International Politics

[Nintex]

ario Draghi estimated in his report that the GDPR alone costs SMEs and start-ups in the EU 15% in lost revenue on average and many more billions in lost revenue because a lot of tech talent leaves the EU.

I am not particularly smart and issues along these lines have seemed obvious for ages now

the US is a welcoming harbor for tons of web-based businesses and services due to unique conveniences like section 230, which is probably why various interests keep trying to tear it down

It's a combination of things. For years public healthcare was a reason to stay in the EU for many because wages in the US were higher but not 'that' much higher.
Now, the average software engineer makes about $40k - $60k a year depending on where they are in the EU (before ~50% taxes) and those are highly educated medior or senior positions. In the US that is the average salary for a McDonalds manager and a software engineer easily clears $100k or more. So take into account the taxes and in the US you can make more money working at McDonalds than you can as a highly educated software engineer in the EU. 

If you are young, talented and willing to travel you can make $150k - $200k a year easily with less expenses than you would in the EU. And at that age your healthcare coverage is just not that important and $150k a year goes a long way to cover that. Plus US tech companies know about his, so they usually offer all sorts of health related benefits to ease the burden.

On the other side of the coin you have the digital nomads that start their own companies with just a laptop. They can easily do that in Singapore or Thailand. Work from the beach for EU/US levels of income and live like kings in less expensive locations.

In the EU, there are no angel or VC investors that are willing to invest millions or billions in tech start-ups like there are in Silicon Valley. You might get a 3k grant or perhaps a 10k grant tops after filling out a lot of paperwork. In exchange for a lot of stock in your company you might even get a 100k investment. But you're just not getting the millions or billions that can be raised in Silicon Valley. Whenever it gets beyond the college/university phase and a start-up needs 6 or 7 figures to become a serious business, there is just no bank or investor willing to take that risk, only big corporations willing to buy you out at 50 cents on the dollar. 

Now I'm not saying the US model is perfect it has plenty of issues, especially if you're not a healthy highly educated ~21 year old. 
But there has to be a middle road between taking home $20k - $30k (after taxes) and $150k + benefits for essentially the same job.