The US is innovative but can't be bothered to get the boring stuff right.

Meanwhile Europe standardized bank transfers with IBAN, killed connector type proliferation with by standardizing on USB-C, and routed 3-phase power most homes. Oh, and the metric system. And while Europe has a wide range of cultures and functionality of government, a lot of places have simpler tax forms and a more prescriptive legal system (as opposed to the precedent-dominated Common Law tradition in the US). The German-speaking countries even rewrote spelling to make it simpler.

I view a lot of this stuff as infrastructure investment. We shouldn't have to stumble over the mundane to do interesting things. As others have commented, Europe also had the advantage of adopting some technologies later, but in some cases they just seem to be more aligned with a system of constant (if sometimes frustratingly slow) improvement.