Because there is no European Facebook
Whenever the power of American social media appears in public discourse, some imbecile always arrives, and I am referring to a guy who writes in the Corriere, wondering why there are no great European IT companies. And the absurd thing is that the writer's faction is just part of the problem.
For example, if we talk about Hollywood, and we ask ourselves why it dominates the scene, the answers are two and do not contain "cultural subjection":
- during the Second World War, to create a propaganda apparatus, the American legislator passed a very complex series of laws that gave tax relief to anyone who portrayed the US as winning, American weapons as superior, American soldiers as invincible. If you don't want to pay taxes, all you have to do is make a movie where there are soldiers dressed as marines, using American weapons, and winning. Little by little this thing has extended, more or less, to the whole cinema, thanks to NRA: just show a policeman using a COLT, and the tax prize arrives.
- From here, superheroes were also exempted, as "Americans". In the end, in short, anything that is “genuinely American” and well painted, is further deducted, in addition to the reliefs that already exist for everyone.
In short, Hollywood dominates (or has dominated) as it is funded by the state through tax breaks, which in turn have attracted investments. After all, when Cinecitta 'was heavily financed, cinema made itself heard, and the French state created Cannes, with a similar system (a mixture of exemptions and financing).
But now let's go to IT. Because IT was a SOVIET operation on American soil, later passed off as a "free market".
Let's see how the Soviet system worked: the government planned the birth of an industry, or an industrial sector, and then it financed it directly by taking the money from the public budget. The operation carried out with FIAT, for example, which produced the so-called Zhiguli (a modified clone of FIAT 124) took place precisely in this way.
The problem, however, is that the US cannot behave like this. It is the place of the market, the government cannot act in this way, and so on. And then the WTO would prevent it and then the regulators of other countries would propose compensatory sanctions.
Bales.
The US simply placed a proxy between the two.
Apparently, that is, it doesn't look like a Soviet-style operation. The US state is not seen to directly finance industries: this would cause immediate commercial retaliation. But ultimately, the American IT industry is simply a case of the SOVIET economy. The state heavily finances a sector of the industry.
And it does so both by using the FED, which buys the waste paper produced by Venture Capital, and by using the copious military budget, which in the US has only increased.
Silicon Valley has NOTHING to do with the "market" or "capitalism": it is a PURE government operation, only not having the Soviet infrastructure to directly finance the industries, the US used a financial proxy, that is the "Venture Capital"
And all the beautiful souls who PRETEND not to see what was happening, should now explain why they go around talking about liberalism, "market and rules", and have NEVER asked the regulator to stop this blatant violation of the rules commercial. Almost all modern treaties, in fact, have as a clause that the other party must not use public money to finance its own industry.
Clause that the US elegantly snubbed by pretending that Venture Capital was not a proxy between state entities, public money, and industry.
But who were they, and which newspapers wrote those who NEVER noticed the most gigantic public financing operation of the domestic industry in recent history?
Who was it, exactly, who spoke of Silicon Valley as a "temple of capitalism" and as a "market phenomenon?". Who was it that praised its dynamism (which comes from the "free and pure market"), who was it that praised its model of capitalism and investment?
Answer: the same balls of patagiornalists who now accuse the EU if we don't “have a facebook”. Typically, from the Corriere della Sera, but since all the newspapers respond to the Elkann, homilies have also appeared in the press:
by Andrea Monti 
Wondering what happened to Splinder, Monti? Well, ask your EMPLOYER, since it was Dada, owned by the RCS group, that brought him to disaster. You have the answer at home, what are you waiting for?
But let's forget the rant of a guy who pretends to ignore the problem of the American model (also because he has had long relationships of admiration and fellatio with the US), the point is that people like Monti cannot be the solution because 'are in problem.
All the critics of the European Union, at a simple google search, can be "surprised" to suck some American cock, and pretend not to see the problem that lies behind the models they praise.
When "silicon valley" started with its Soviet-style turbo / speculation, causing real estate prices to soar to the point of creating huge slums, where were they? Why did they not try to understand what were, where they came from, that money that was poured rain on companies, "is it enough that one unicorn out of 1000 is born?".
Venture capital, it is true, is based on risk. The problem is that it still produces a large amount of bankruptcies, which can be securitized. Why has NO ONE noticed that all this paper was bought by the FED, turning Silicon Valley into the MOST SOVIET place after the fall of the USSR?
The FED printed, the VC bought money using paper, Silicon Valley grew. The VC was a stupid proxy made to hide a practice that is a compliment to call it incorrect.
Because what happened in Silicon Valley is not only "incorrect": it is simply SOVIET, or public and governmental bodies that allocate shitty money making it fall like rain without caring about success or economic efficiency (it is the “Culture of failure”, darling), but only to over-inflate a part of the industry.
It is only in the Soviet era that the state chooses a strategic area and through its institutions decides to let it develop, even at the cost of causing monstrous distortions. And that's what happened.
Are there any notes that can be made to the EU? Of course there are. But they are not made as the brave journalists write, who continue to accuse Europe of what they do instead of the Italian press.
The first point is that the few successful IT companies are NOT supported: I do not want to tread the story of telephone giants, who were practically dominant (Ericsson and Nokia) forced to sell or close while the EU was discussing how to protect French cheeses. from imitations. This would be enough.
But at the time the press was too lost in cheering on the new iPhone, so they didn't notice a nation left on the brink of the destruction of its tech sector: Steve Jobs needed concentration for the blow job. One would ask Monti if he really tasted like apple, as some say.
Of course, no one ever questioned Microsoft's real chances of leading Nokia to success using Windows Mobile. I say: Windows Mobile. I ask Monti for an opinion on how beautiful the American interface of Windows Mobile is. Here you are.
And the same thing happens today: Spotify, the only very successful IT company in Europe (I am removing SAP because it is older), is faced with a European market that still imposes national limits on streaming. Digital services legislation got bogged down when lobbies such as SIAE, GEMA, and others moved.
This is a note that could be made to the EU, were it not that no Italian newspaper likes to talk about it because they are all also multimedia groups and if there is one thing they DO NOT want it is a foreign competitor who could affect their business. They therefore oppose any further modernization of the European digital market. Not to mention the relationship they have with SIAE.
One wonders if Monti has ever noticed, that his employers are fiercely opposed to the creation of a European digital market, and therefore he himself is part of the problem rather than the solution.
But as I have already written, the threat of Facebook leaving Europe is neither hot nor cold for the population. The plain and simple truth is that if anything it scares newspapers, whose business model would be undermined, given that none of the European alternatives would be willing to interact with newspapers in the same way.
Monti then loads us with a trump saying that "the European alternatives are aesthetically much poorer". Which is true, as long as you decide that "cool" comes before "important".
First, I cannot understand what it is comparing. It is apparently taking what European platforms looked like BEFORE they shut down, and comparing it to modern applications. It tastes like cherry-picking, but after an apple-flavored blowjob, cherries must be chosen carefully.
If I said that Xing works better for me than Linkedin, what would it tell me? He would tell me "the usual Germany". So? What fault do European users have if a platform like Xing, in Italy, would collapse the job market?
After all, why doesn't Xing exist in Italy? For the same reason why many Italian companies block Linkedin on firewalls. Because "entrepreneurs" fear that:
- but then the cobbbas unions join in and organize strikesiiiihhh
- but then employees compare salaries between companies, if they talk to each other!
But let's get back to the point before: it's not about bullying. Facebook is a private individual and all that can happen is that you abandon a market (spoiler: it won't) leaving room for others.
The problem is that some nations have developed some alternatives. Germany and France are the kingdom of small local social networks that speak the local language.
And here we come to a "strange pattern". It concerns the social networks that are born in Europe.
Because it is true that Splinter was bought by a publisher, the RCS group, and shut down. But it is also true that wer-kennt-wer was bought by a German editor, RTL, and coincidentally closed. Lokalisten.de was bought by a publisher, ProsiebenSat, and is now closed. Oneview was the subject of the financial attention of another German publishing group, M. DuMont Schauberg. Is closed. Amen closed after being absorbed by a publisher, tape.tv. Skyrock, which is mainstream in France, has already withstood three attempts to climb. Always by editorial groups.
This pattern is strange: apparently, the main reason for the closure of European social networks was the purchase by editorial groups.
And then Monti should explain to me why his employers are so relentless in buying social networks, FOR THE PURPOSE OF CLOSING THEM.
Perhaps we should include publishing among the causes of the smallness of European social networks, or perhaps we should ask ourselves why editorial groups are so interested in closing local social networks?
With this, I think I have finished the overview, to say one thing: if you do not have large social networks in Europe, it is also the fault of some "strong powers".
Which are called "editorial groups".