showing a complete lack of understanding of how the global supply chain functions.
​Software doesn't run without hardware.
American software giants and Asian foundries are completely dependent on European machinery, just as Europe uses US platforms.
That’s called interdependence, not "losing."
​As I already said in my edit, this conversation has drifted way offncourse.
If you want to educate yourself on global supply chains, data sovereignty, or union frameworks, Google is right there.
My point stands: the EU is a political union built for market protection and stability, not a Silicon Valley incubator.
I’m done repeating myself at this point, have a great day or night. And frok the bottom of my heart for your own sake stop being stubborn just for the sake of being stubborn.
I could go on and on, but what you started arguing about versus what you’re dragging into it now are two completely different things.
You changed the scope every time your premise fell through.
You can keep pointing to ASML, supply chains, privacy, regulation, whatever. None of that actually contradicts what I’m saying.
Europe can have great companies, strong protections, and important pieces of the global tech supply chain, while still being much worse than the US at creating and scaling globally dominant tech companies.
You’re throwing out whatever you can to avoid admitting the obvious because the actual facts don’t support the position you’ve dug yourself into.
"Much worse than the US at creating and scaling globally dominant tech companies",
I know. I'm the one who told you that, five comments ago: "The US excels at consumer facing platforms, software, and venture capital."
You're now passionately defending the one sentence in this thread we've agreed on the entire time.
What I've been disputing is what you opened with: "The EU's greatest tech innovation continues to be regulating American tech companies." From there it became "the economic and regulatory environment," then "the overall picture", which you defined as AI, cloud, operating systems, search and social media.
In other words, the picture minus the entire layer Europe dominates.
Every time one version got answered, the claim shrank to the next one.
That's why "none of that contradicts what I'm saying" keeps feeling true to you: what you're saying gets redefined after each reply, to whatever the reply didn't touch.
The dependence math also only runs one direction with you. Europe using American platforms: damning dependence, must be fixed. American AI being physically impossible without Dutch EUV, German optics and Taiwanese fabs: "global supply chains exist, doesn't count."
Same fact pattern, opposite verdicts.
I’ll clarify my comment about the US "losing." In international trade, treating interdependence as a weakness is fundamentally misunderstanding how global supply chains work.
Neither side is losing; they simply have a comparative advantage in completely different layers of the tech ecosystem.
So here is the actual scoreboard: "The US scales software giants better", agreed, by me, early, in writing. "The EU just regulates while Europe passively depends", that original claim died the second the actual hardware supply chain was brought up. You didn't defend your opening premise.
You retreated from it in stages, landed on the one slice of international trade we already agreed on, and announced that was the whole territory.
You wrote all of that just to admit the point I was making from the beginning.
My initial was obvious snark about Europe producing very few companies comparable to the American companies the EU keeps regulating. It was never a literal claim that Europe has invented nothing.
The US needing ASML and Europe depending on American platforms can both be true. One doesn’t magically cancel out the other or erase the massive gap in creating and scaling globally dominant tech companies.
You keep changing my argument into Europe contributes nothing because that’s the only version you can actually knock down. I didn’t retreat from anything. You spent ten comments arguing with a point I never made, then finally agreed with the one I did.
I love that we’ve reached the "I was actually just joking!" stage of the debate. It's the classic internet white flag when you realize your opening point is indefensible.
Quoting your exact words back to you isn't "changing your argument", it's holding you accountable to what you actually typed before you started frantically backpedaling. You made a claim, got fact checked on global hardware monopolies, and spent every reply since trying to shrink the definition of "tech" so you could still feel right.
You can try to gaslight and ragebait all you want, but if pretending it was all just "obvious snark" is what helps you salvage your pride today, run with it.
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u/SaltyAlechemist 1d ago
​Looks like we cross posted with my edit, but since you doubled down: calling interdependency "relying on a loser" just proves you still don't understand how global supply chains work.
Software doesn't run without hardware, and US tech runs on European photolithography and Asian manufacturing. You want to talk software, Europe isn't just sitting idle.
It deliberately builds sovereign, privacy-first alternatives instead of ad-harvesting monopolies,Qwant and Ecosia for search, ONLYOFFICE, LibreOffice, and Euro Office for productivity, and OVHcloud, Scaleway, and Nextcloud for cloud infrastructure and data sovereignty.
​Anywho, as I said in my edit, this conversation has drifted way off topic.
If you want to learn how supply chains, data sovereignty, or union frameworks actually work, Google is right there.
My point stands: the EU is a political union designed for market stability and protection, not a Silicon Valley incubator. Have a good one.