Hacker News Reader

Comment by adamt | Hacker News Reader

Quoting from the final para of the article: There's a lot of money "rest of world" and I suspect that will only be more and more true over time.

I generally really like Fred Wilson, but talk about stating the obvious. Given that the EU has a greater population, a higher total GDP, more broadband subs and equivalent or greater broadband penetration than the US - it also sounds a bit patronising. And that's before one considers the BRIC countries, or the rapidly developing internet economies in places like SE Asia.

View on HN

Something more than a quibble: while the EU has a higher total GDP, that doesn't translate into a higher purchasing power or standard of living---which can get complicated. If some higer ticket items are simply out of reach, maybe there's better markets for stuff people like us sell.

To do this correctly, you need to look at what the markets for X are in a particular country or region.

I'm also appalled with two p's that the author is invoking the "Chinaman" sales fallacy. Once upon a time it was through that China had vast importing potential, for if you could get just 1% of its men to buy a wool suit, you'd be minting gold.

Of course, that ignores the minor detail of why anyone in China would desire a wool suit, let alone be able to pay for it.

Anytime you hear someone say "if we could get just XX% of this market", remember that each sale is made one at a time, and that those individual sales have got to make sense before you can get wild eyed with percentages and big numbers.

> Something more than a quibble: while the EU has a higher total GDP, that doesn't translate into a higher purchasing power or standard of living---which can get complicated.

In terms of GDP and purchasing power parity, then Wikipedia says:

* US GDP (PPP) = $14.26 Trillion (2009) [1]

* EU GDP (PPP) = $15.26 Trillion (2008) [2]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_European_Union

And when adjusted per capata, based on the above Wikipedia articles for the EU, with the US population from the US article for 2010 (i.e. it's high for this calculation):

US GDP (PPP) 14.26 Trillion / 308,951,000 = 46,245 US$

EU GDP (PPP) 15.26 trillion / 498 million = 30,643 US$

Not a small difference....

There are unfortunately still people to whom the part you quoted isn't obvious, and who think the rest of the world is a pain in the ass rather than a very big opportunity.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com