White House administration set to be paid $10B for brokering TikTok deal (theguardian.com)

by Jimmc414 20 comments 44 points
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20 comments

[−] mrtksn 62d ago
This racketeering can serve as a model for tech independence across the globe. Everyone can force Meta/Google/twitter to sell their local businesses to local owners and the government get a payout.

I can’t believe the US took this route. EU is still trying to force open markets and rules based system but the future is gang rule.

[−] stale2002 62d ago
Not really. This only works because the US market is valuable. A tech company can simply leave the market rather than sell. Just like tiktok would have been free to shut down in the USA.

The USA market belongs to the US, though, and other people are free to play by the rules or simply leave.

[−] mrtksn 62d ago
Have you looked at the financial reports of those companies recently? US is the largest revenue stream but nowhere dominant.

USA is headed to have companies that used to serve 3-5 billion people markets to shrink to 0.35 billion market. US also doesn’t produce that much, unlike EU and China so when this system breaks those 0.35 billion people aren’t going to be as valuable as today.

Open regime change calls, attempts to manipulate elections, trying to start civil wars - it’s brewing.

The software industry is about to be decimated by AI anyway and US isn’t ahead in AI in any meaningful sense. When the status quo shatters there’s a good chance that tech would not be American industry anymore. The hardware too is made in China with European tooling. USA used to have an amazing brand but that’s being destroyed at outstanding pace.

Just like the way tech workers should have revolted against WFH instead of embracing it, the tech capitalist should also revolt against the breaking of the order. Both are extremely short sighted.

[−] stale2002 62d ago

> it’s brewing.

Brewing, always brewing. Never measurable results.

> The software industry is about to be decimated by AI anyway and US isn’t ahead in AI in any meaningful sense.

The US has been far ahead, in terms of actual companies being made actually. China has some models, sure, but the EU is nothing. I have never heard less about the EU and their companies than in the last few years.

All talk, no results. Always years away, but never now.

[−] TacticalCoder 62d ago

> US also doesn’t produce that much, unlike EU and China

China OK. But a criticism we hear all the time inside the EU is that manufacturing is gone and that the number one export of the number one economy in the EU --that'd be cars from Germany-- are taking a serious beat up atm.

> The software industry is about to be decimated by AI anyway and US isn’t ahead in AI in any meaningful sense.

How is it not? China has some models but it's basically US, US, and more US: Google, Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI... With chips made by NVidia and Google. So US and still more US. Is that not basically it?

The EU loves to posture a lot but until I see that turd that Windows is kicked out of all the EU institutions and Microsoft Office replaced for good by something else, I'm not believing it.

> USA used to have an amazing brand but that’s being destroyed at outstanding pace.

USA has 35 of the 50 biggest companies in the world ranked by market cap. China has 6 and the EU has... One! (Switzerland ain't the EU). One company for the EU in the top 50: that's ASML and even that is very mainly US owned.

I think you give the EU way too much credit and the US way too little.

[−] Jimmc414 62d ago
edit to tone down the accusatory tone of my previous comment. In retrospect, the post was likely derailed due to a subthread discussion that appears to have been flagged.
[−] gnabgib 62d ago
[flagged]