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It’s interesting how these conversations always start and end with “my company isn’t buying XYZ American cloud provider services” while ignoring other incredibl

by ericmay 8mo ago

It’s interesting how these conversations always start and end with “my company isn’t buying XYZ American cloud provider services” while ignoring other incredibly important products and services that you can’t or are unwilling to boycott. Are you turning in your MacBook Pro and iPhone, or are you putting a bumper sticker on it saying you bought it before you knew America was crazy? Similarly, while it's great to take a principled stand here (it's yet again interesting how it's always a principled stand against American companies but never others), while you are busy spending time and money migrating away from AWS to a competing product that has worse features and is more expensive as you said, you should hope your competitors are too because if not, they're going to be delivering features faster and more cheaply. Something worth thinking about there. I don't think Microsoft losing some European contracts is an example of the US ceding power.

iso1631 8mo ago
Macbooks are built in China. Personally I have a Lenovo laptop (China) running Ubuntu (UK), on an LG monitor (Korea) with a logitech (Switzerland) mouse on an Ikea (Denmark) desk connected to a Mikrotik (Latvia) router.
- ericmay 8mo ago
  I guess it's global supply chains when it's convenient for your argument, but not when it's inconvenient? Does Denmark build all the Ikea furniture? Who do you think designs the MacBook, chipsets, and more? Who designs and builds the semiconductors for your Lenovo laptop?
  - jacquesm 8mo ago
    > Does Denmark build all the Ikea furniture? That would be so funny if it wasn't clear that you are serious. > Who do you think designs the MacBook, chipsets, and more? Who designs and builds the semiconductors for your Lenovo laptop? Why don't you tell us?
    - ericmay 8mo ago
      > That would be so funny if it wasn't clear that you are serious. Sure ok - tell me what I'm missing. > Why don't you tell us? Are you unaware that Apple designs the MacBook and A/M series chips?
      - jacquesm 8mo ago
        Are you unaware that Ikea is Swedish and that the ARM comes from a long line of UK products?
        ericmay 8mo ago
        > Ikea (Denmark) desk I was just going off what you wrote. I buy locally handmade furniture and haven't bought anything from Ikea since college. Anyway, Sweden doesn't build all of this stuff either. > ARM comes from a long line of UK products? Again, global supply chains when it's convenient for your argument.
comrade1234 8mo ago
Both my iPhone and MacBook were bought from Apple Switzerland AG and shipped directly from china to me. The money will stay in Europe unless Trump does another tax holiday where American companies can send money back to the USA without paying taxes on it - otherwise it's a pretty hefty tax bill.
- ericmay 8mo ago
  Sorry that's not how that works. First and foremost, Apple is still an American company and even if it isn't repatriating some amount of income because it doesn't want to pay taxes on it American shareholders still get the benefit of the reported cash position. Apple still owns the assets. Second, the products are manufactured/assembled in a variety of countries including China, Taiwan, and more - US obviously designs the products and all that. But in each step of the way Apple is paying suppliers, suppliers pay other suppliers and so forth and when you finally go to Apple Switzerland AG and buy your MacBook Pro you're just paying the sum total costs of the profit for Apple, each individual supplier, and manufacturer. All that money has left Europe, Apple Switzerland is just charging you the diff on the imported product and what profit margin they want to make. Maybe it's $250 or something, of the supply chain that is pretty much all that stays in Europe, of course subtracting out where European companies are suppliers.
KaiserPro 8mo ago
> while ignoring other incredibly important products and services that you can’t or are unwilling to boycott. Its about operational risk. right now AWS is a key dependency, if that get turns off, we're fucked. we have mixed estate of end user devices, so its hard to turn them all off at once.
- ericmay 8mo ago
  You're indulging in catastrophe fantasy. If AWS gets "turned off" (the implication being the US is doing some big mean thing against all of Europe) for European countries then something absolutely catastrophic has happened and you're going to be hoping you have heat, electricity, food, and water. If AWS gets "turned off" your MacBook Pro isn't going to work anymore because obviously the US will just whoops turn that off too! Your Google OS on your Android phone won't work anymore, and if you turn it on bam drone strike! Gotcha! Meta will shut down your WhatsApp, and you'll have to import all of your oil from Russia or something. I don't think there's anything wrong with European countries or the EU as a whole looking to build more homegrown products and restore their manufacturing capacity - that's what we're looking to do in the US too in various ways and I encourage it. But I do think there's a problem with this fantasy, and indeed it is a fantasy of somehow decoupling from American tech companies or being isolationist or whatever and it's not good for you. We have global supply chains and in those supply chains you're going to have American products whether you like it or not. You can work on building better businesses in the EU and you should, but lay off the grandstanding, otherwise you just sound like the freedom fries enthusiasts.
  - KaiserPro 8mo ago
    What do I mean by "turned off"? Right now if I want to process data in compliance with GDPR, I need to make sure there are sample clauses that provide equivalence in data protection standards. Those clauses only hold if the US and EU agree that they won't fuck with them. but thats fairly fragile.
    - ericmay 8mo ago
      It's also, frankly, very unimportant in the context of the geopolitical and geostrategic "USA has lost soft power" discussion that's being had.

by ericmay 8mo ago

iso1631 8mo ago

Macbooks are built in China. Personally I have a Lenovo laptop (China) running Ubuntu (UK), on an LG monitor (Korea) with a logitech (Switzerland) mouse on an Ikea (Denmark) desk connected to a Mikrotik (Latvia) router.

ericmay 8mo ago
I guess it's global supply chains when it's convenient for your argument, but not when it's inconvenient? Does Denmark build all the Ikea furniture? Who do you think designs the MacBook, chipsets, and more? Who designs and builds the semiconductors for your Lenovo laptop?
- jacquesm 8mo ago
  > Does Denmark build all the Ikea furniture? That would be so funny if it wasn't clear that you are serious. > Who do you think designs the MacBook, chipsets, and more? Who designs and builds the semiconductors for your Lenovo laptop? Why don't you tell us?
  - ericmay 8mo ago
    > That would be so funny if it wasn't clear that you are serious. Sure ok - tell me what I'm missing. > Why don't you tell us? Are you unaware that Apple designs the MacBook and A/M series chips?
    - jacquesm 8mo ago
      Are you unaware that Ikea is Swedish and that the ARM comes from a long line of UK products?
      - ericmay 8mo ago
        > Ikea (Denmark) desk I was just going off what you wrote. I buy locally handmade furniture and haven't bought anything from Ikea since college. Anyway, Sweden doesn't build all of this stuff either. > ARM comes from a long line of UK products? Again, global supply chains when it's convenient for your argument.

comrade1234 8mo ago

Both my iPhone and MacBook were bought from Apple Switzerland AG and shipped directly from china to me. The money will stay in Europe unless Trump does another tax holiday where American companies can send money back to the USA without paying taxes on it - otherwise it's a pretty hefty tax bill.

ericmay 8mo ago
Sorry that's not how that works. First and foremost, Apple is still an American company and even if it isn't repatriating some amount of income because it doesn't want to pay taxes on it American shareholders still get the benefit of the reported cash position. Apple still owns the assets. Second, the products are manufactured/assembled in a variety of countries including China, Taiwan, and more - US obviously designs the products and all that. But in each step of the way Apple is paying suppliers, suppliers pay other suppliers and so forth and when you finally go to Apple Switzerland AG and buy your MacBook Pro you're just paying the sum total costs of the profit for Apple, each individual supplier, and manufacturer. All that money has left Europe, Apple Switzerland is just charging you the diff on the imported product and what profit margin they want to make. Maybe it's $250 or something, of the supply chain that is pretty much all that stays in Europe, of course subtracting out where European companies are suppliers.

KaiserPro 8mo ago

> while ignoring other incredibly important products and services that you can’t or are unwilling to boycott. Its about operational risk. right now AWS is a key dependency, if that get turns off, we're fucked. we have mixed estate of end user devices, so its hard to turn them all off at once.

ericmay 8mo ago
You're indulging in catastrophe fantasy. If AWS gets "turned off" (the implication being the US is doing some big mean thing against all of Europe) for European countries then something absolutely catastrophic has happened and you're going to be hoping you have heat, electricity, food, and water. If AWS gets "turned off" your MacBook Pro isn't going to work anymore because obviously the US will just whoops turn that off too! Your Google OS on your Android phone won't work anymore, and if you turn it on bam drone strike! Gotcha! Meta will shut down your WhatsApp, and you'll have to import all of your oil from Russia or something. I don't think there's anything wrong with European countries or the EU as a whole looking to build more homegrown products and restore their manufacturing capacity - that's what we're looking to do in the US too in various ways and I encourage it. But I do think there's a problem with this fantasy, and indeed it is a fantasy of somehow decoupling from American tech companies or being isolationist or whatever and it's not good for you. We have global supply chains and in those supply chains you're going to have American products whether you like it or not. You can work on building better businesses in the EU and you should, but lay off the grandstanding, otherwise you just sound like the freedom fries enthusiasts.
- KaiserPro 8mo ago
  What do I mean by "turned off"? Right now if I want to process data in compliance with GDPR, I need to make sure there are sample clauses that provide equivalence in data protection standards. Those clauses only hold if the US and EU agree that they won't fuck with them. but thats fairly fragile.
  - ericmay 8mo ago
    It's also, frankly, very unimportant in the context of the geopolitical and geostrategic "USA has lost soft power" discussion that's being had.