German here. I think what we now see is what local nerds always warned about: US Big Tech is strategically making us dependent on them and when they play the en

German here. I think what we now see is what local nerds always warned about: US Big Tech is strategically making us dependent on them and when they play the end-game, we're fu*ed. Sure, they will disable the data collection and gladly obey the rules we put in the contracts (how do we know?). But they'll make sure that we're paying extra money for it. They're sucking away our now even more valuable tax money[0] and our idiotic leadership of panic throws more money into this black hole. [0] A "Kleine Anfrage" in the German parliament to the Bundesregierung in December 2023 made it public (but mostly ignored) that the German Bundesregierung will pay 6bn EUR to Microsoft and Oracle in the upcoming years. Source (in German): https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/deutschland/it-open-source-bundesregierung-kleine-anfrage-100.html https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/deutschland/it-open-s...