Yup. Culturally, the EU has favored more regulations over supporting more tech growth to an absurd degree.
Not that I disagree in principle with most of the tech regulations; it does make sense to protect privacy and combat monopolistic abuses and so on.
But you also need to support your own tech industry at the same time, and the efforts there have been like quarter-assed at most.
If you prevent monopolies, and your neighbour doesn't, and your neighbour bullies you when you try to prevent their monopolies... it's not an easy situation.
That's really not the issue. EU tech companies aren't getting big enough to the point where "potentially a monopoly" is even a problem, other than maybe Spotify.
They are not, but EU tech companies have to compete against US monopolies. And there are laws that prevent them from doing that.
https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition
This blog post starts off with a long-winded, meandering rant. Do you have something more succinct and less rant-y to back up your assertion of
> And there are laws that prevent them from doing that.
?