I’ve been noticing a pattern: companies like Apple and Meta frequently blame the EU for delays in releasing features, citing vague “regulatory risks.” For instance, Apple recently delayed its “Apple Intelligence” features in Europe, attributing the decision to concerns about compliance with the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Meta has also criticized EU rules like the DMA and the Digital Services Act (DSA), claiming they could stifle innovation or jeopardize privacy. However, in most cases, these companies eventually release the features after making necessary adjustments, which makes me wonder: Are these “regulatory risks” really valid, or is it more about resisting change?<p>At the same time, there’s been a noticeable wave of criticism against the EU coming from US-based VCs and tech companies. Many posts claim the EU is “dying” as a tech hub, often pointing to stricter regulations and fragmented markets as reasons. While the EU undoubtedly has challenges, like limited access to growth capital and fragmented venture funding, these narratives often feel inflated.<p>Take USB-C as a standard, for example. Many US-based critics framed this as overreach by the EU, even though it benefits consumers and smaller tech companies by reducing proprietary lock-in. As a tech company owner myself, I see it as a win for democratization and innovation—it levels the playing field, making it easier for new entrants to compete.<p>It’s worth questioning if this negative sentiment is part of a coordinated effort to lobby against the EU. The lobbying budgets of major tech firms are enormous, and the stakes are high. The EU’s regulatory framework—designed to promote fair competition and protect users—directly challenges the monopolistic advantages that some companies rely on.<p>While Europe does need to address legitimate problems, like retaining talent and scaling startups, many of these critiques seem driven by those with vested interests rather than a genuine concern for the EU’s future. What do you think? Are these criticisms fair, or do they serve as a smokescreen for resisting necessary regulation?
So I take it your question is: Is Anti-EU sentiment justified or unjustified?<p>I think that it's both wholly justified and almost entirely grassroots/bottom-up. A thriving tech/industrial ecosystem -- even a functional <i>military-industrial ecosystem</i> -- is basically incompatible with Europe's regulatory and taxation structures.<p>Much has been written recently about how Norway and Italy tax unrealized gains to such an extent that running a SV-style startup is basically illegal. See, e.g.: <a href="https://x.com/aledeniz/status/1842872753499607407" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/aledeniz/status/1842872753499607407</a><p>Labor regulations result in very high costs of failure, so that what would be profitable in California would be unprofitable in Germany: <a href="https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2024/12/why-are-no-trillion-dollar-companies-being-created-in-europe.html" rel="nofollow">https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2024/12/wh...</a><p>As Boss Zvi put it, "Welcome to being a CEO in the EU with over 40m in revenue, now please report these 649 environmental and social indicators." <a href="https://x.com/jo3hill/status/1866450203743576478" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/jo3hill/status/1866450203743576478</a><p>And I could go on all day. Depending on the business you're in, it can be smart to incorporate in the Caiman Islands and <i>work</i> out of Europe on a satellite office basis, but you definitely want to limit your exposure to EU rules.<p>I'd only note that the EU is not a monolith, local regulations and tax laws can differ wildly, and some countries -- like Ireland and certain Baltic companies chasing investment -- are much more business friendly than others. (With Italy, Germany, and Norway in the "you'd have to be a masochist to start a business here" tier.)
I would say there's an anti-human sentiment from big tech. EU often passes regulations to protect the population, and these thwart huge short-term gains that big tech loves to grab at the expense of all of society.<p>> Are these criticisms fair<p>Of course they're not. Big tech is just about maximizing one single variable, technological growth, and they should be crushed.
I work for an EU-based consulting company (a la Thoughtworks in the EU), and am personally based in the US. My two cents is that the European leadership is fairly ignorant of modern technology and software practices. The instead choose to loft remedial "wins" as a sign that our company is on the cutting-edge of web 3.0, which has been laughed away as irrelevant in America. The newest fad at my company is to wrap AI agents in some fancy UX and claim that we're now an AI company. The head of technology holds a design degree and 0 years of experience doing any sort of engineering or software development, and consistently demonstrates an inability to distinguish fad from reality in software. Apparently, he was "short-listed" for some sort of EU tech leader of the year award, which makes me question what sort of talent even exists over there when someone like that can be considered for an award. Personally, I'm with Seinfeld in thinking that "all awards are stupid", but that's besides the point.<p>I'm actively trying to start something up and get out of corporate servitude for good. I am lucky to live in America, based on my experience with European tech leadership and the comments here. I'm also consistently shocked by the lack of technical expertise that my developer counterparts in the EU exhibit. Most of them demonstrate the depth of knowledge that a couple Coursera Python courses and about 40 hours of YouTube dev-fluencer videos would instill, despite them having several years of experience as a "senior software developer". It's a bit embarrassing, to say the least.
Not EU specifically, but I support other international regions and work with teams supporting the EU. I'm not in big tech, but a different sector for a large company.<p>I can say that delays can and do happen because of regulation. This could be extra work for privacy regulations, or for accessibility standards, etc. Even just the fact that you need legal review in multiple languages can add delays. The more regulations you have and the diversity of regulations among the numerous locations you support, the more resources you need (time and/or personnel).<p>Most of the regulations are there for good reason. In my opinion, it's the differences between each supported region that causes the most problems. In some cases things like the EU help standardize the regs vs having 20 different definitions of them.
On the surface level EU citizens are far better protected from corporate exploitation by regulation than US citizens. Note there is no such protection from state actors, and overal the distinction between big tech and 3 letter agencies is 'fluid' in the US<p>As for retaining talent and startups, that's not easy if your opponent has unlimited free reserve currency monopoly money.
As a consumer outside the EU, I honestly appreciate much of the effect it has done for my everyday life:
-the USB-C standard chips away at Apple's proprietary walled garden, which I see as a win for consumers and the environment, and personally I like the simplicity of having one useful standard cable. The other day I charged the iPhone of a person on the train who needed a charge; in the past they were out of luck because I use an android phone.
-their cookie directive isn't perfect, but I prefer it to the previous status quo of websites tracking with your average user completely unaware of the vast network of the "partners" privy to their data by default. For me, clicking "reject all" or just leaving those websites altogether is not a big issue.
-their restrictions on single use plastics have cascading effects outside the EU
-the fining of huge tech conglomeretes for anti-consumer behaviour with GDPR fines (Meta, Amazon, Google, etc.) provides at least some roadblock to their behaviour in my view.<p>Most of the comments seem to focus on the effect of their policies on smaller scale startups and entrepreneurs, which may certainly be a problem to adress, but as a consumer I see the EU at least taking some action on issues I care about.
Of course there is<p>And it goes beyond the reasonable criticism<p>"VC crowds" absolutely like bashing any regulation whatsoever. And while I can understand the effects on startups, at the same time they ignore the other amount of regulation and gotchas they have to deal in the US<p>In the same way some 90% of stuff we read about GDPR (or the recent charger regulation) is BS and cheap takes. "can be fined up to 10Mi Euros" is the typical "I don't understand GDPR anti-shibbolet"<p>There's also one important point that most people don't realize (especially Americans) is that <i>the legal systems are different</i>. And even Common law countries like Ireland and the UK (even before Brexit) worked in very different ways legally (and enforcement wise).<p>(And of course a lot of things people blame the EU for is just the local country regulation)
As somebody who criticizes the EU a lot on HN, I want to say that European business culture is just as backwards. It's not just a couple of clowns in Brussels. The whole continent has been coasting on past glory for the past three decades and now the road to catch up to the US and China is long and steep and full of perils.<p>I have worked at both private and public research institutions and in both cases I witnessed a lot of waste of funding and nothing much of value being produced. I don't know what you could blame this on. I personally like to say it's bad leadership at all levels. I guess, maybe the system is so bureaucratic that the type of leadership you get is the kind that is all talk and no substance.<p>I have also witnessed a lot of mismanaged oversight: cases where the people overseeing the expenditure of funds were completely unfit to estimate the value of work being produced. Related to this, often time I witnessed instances where people were dealing with bureaucratic procedures so unfit with respect to the task at hand, that they would just sign on the paper, what is effectively a lie. So it's not even that there is a lot of bureaucracy. It's also that a lot of bureaucracy is lies on paper. It does not actually produce any value, track any metric or keep any people in line.<p>This is only my perception and my experience. But yeah, bad leadership and bad cultural practices that need to be replaced. Unfortunately the people who are to blame are the ones in charge of fixing the problem so nothing will change anytime soon. Maybe this is another problem: bad leadership never gets replaced.
From my European perspective, US Big Tech isn’t being vocal enough in its resistance to EU regulatory overreach.<p>EU regulation makes starting a tech company very difficult, expensive and risky. I shuttered two of my personal projects when the GDPR came along as the legislation was complex, ambiguous and threatened punitive fines if I didn’t jump through the ambiguously defined hoops. And there are more and more EU-origin laws that I’d have to become an expert in, in order to comply. It’s just not worth the effort and risk. If I ever had a successful project idea I’d start it in America. Particularly with the new administration in 2025.<p>I will never forgive the EU for its directives that led to all websites prompting for cookies. If the EU lawmakers had any competence they’d have designed the law in such a way to prevent nefarious practices, rather than allowing nefarious practices AND creating a UX nightmare for all users of the whole internet!