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...and American dominance in software is downstream, among other things, from the huge national security state investment campaign obviously connected to tech industry right from the start in various ways, as well as general American cultural dominance (Listen to American music, watch American shows, go see American films - obviously you're going to play American games as well, and how much of social media is downstream from already-existing forums culture created in large part by games forums? And that is just one, probably not even the most important, example of building on the existing that I've thought about a lot recently).
One of EU's tragedies is trusting on regulatory state to make up for driving down the elements of you-can-just-do-things state, ie the sort of direct state intervention to bolster business that America has always done in spades while hypocritically preaching laissez faire to the rest of the world. (Of course there has been direct state intervention in the EU and by EU too, but building bridges in Slovakia, while undoubtedly important for Slovaks, is probably less effective in staying globally competitive).
National security state tech has been around much longer than FAANG, is smaller, and has fairly little overlap with it. Aside from simply providing general support services like government clouds and Microsoft Windows/Office, the biggest overlap is likely Oracle. They are largely distinct sets of companies and employees. Google has tried to dabble in that and mostly failed.
Silicon Valley has much deeper roots than FAANG. The semiconductor industry had the national security complex as a primary investor and a primary customer.
This seeded the regional expertise ecosystem--VC, academia, local talent--that enabled companies further up the value chain to develop and succeed.
The semiconductor industry grew out of the telecommunications industry. William Shockley's being an asshole led to the founding of Fairchild Semiconductor by the Traitorous Eight. Former Fairchild employees founded a whole bunch of other semiconductor companies, including Intel. There was certainly defense involvement but an enormous commercial component. The next wave was the microcomputer revolution, which had even less defense involvement. Then Google and the current wave, very little defense involvement at the start.
It really is possible for American companies to be successful without the government being the prime mover.
When Fairchild started, it had pretty much no customers. But, in the early 1960s Minuteman and NASA provided massive contracts, to the point where the federal government was purchasing 95%+ of all integrated circuits from it (which is to say, 95%+ of all ICs manufactured in the world).
By the late 60s, the market was much more diverse for Fairchild and the Fairchildren (majority of revenue non-government), but that initial contract was what allowed Fairchild to drive down the cost curve enough for commercial applications to be feasible.
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Games is the software sub-sector where the US is least dominant (Nintendo exists, for example), so this isn't the story.
You're right, I was probably thinking more about American presence as gamers contributing to the creation of an American internet culture that a lot of other stuff was built upon.
Before social medias like Facebook ate everything there were localized social medias in other countries (at least Irc-Galleria in Finland, built on site where IRC users could post pics about themselves and evolving to a generalized social media for some time), but it was easy for many people to move to American sites since they already had American contacts from, among other things, using Internet forums.
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Also, is the American Music industry that disproportionately successful? Especially compared to Britain. For something like movies America clearly is dominant but for music it doesn't feel as clear to me.
Perhaps things have become lopsided since I greatly cut down on listening to new music some time in the early 10s.
Canada has some protectionist policies on media (Canadian content requirements, probably some tax breaks but I don't know specifics) that I believe are generally credited with why they punch above their weight in music and TV production.
The UK has state-sponsored premier TV and radio networks that manage similarly, I think. Less clear on the specifics, but preference for British actors on British projects (the Harry Potter movies, for example) are accepted. I can't say I've heard of an American movie getting grief for casting non-Americans, except maybe in very specific roles. I was (slightly) miffed that Masters of the Air cast an almost exclusively British cast to play American flight crews, but I haven't seen anyone else care.
There was a fuss about black British actors playing characters who were ADOS blacks in American films - but it isn't clear to me if that was an actual thing or if it was just Samuel L Jackson and his sycophants.
Even the Tuskegee airmen portrayed in Masters of the Air were played by British actors. That part felt particularly weird.
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