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I think you are underestimating the supply chain problem. You can't stand up extra servers you don't already have in extra data center capacity you don't alread

I think you are underestimating the supply chain problem. You can't stand up extra servers you don't already have in extra data center capacity you don't already have. The whole point of the cloud is that you don't have these assets. While you can acquire these assets the lead times would be several months at a minimum, and probably years if everyone is trying to do it at the same time. It isn't an issue of knowhow, the required physical infrastructure doesn't exist.

embedding-shape 5mo ago
Say Microsoft/Google/whatever my local municipality is using right now, gets blocked tonight, and tomorrow everything US-related is offline. It won't (and can't) take months for them to get one server up and running for them to continue with their administration. As mentioned, other municipalities in the country already are 100% independent, running everything themselves, either they're willing to help out the rest of us, or at least provide expertise enough so we can. Then the country is filled with FOSS nerds like myself, who wouldn't shy away from stepping in to help either. Probably the larger cities would take longer to solve, but I don't think "We cannot get server hardware from the US" will be the biggest problem, it'll be around national organization until the biggest fires been put out. Putting one server in each ajuntament would basically be enough to get 80% of the local municipalities up and running again.
- mike_hearn 5mo ago
  It wouldn't only affect local governments, it'd also trash all the businesses, banks, national governments, etc. Google on its own getting blocked breaks the entire internet because so many websites rely on the free services they host. Remember there are no European search engines of any quality and only Mistral as a European AI provider, so even just findings things would be difficult.
  - embedding-shape 5mo ago
    You underestimate how resilient and effective people can be when needed. Yes, as mentioned earlier, it'd suck for a while, but we'd come up with solutions pretty quickly, as the entire country would rely on that. Pretty much exactly a year ago, I was about leave home to go buy something, when the power was cut, garage door didn't open. Fine, jump into a taxi, and both of us notice that seemingly the entire town is without power. Once we arrive at the store in another town, same thing. Turns out, the entire country had lost power, and would be without power for pretty much the rest of the day, and same thing in neigboring Portugal. We were literally without power, internet and cell-phone service for pretty much the entire day. Did the entire of society pretty much was put on hold for a day? Yeah, but still we managed to go on with our day. I owed the taxi driver until the next time I saw him, the store accepted the same thing so we could buy some stuff, they noted down everything on paper, and so on. We did survive, and thanks to humans being humans, we all could pretty much survive even that day. Loosing Microsoft/Google/AWS would indeed be pretty much on a smaller scale, mostly impacting IT and everything related to IT, which is large swaths, but just like every other problem, it'll be worked around both temporarily and permanently, it's just in human nature to do. Again, I'm not saying it wouldn't suck, nor that it wouldn't be difficult, but also, it wouldn't take a year before emails are being sent between companies again either.
    - DiogenesKynikos 5mo ago
      And it would mean the permanent end of American dominance over the international software and cloud compute market. You can only ever play a card like that once. Afterwards, no one will trust you or use your services again.
      - graemep 5mo ago
        Maybe. People forget lessons very quickly. The US has had long standing bans on exports of things like encryption. The US banned the export of software with greater than 40 bit key sizes for many years and most people just accepted the security risk (and the implication that the US and others could easily spy on them) including European governments. There are still controls and notification requirements. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States#Current_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...

embedding-shape 5mo ago

Say Microsoft/Google/whatever my local municipality is using right now, gets blocked tonight, and tomorrow everything US-related is offline. It won't (and can't) take months for them to get one server up and running for them to continue with their administration. As mentioned, other municipalities in the country already are 100% independent, running everything themselves, either they're willing to help out the rest of us, or at least provide expertise enough so we can. Then the country is filled with FOSS nerds like myself, who wouldn't shy away from stepping in to help either. Probably the larger cities would take longer to solve, but I don't think "We cannot get server hardware from the US" will be the biggest problem, it'll be around national organization until the biggest fires been put out. Putting one server in each ajuntament would basically be enough to get 80% of the local municipalities up and running again.

mike_hearn 5mo ago
It wouldn't only affect local governments, it'd also trash all the businesses, banks, national governments, etc. Google on its own getting blocked breaks the entire internet because so many websites rely on the free services they host. Remember there are no European search engines of any quality and only Mistral as a European AI provider, so even just findings things would be difficult.
- embedding-shape 5mo ago
  You underestimate how resilient and effective people can be when needed. Yes, as mentioned earlier, it'd suck for a while, but we'd come up with solutions pretty quickly, as the entire country would rely on that. Pretty much exactly a year ago, I was about leave home to go buy something, when the power was cut, garage door didn't open. Fine, jump into a taxi, and both of us notice that seemingly the entire town is without power. Once we arrive at the store in another town, same thing. Turns out, the entire country had lost power, and would be without power for pretty much the rest of the day, and same thing in neigboring Portugal. We were literally without power, internet and cell-phone service for pretty much the entire day. Did the entire of society pretty much was put on hold for a day? Yeah, but still we managed to go on with our day. I owed the taxi driver until the next time I saw him, the store accepted the same thing so we could buy some stuff, they noted down everything on paper, and so on. We did survive, and thanks to humans being humans, we all could pretty much survive even that day. Loosing Microsoft/Google/AWS would indeed be pretty much on a smaller scale, mostly impacting IT and everything related to IT, which is large swaths, but just like every other problem, it'll be worked around both temporarily and permanently, it's just in human nature to do. Again, I'm not saying it wouldn't suck, nor that it wouldn't be difficult, but also, it wouldn't take a year before emails are being sent between companies again either.
  - DiogenesKynikos 5mo ago
    And it would mean the permanent end of American dominance over the international software and cloud compute market. You can only ever play a card like that once. Afterwards, no one will trust you or use your services again.
    - graemep 5mo ago
      Maybe. People forget lessons very quickly. The US has had long standing bans on exports of things like encryption. The US banned the export of software with greater than 40 bit key sizes for many years and most people just accepted the security risk (and the implication that the US and others could easily spy on them) including European governments. There are still controls and notification requirements. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States#Current_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...