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Estonian President Expresses Desire For More Digitally-Integrated Europe (arstechnica.com)
In a wide-ranging interview with Ars Technica, Estonian President Toomas Hendrik talked about European Digital Single Market (DSM), an ambitious goal that seeks to make commerce flow as smoothly across the 28-member block as it does in the United States. He cites the example of iTunes. From the report: What Estonia and Finland are doing is a step towards the DSM -- but there remain all kinds of national-level laws that stop Europe from being truly unified. "Take iTunes," President Ilves continued. "iTunes are based on credit cards. Credit cards are national. I cannot buy an iTunes record for my wife who has a Latvian credit card. I cannot buy her an iTunes record because I have an Estonian iTunes. This is true of virtually everything that is connected to digital services. And certainly this is why Estonia is at the forefront of the European Digital Single Market. As I like to say, it's easier to ship a bottle of Portuguese wine from southern Portugal in the Algarve and sell it in northern Lapland, than it is for me to buy an iTunes record across the Estonian-Latvian border."The report is worth a read in its entirety.
Western culture creeping in and taking over the whole world, only because some exec guy in a suit gazing out from his 100-storey office building sees your country as another "untapped market" that might yield a few dollars/euros if squeezed hard enough
The US has a protection on its market on cotton, because otherwise African countries would be competitive.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
1. Quit using the DEC logo for DRM stuff.
Apparently they're using it for items tagged "digital", because it has the word "digital" in it (the "D" in "DEC" being "Digital"), and if DRM stuff is tagged "digital" it's presumably because the "D" in "DRM" also stands for "digital".
Not that this means it makes sense. I suppose a better icon might be something with 1's and 0's in it, but maybe they decided that wasn't an obvious icon, so they used the logo of a computer company because it had the word "digital" in it.
Actually, you got this backwards. American culture is taking over the world, in part, because America is digitally unified. America has a huge internal market for software, movies, music, etc. That gives American media and tech companies a huge headstart. Nearly all technology and media giants are American. The only other country that comes close is China, but Chinese companies like Alibaba, Baidu, and Xaiomi, have difficulty competing outside China.
If other countries, including EU members, become more digitally unified, it will help them stand up to American cultural homogenization.
The biggest surprise from this story is that it turns out Estonia is a real place. Who knew?
Educated people? Or were you thinking of Elbonia?
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
What are you talking about? We are sacrificing red tape on the altar of the people. The national ID card is tremendously helpful. It cuts the latency of most of your government interaction down to mere minutes, the time it takes you to click through the user interface of a service. This is unheard of In most of the civilized world, where it can take months to get your random papers done. The crypto on this is open source, and anybody is free to implement their own. I cannot figure out what better 'clear goals' you could ask for.
Do you know how long it takes for me to prove my legal existence and identity? A few seconds.
Do you know how long it takes for me to file my taxes? About a minute.
Do you know how long it takes for me to start a business? A few hours.
I could go on.
The meat of your comment seems to be the all-too-common American hate towards the government. Well let me tell you, do not make the mistake to assume that a government per se is bad. A government is what you make of it. You can not exist without one more than you can exist without the division of labor. You might also remember a certain revolution in which you replaced a bad one with a good one so you have options, you know.
Ours government might not be the best, but it's also not the worst, and we trust our everyday lives with it. The fact that your government is the worst is your own fault and your own fault alone, and until you fix it or replace it you deserve all of it.
FCKGW 09F9 42
"how will he create a single digital-services market, after the fact?"
By using examples like the one he gave: I want to buy this but because of these barriers, I can't (easily). Look at all the revenue you're losing. Join our European Digital Single Market and make more money.
I think he understands about the credit cards.
If it works well for public services (see korgitser's comment) the private sector will see the advantages and may have to join in anyway to gain government contracts. The key is to make it more attractive than the current walled gardens.
If that happens, problems with copyright agreements etc will melt away.
See https://ec.europa.eu/prioritie...
Given the coming Brexit referendum, and other nationalistic movements on the rise, what we will get is a more dis-integrated Europe...