Some people are mentioning regulation but for streaming a lot of it comes down to market size. The US is a huge singular market which all speaks one language. In europe there are many smaller markets each with its own language and set of countries and regulations. Even at big-ish US companies that serve europe, there might only be a small team that services just FR or just GB, and almost never any smaller countries.
On the plus side, that gap presents sort of a business opportunity but the downside is, it's not a particularly big one.
somehow Netflix is available in majority of europe with english-only content and it’s fine. sometimes you can get subtitles even. so I don’t think that it is main reason why europe is second-class citizen in this regard.
The language might not be the biggest problem. The insane amount of regulation we have might be. Besides regulation, there are plenty of other differences between countries within the EU.
For example, we don't have a unified banking system in the EU. Each country has its own preferred method of payment. In the Netherlands they have iDeal. In Belgium Bancontact. Dankort in Denmark. The list goes on [1]. Credit cards are not that common in Europe and not everyone has one. To appeal to a wider audience, one must support local payment methods. This is just one example of where things get more complicated compared to doing business in the US.
This is true. The banking infrastructure within the European Union is really good compared to the US.
The example I gave was regarding accepting online payments as a business from inviduals and other businesses. For US busineses, accepting credit cards is usually enough. Large bills can be paid by wire transfer. In the EU, accepting online payments is not that straightforward. Just figuring out the right VAT rate is complicated to begin with.
It is true that there is a lot of diversity in local payment methods, but you can easily cover most of your potential customers by simply offering credit/debit card, bank transfer and paypal options. It's more than enough to get you started.
As for the supposed insane amount of regulation, the majority of international trade is regulated at the EU level so it's quite unified. Not to mention e-commerce which is completely regulated by the EU.
I am not saying that there is not a considerable amount of particularity that may be hindering small startups in fast expansion across Europe but I would find it quite hard to believe that it is much of a factor for the likes of Apple and Amazon.
This is totally true. As I mentioned in my first comment, I do understand the reason.
Doing business in the EU is just a lot harder. Even though a lot of regulation is on an EU level, each country has their own rules and laws on top of that. Just invoicing your customers is a total mess. It's incredibly complicated. Then there is a ton of privacy and data protection regulation (GDPR for example). Germany for example has a dozen or so more rules on top of that. It's one of the reasons why Google Streetview is non-existent in Germany. I haven't even gotten to the the fact that each country has a different language. Although most people of younger generations do speak and understand English just fine.
I totally understand why companies avoid the EU as a result of this. It's a mess. Ironically, I do support a lot of these regulations.
On the plus side, that gap presents sort of a business opportunity but the downside is, it's not a particularly big one.