building alternatives takes time and resources. the EU has neither.
a diverse, competitive tech ecosystem with both EU and non-EU players is better than a protectionist approach.
hoping for an exodus of major global players when you’re leapfrogged by both China and the US…
The EU does not have the motivation, mostly. They are not rivals of the US in the way China is. So money goes elsewhere. Europe is still a continent with a whole bunch of people and quite a lot of money. The path of least resistance is to just use American solutions in some areas and to develop others locally. This might change and if there is a vacuum, it will be filled quickly.
* ride hailing alternatives: FreeNow, Bolt
* food delivery: Wolt (technically owned by DoorDash, but still), Just Eat, Bolt Food
* bikes / scooters: Tier, Bolt, NextBike, Voi, and many others
If Uber leaves, there won't be any void to fill.
This is kind of a FUD fueled false dichotomy, when the truth is we can't know if the EU doesn't have time or resources if it never tries.
What the US has that EU doesn't is the infinte money to throw in the bonfire at moonshot projects knowing that 99% will fail and the 1% will be hugely successful, but now the market is mature with less untapped opportunities, and the EU doesn't have to spend like the US did to achieve the same results, since we now know what works and what doesn't and how to make an Uber that's compliant with local regulations while using less money.
at a macro level i don’t think things stand still waiting for the europeans to catch up. i think things are moving extremely fast and you either adapt or “stagnate”.
This is a smartphone app that buys a local service that already exists, it's not hard... In fact alternatives already exist.. I mean of course they do cmon.
On the flip side do you realise the lithographic tech used to build your Intel fabs come from EU? (ASML) building an alternative to that will take serious time and resources. EU is not some third world country.
Oh no. What would we poor Europeans do without a US company to lead us. /s
Of course local and regional players would appear, as they always have and are already in place in multiple segments.
Bolt, Glovo, Delivery Hero and many others are successful competitors to different Uber offerings in the different European markets they operate.
The biggest gap in Europe is not due to a lack of technical ability but rather of European wide capital that's not super risk averse.
It’s both. Copying a validated business model is not a sign of competency.
