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I would say there’s even less chance nowadays to generate a fully private set of European alternatives to American cloud offerings. Europes bureaucratization a

by tirant 8mo ago

I would say there’s even less chance nowadays to generate a fully private set of European alternatives to American cloud offerings. Europes bureaucratization and the growth of the size of states has increased the last 10 years. I have less and less hope that we’re able to set the right free market conditions for real competition to happen. That doesn’t mean that won’t be alternatives to American offerings, but most probably will come from somewhere else (Singapore, China, Taiwan…)

embedding-shape 8mo ago
> set the right free market conditions for real competition to happen Just as a curiosity, what exactly are those "right free market conditions" and where have those been successfully implemented before? Because I think most of us (Europeans) are desperately trying to avoid replicating the American experiment, so if that's the "right free market conditions" I think we're trying to avoid those on purpose. But maybe you're thinking of some other place, then I'm eager ears to hear what worked elsewhere :)
- ada0000 8mo ago
  If the size of state and bureaucratisation are the main issues, one wonders how China got so far :-)
  - stefanfisk 8mo ago
    In what sense is china bureaucratic when it comes to business?
    - ada0000 8mo ago
      Tax breaks, operations of state owned industry, other incentives etc are guided by five year plans implemented by a party bureaucracy.
      - dmurray 8mo ago
        "You can't do X" is a much different experience from "you can do X, but you need to spend a year and thousands of man-hours of paperwork applying for permission to do it". In China, if the five-year plan prioritizes something, businesses will be up and running in months. In France, if the French parliament enacts a law prioritizing something, businesses still have to fight individual departments or local governments that have their own ideas about how they should regulate it. Don't confuse bureaucracy for authoritarianism.
      - stefanfisk 8mo ago
        How is any of that a bureaucratic burden for domestic private companies in China?
    - boondongle 8mo ago
      I can't believe we're talking about China in the context of a Cloud sovereignty issue and this is even a question. Having worked for these Cloud providers China has consistently used bureaucracy to exfiltrate Cloud technologies and to tip the scales of effectiveness of offerings through levers with China Telecom/Unicom. Analyzing the backbone, you could see it in real time. China basically offsets its bureaucracy by doing the one thing Europe has not done so far in this space: overtly hurt foreign competitors. It doesn't matter how superior your offerings are if the end customers end up throttled creating a less desirable experience than the less-featured, stable domestic competitor. Unfortunately - the elephant in the room is China got to where it was by being overtly adversarial with the US from the jump after 2010 which translated to a number of anti-competitive measures. The EU's in a spot because it's mostly responding to Trump and a poorly written US law. The US and EU are weird friends in that we could both exfiltrate each other's tech, patents, and industrial assets and move on with business but that's not actually what either side actually wants.
      - stefanfisk 8mo ago
        China weaponizing bureaucracy towards foreign companies isn’t really relevant though. AFAIK domestic companies operating in China don’t have to endure anywhere near the amount of red tape that EU companies typically do when operating in the EU.
  - _2d30 8mo ago
    No one wonders that if they have any actual knowledge. Chinese government spending as a % of GDP is much less than say France. :-) https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA/FRA/JPN/GBR/SWE/ESP/ITA/ZAF/IND https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA/FRA/JPN/... Bureaucratisation in the realm of business is much smaller in most relevant ways for most enterprises in China as well.
- hartator 8mo ago
  Contradictory regulations is one of the symptoms of overregulation. I.e., complying to GDPR means you can’t comply to cybersecurity laws. US has less of those.
  - stevesimmons 8mo ago
    How exactly does GDPR prevent you from complying with cybersecurity laws? For instance, one of GDPR's 6 lawful bases for processing data is in order to comply with legal obligations. If you're going to make strong claims like that, the onus really is on you to give specific examples.
    - closewith 8mo ago
      I wonder is the GP is referring to the CLOUD Act, as it is true that US companies cannot be compliant with both the GDPR and the CLOUD Act, but it doesn't weaken the case for European tech sovereignty.
  - embedding-shape 8mo ago
    Sounds like a broad blanket statement, have any specifics about this? GDPR and cybersecurity laws are designed to be compatible, not mutually exclusive, but I'm sure there are edge-cases. Still, what exact situation did you find yourself in here in order to believe they're mutually exclusive?
  - victorbjorklund 8mo ago
    All US companies selling to European customers have to comply with GDPR. European companies selling only to non-European customers don’t have to comply with GDPR. It’s all about who your users are. Not where your company is registered.
    - jonathanstrange 8mo ago
      I think what OP means is that a US company cannot simultaneously comply with the CLOUD act and the GDPR. That case has also been made by some courts in the EU, that US law and practice are incompatible with the requirements of the GDPR. US companies who claim to process data in accordance with the GDPR seem to be deceiving their customers. Maybe I'm wrong but it seems to me that companies in the EU who rely on US services, corporations in the US, and even governments themselves keep quit about this unpleasant truth. It means that Microsoft Windows violates the GDPR, Google violates it, every US social network violates it, etc. Of course, as someone else mentioned, that is not an argument against EU sovereignty but rather one of its motors.
azan_ 8mo ago
Ok, but it's not like nothing was done after Draghi report - EU formed at least 5 committees and commissioned multiple think-tanks to develop reports about possible development of the pathway to the programme that will work on bureaucracy and overregulation.
deaux 8mo ago
> Europes bureaucratization and the growth of the size of states has increased the last 10 years. None of these things matter. They're trivially set aside. All that matters is how many insane threats the US Gov keeps making. Hopefully as many as possible. This is what creates demand, and from demand, everything else follows automatically. Like, how can you not see this based on recent events? I'm willing to bet a house that in Feb 2026 there will be much more relative movement from US to EU clouds than in Feb 2015. Despite all of that "increased bureaucracy".
pjmlp 8mo ago
You mean late scale capitalism that treats employees like serfs?

by tirant 8mo ago

embedding-shape 8mo ago

> set the right free market conditions for real competition to happen Just as a curiosity, what exactly are those "right free market conditions" and where have those been successfully implemented before? Because I think most of us (Europeans) are desperately trying to avoid replicating the American experiment, so if that's the "right free market conditions" I think we're trying to avoid those on purpose. But maybe you're thinking of some other place, then I'm eager ears to hear what worked elsewhere :)

ada0000 8mo ago
If the size of state and bureaucratisation are the main issues, one wonders how China got so far :-)
- stefanfisk 8mo ago
  In what sense is china bureaucratic when it comes to business?
  - ada0000 8mo ago
    Tax breaks, operations of state owned industry, other incentives etc are guided by five year plans implemented by a party bureaucracy.
    - dmurray 8mo ago
      "You can't do X" is a much different experience from "you can do X, but you need to spend a year and thousands of man-hours of paperwork applying for permission to do it". In China, if the five-year plan prioritizes something, businesses will be up and running in months. In France, if the French parliament enacts a law prioritizing something, businesses still have to fight individual departments or local governments that have their own ideas about how they should regulate it. Don't confuse bureaucracy for authoritarianism.
    - stefanfisk 8mo ago
      How is any of that a bureaucratic burden for domestic private companies in China?
  - boondongle 8mo ago
    I can't believe we're talking about China in the context of a Cloud sovereignty issue and this is even a question. Having worked for these Cloud providers China has consistently used bureaucracy to exfiltrate Cloud technologies and to tip the scales of effectiveness of offerings through levers with China Telecom/Unicom. Analyzing the backbone, you could see it in real time. China basically offsets its bureaucracy by doing the one thing Europe has not done so far in this space: overtly hurt foreign competitors. It doesn't matter how superior your offerings are if the end customers end up throttled creating a less desirable experience than the less-featured, stable domestic competitor. Unfortunately - the elephant in the room is China got to where it was by being overtly adversarial with the US from the jump after 2010 which translated to a number of anti-competitive measures. The EU's in a spot because it's mostly responding to Trump and a poorly written US law. The US and EU are weird friends in that we could both exfiltrate each other's tech, patents, and industrial assets and move on with business but that's not actually what either side actually wants.
    - stefanfisk 8mo ago
      China weaponizing bureaucracy towards foreign companies isn’t really relevant though. AFAIK domestic companies operating in China don’t have to endure anywhere near the amount of red tape that EU companies typically do when operating in the EU.
- _2d30 8mo ago
  No one wonders that if they have any actual knowledge. Chinese government spending as a % of GDP is much less than say France. :-) https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA/FRA/JPN/GBR/SWE/ESP/ITA/ZAF/IND https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA/FRA/JPN/... Bureaucratisation in the realm of business is much smaller in most relevant ways for most enterprises in China as well.
hartator 8mo ago
Contradictory regulations is one of the symptoms of overregulation. I.e., complying to GDPR means you can’t comply to cybersecurity laws. US has less of those.
- stevesimmons 8mo ago
  How exactly does GDPR prevent you from complying with cybersecurity laws? For instance, one of GDPR's 6 lawful bases for processing data is in order to comply with legal obligations. If you're going to make strong claims like that, the onus really is on you to give specific examples.
  - closewith 8mo ago
    I wonder is the GP is referring to the CLOUD Act, as it is true that US companies cannot be compliant with both the GDPR and the CLOUD Act, but it doesn't weaken the case for European tech sovereignty.
- embedding-shape 8mo ago
  Sounds like a broad blanket statement, have any specifics about this? GDPR and cybersecurity laws are designed to be compatible, not mutually exclusive, but I'm sure there are edge-cases. Still, what exact situation did you find yourself in here in order to believe they're mutually exclusive?
- victorbjorklund 8mo ago
  All US companies selling to European customers have to comply with GDPR. European companies selling only to non-European customers don’t have to comply with GDPR. It’s all about who your users are. Not where your company is registered.
  - jonathanstrange 8mo ago
    I think what OP means is that a US company cannot simultaneously comply with the CLOUD act and the GDPR. That case has also been made by some courts in the EU, that US law and practice are incompatible with the requirements of the GDPR. US companies who claim to process data in accordance with the GDPR seem to be deceiving their customers. Maybe I'm wrong but it seems to me that companies in the EU who rely on US services, corporations in the US, and even governments themselves keep quit about this unpleasant truth. It means that Microsoft Windows violates the GDPR, Google violates it, every US social network violates it, etc. Of course, as someone else mentioned, that is not an argument against EU sovereignty but rather one of its motors.

azan_ 8mo ago

Ok, but it's not like nothing was done after Draghi report - EU formed at least 5 committees and commissioned multiple think-tanks to develop reports about possible development of the pathway to the programme that will work on bureaucracy and overregulation.

deaux 8mo ago

> Europes bureaucratization and the growth of the size of states has increased the last 10 years. None of these things matter. They're trivially set aside. All that matters is how many insane threats the US Gov keeps making. Hopefully as many as possible. This is what creates demand, and from demand, everything else follows automatically. Like, how can you not see this based on recent events? I'm willing to bet a house that in Feb 2026 there will be much more relative movement from US to EU clouds than in Feb 2015. Despite all of that "increased bureaucracy".

pjmlp 8mo ago

You mean late scale capitalism that treats employees like serfs?