> ...it does not understand tech industry at a cultural level, having never built out its own
Consumer products are only a subset of tech. ASML, Siemens, ABB, Bosch have been tech industry bellwethers for ages. Europe is also no slouch in consumers/web/apps either (Spotify, booking.com)
Man forgets the industrial era was started in Europe. There are plenty of European tech companies behind all of the big American ones, the difference is really just the size of the market.
Face ID tech is old Kinect tech, Apple bought...an Israeli company for it (not EU, I know). But probably the biggest and most obvious example is ARM.
This just seems like deflection. The EU does not have an understanding for modern consumer tech products, period. That they have old giants still producing sub components has no bearing on this discussion, it's not like their industry actually has to worry about making viable end-user products.
They do not have any meaningful companies that actually have to worry about the end-user viability of tech.
Spotify, Indeed, and Booking are maybe the only real examples of consumer web apps from the EU, there are literally hundreds larger examples from the US.