4 ms·

Isn't massive tech conglomerates locking people into their ecosystems how we got here in the first place? The quest to replace US with EU products is really jus

by yabones 9mo ago

Isn't massive tech conglomerates locking people into their ecosystems how we got here in the first place? The quest to replace US with EU products is really just treating symptoms of the problems that tech has created in the past 2-3 decades.

jacquesm 9mo ago
Yes, but the cost-to-switch is more important right now than the details, the bigger fear I have is that if such an EU alternative is successful that the US incumbents will swoop in and buy it and then you're back to square 1. That has happened quite a few times already.
- toomuchtodo 9mo ago
  Is there a mechanism the EU could use to inhibit acquisition by a non EU entity?
  - atmosx 9mo ago
    It’s not a matter of mechanism. It’s a matter of mindset. Until today the mindset wasn’t there. Maybe this will change.
    - palata 9mo ago
      I'm not convinced. If a company owner can get rich by selling their company to the devil himself, they will rationalise it so well that the employees will think it's helping humanity.
  - jacquesm 9mo ago
    There is in France. They have a government investment arm that will invest relatively small amounts but with a string attached: a veto on any majority acquisition. This was used for instance to block the takeover of Dailymotion by Yahoo iirc. It's a double edged sword: it may help in some cases but it hurts the investment scene overall because an exit to the USA is what most EU investors dream about because their returns overall are pretty crappy. Fragmented markets are a lot harder for investors than uniform ones.
  - deaux 9mo ago
    Of course there is. Google Mush Ryanair, for one. And just 2 seconds of thinking is enough to answer that question. Do you think China wouldn't have bought ASML yet if money alone was enough?
    - toomuchtodo 9mo ago
      I asked to discuss, not because I didn’t know the answer. Please attempt to be more polite in the future.
      - deaux 9mo ago
        There was absolutely nothing about your comment that indicated this intent. Open questions can be asked for discussion, not closed yes/no factual questions with a singular, well-known answer.
- atmosx 9mo ago
  And the EU governments will be advertising it.. already happened in Greece… few companies with strong core tech were bought by Microsoft and the gov was “so happy” for the “success story”. Everybody and their mother is using Gmail anyway
  - palata 9mo ago
    > Everybody and their mother is using Gmail anyway Though that's one of the easy ones. Get your own domain and you're free to use whatever you want forever.
    - trinix912 9mo ago
      In theory yes, in practice the messages from your random domain way too often end up in spam for Gmail and Outlook users, if they get delivered at all.
    - jacquesm 9mo ago
      That's not as simple as it may seem. I've been running my own mailserver on an alternate domain for decades now and it is one thing to be receiving mail there but to send it is a nightmare. Google, Microsoft etc have made it all but impossible to get through their anti-spam measures to the point that they reject tons of perfectly good mail.
      - palata 9mo ago
        I have used Fastmail for years, and now Migadu for years as well. Never lost a single email?
        jacquesm 9mo ago
        That's not comparable at all.
        palata 9mo ago
        Why not? I said "get your own domain", not "self-host your server". You are the one saying that it doesn't work so well to self-host your server, I never asked about it.
- palata 9mo ago
  > the bigger fear I have is that if such an EU alternative is successful that the US incumbents will swoop in and buy it That's usually what happens indeed. There is a lot of great tech coming from [the rest of the world] and being bought by the US. > the cost-to-switch is more important right now than the details I kinda disagree there. The lack of competition is the problem today. If, instead of AWS, there were 50 services all over the world and companies were distributed amongst them, then it would be much less of a problem. The problem right now is that the US can bully entire countries because those countries 100% rely on US services. Instead of building a European replacement for AWS, I would like to see open standards allowing companies to easily switch, and different providers competing behing those standards. Or even better: companies could even mix the services: say "I want my backups replicated between this French company and this Croatian one".
  - jacquesm 9mo ago
    That's obviously the idea, but unfortunately everybody just wants convenience instead of decentralization. Hence Mastodon's amazing adoption rate...
- deaux 9mo ago
  The task of governments is to stop this. Just like how Musk is prohibited from buying EasyJet. Do you think China wouldn't have bought ASML if Europe would let them? They would've done so a decade ago. The exact same reasoning now needs to be applied to the likes of OVHCloud.

by yabones 9mo ago

jacquesm 9mo ago

Yes, but the cost-to-switch is more important right now than the details, the bigger fear I have is that if such an EU alternative is successful that the US incumbents will swoop in and buy it and then you're back to square 1. That has happened quite a few times already.

toomuchtodo 9mo ago
Is there a mechanism the EU could use to inhibit acquisition by a non EU entity?
- atmosx 9mo ago
  It’s not a matter of mechanism. It’s a matter of mindset. Until today the mindset wasn’t there. Maybe this will change.
  - palata 9mo ago
    I'm not convinced. If a company owner can get rich by selling their company to the devil himself, they will rationalise it so well that the employees will think it's helping humanity.
- jacquesm 9mo ago
  There is in France. They have a government investment arm that will invest relatively small amounts but with a string attached: a veto on any majority acquisition. This was used for instance to block the takeover of Dailymotion by Yahoo iirc. It's a double edged sword: it may help in some cases but it hurts the investment scene overall because an exit to the USA is what most EU investors dream about because their returns overall are pretty crappy. Fragmented markets are a lot harder for investors than uniform ones.
- deaux 9mo ago
  Of course there is. Google Mush Ryanair, for one. And just 2 seconds of thinking is enough to answer that question. Do you think China wouldn't have bought ASML yet if money alone was enough?
  - toomuchtodo 9mo ago
    I asked to discuss, not because I didn’t know the answer. Please attempt to be more polite in the future.
    - deaux 9mo ago
      There was absolutely nothing about your comment that indicated this intent. Open questions can be asked for discussion, not closed yes/no factual questions with a singular, well-known answer.
atmosx 9mo ago
And the EU governments will be advertising it.. already happened in Greece… few companies with strong core tech were bought by Microsoft and the gov was “so happy” for the “success story”. Everybody and their mother is using Gmail anyway
- palata 9mo ago
  > Everybody and their mother is using Gmail anyway Though that's one of the easy ones. Get your own domain and you're free to use whatever you want forever.
  - trinix912 9mo ago
    In theory yes, in practice the messages from your random domain way too often end up in spam for Gmail and Outlook users, if they get delivered at all.
  - jacquesm 9mo ago
    That's not as simple as it may seem. I've been running my own mailserver on an alternate domain for decades now and it is one thing to be receiving mail there but to send it is a nightmare. Google, Microsoft etc have made it all but impossible to get through their anti-spam measures to the point that they reject tons of perfectly good mail.
    - palata 9mo ago
      I have used Fastmail for years, and now Migadu for years as well. Never lost a single email?
      - jacquesm 9mo ago
        That's not comparable at all.
        palata 9mo ago
        Why not? I said "get your own domain", not "self-host your server". You are the one saying that it doesn't work so well to self-host your server, I never asked about it.
palata 9mo ago
> the bigger fear I have is that if such an EU alternative is successful that the US incumbents will swoop in and buy it That's usually what happens indeed. There is a lot of great tech coming from [the rest of the world] and being bought by the US. > the cost-to-switch is more important right now than the details I kinda disagree there. The lack of competition is the problem today. If, instead of AWS, there were 50 services all over the world and companies were distributed amongst them, then it would be much less of a problem. The problem right now is that the US can bully entire countries because those countries 100% rely on US services. Instead of building a European replacement for AWS, I would like to see open standards allowing companies to easily switch, and different providers competing behing those standards. Or even better: companies could even mix the services: say "I want my backups replicated between this French company and this Croatian one".
- jacquesm 9mo ago
  That's obviously the idea, but unfortunately everybody just wants convenience instead of decentralization. Hence Mastodon's amazing adoption rate...
deaux 9mo ago
The task of governments is to stop this. Just like how Musk is prohibited from buying EasyJet. Do you think China wouldn't have bought ASML if Europe would let them? They would've done so a decade ago. The exact same reasoning now needs to be applied to the likes of OVHCloud.