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Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

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Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#181

Post by pjmlp »

shankr wrote: post #172
pjmlp wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never felt I was earning worse than on US, while enjoying my 30 days vacations, home office, unemployment support, health insurance and having a privileged life above many of my friends in "regular" (non-IT related) jobs.

30 day vacations aren't the norm in most of the places. Everything else is offered in IT jobs in US plus double the average European salary.

Everything else is lost in US with immediate job termination, no thanks.

You can get those 30 pretty much everywhere, either by negotiating it, or taking advantage of the multiple holidays that we enjoy across Europe.

And as I mentioned, I don't have any complains regarding salary.

There is more in life than being rich.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#182

Post by tomComb »

dijit wrote: post #105
Hokusai wrote: post #58

This is part of a broader problem. Many "apps" from WhatsApp to Zoom are treated as public spaces by citizens. But, legally the app-space is closer to a private space. This creates a mismatch between reality and expectations. (Zuckerberg can delete his chat history and you could not until Europe passed legislation forcing Facebook to do so.) I suffered the "Windows only" of gubernamental applications that excluded Li…

I wish I had more than one upvote, this capitulates perfectly my feelings on the situation. I see the same sentiment echoed in our American friends w.r.t. Chinese spying. Huawei is dangerous and must be stopped, but the NSA having broken encryption a bunch of times, sending NSL's to chip makers and such is fine. And that is not seen as hypocritical. We as Europeans have no technological industry without the USA, and…

I interpreter the Huawei example quite differently than you.

In attacking Huawei, the U.S. is using it's tech power to further it's economic and geo-political ends. There are, of course, legit reasons to be concerned about Huawei but Trump has made it clear that the attacks on them go away if he gets a trade deal he likes.

The ironic thing is that this is their primary nominal concern about Huawei in the first place: that its close ties to the Chinese government and pwa suggest it would be used to further their interests rather then simply pursuing corporate interests.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#183

Post by rsynnott »

WJW wrote: post #57
mytailorisrich wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That the US government can see your metadata? Not only metadata but the whole data transmissions. Whatsapp may claim that transmissions are encrypted end-to-end but they control the app itself so can do whatever they want. The app distribution channels are also controlled by American companies. So any government conducting communications through Whatsapp has in effect outsourced its communications to the US. For im…

To add to this point: The US government is not at all trusted in Germany (or most of the EU) at the moment. "America first", combined with numerous withdrawals from international bodies like the WHO and the climate agreements has given the impression that the old allies are no longer beneficial to the European cause.

And even before that the Snowden thing had a profound impact.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#184

Post by tomComb »

dijit wrote: post #105
Hokusai wrote: post #58

This is part of a broader problem. Many "apps" from WhatsApp to Zoom are treated as public spaces by citizens. But, legally the app-space is closer to a private space. This creates a mismatch between reality and expectations. (Zuckerberg can delete his chat history and you could not until Europe passed legislation forcing Facebook to do so.) I suffered the "Windows only" of gubernamental applications that excluded Li…

I wish I had more than one upvote, this capitulates perfectly my feelings on the situation. I see the same sentiment echoed in our American friends w.r.t. Chinese spying. Huawei is dangerous and must be stopped, but the NSA having broken encryption a bunch of times, sending NSL's to chip makers and such is fine. And that is not seen as hypocritical. We as Europeans have no technological industry without the USA, and…

Yes, "Chrome only" is bad, but the web, open standards, and open source are the solution to the problem being discussed, so putting Chrome in the same bucket as IE6 seems quite backwards to me.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#185

Post by vikramkr »

pjmlp wrote: post #155
gruturo wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We pay devs worse because software is a complete aftertought, and the guys who produce it therefore are not seen as adding much value, if any. Meanwhile, the "software is eating the world" memo is almost 10 years old yet nobody this side of the pond got it. Fix this mindset (good luck!), which is the real issue, and dev wages will correct themselves too.

I never felt I was earning worse than on US, while enjoying my 30 days vacations, home office, unemployment support, health insurance and having a privileged life above many of my friends in "regular" (non-IT related) jobs.

I dont think it's that level of job that determines which economy became dominant. The US had policies friendly towards huge capitalist projects and funding that allowed for companies like facebook and google to form in the first place and reward immensely the people that took the risks to make that happen. You get as a result huge wealth inequality, but also huge concentration of international power since that's what you incentivized from the beginning. For the average worker its probably better to be in a country with worker protections, lower inequality, less concentrated power, etc. But that same system doesnt lend itself to creating multinational dominant corporations as powerful as many nation states

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#186

Post by braza »

Hokusai wrote: post #58

This is part of a broader problem. Many "apps" from WhatsApp to Zoom are treated as public spaces by citizens. But, legally the app-space is closer to a private space. This creates a mismatch between reality and expectations. (Zuckerberg can delete his chat history and you could not until Europe passed legislation forcing Facebook to do so.) I suffered the "Windows only" of gubernamental applications that excluded Li…

As a European resident and previously lived in Asia and the US, I think that EU become a 3rd tier player in that game (user data) as stated by the EU Commission [1] due to an inability to develop those services by itself.

I mean, what's the EU option for whatssup?

[1] - https://ec.europa.eu/info/files/white-paper-artificial-intel...

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#187

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

pjmlp wrote: post #181
shankr wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 day vacations aren't the norm in most of the places. Everything else is offered in IT jobs in US plus double the average European salary.

Everything else is lost in US with immediate job termination, no thanks. You can get those 30 pretty much everywhere, either by negotiating it, or taking advantage of the multiple holidays that we enjoy across Europe. And as I mentioned, I don't have any complains regarding salary. There is more in life than being rich.

Nobody is talking about being rich but if you look at house prices in the major European metro areas or tech hubs, they're out of reach even for devs while that's not the case in the US.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#188

Post by aianus »

pjmlp wrote: post #181
shankr wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 day vacations aren't the norm in most of the places. Everything else is offered in IT jobs in US plus double the average European salary.

Everything else is lost in US with immediate job termination, no thanks. You can get those 30 pretty much everywhere, either by negotiating it, or taking advantage of the multiple holidays that we enjoy across Europe. And as I mentioned, I don't have any complains regarding salary. There is more in life than being rich.

> There is more in life than being rich.

Yes, of course.

> Everything else is lost in US with immediate job termination, no thanks.

This doesn't matter when you save $60k/year from your $250k FAANG job. Job termination just means a long, fun vacation before you look for your next thing.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#189

Post by ajconway »

Hokusai wrote: post #58

This is part of a broader problem. Many "apps" from WhatsApp to Zoom are treated as public spaces by citizens. But, legally the app-space is closer to a private space. This creates a mismatch between reality and expectations. (Zuckerberg can delete his chat history and you could not until Europe passed legislation forcing Facebook to do so.) I suffered the "Windows only" of gubernamental applications that excluded Li…

> The only reason for the rise of apps is that companies see them as a good way of lock-in customers, gather data and increase influence

Apps live and thrive because they are convenient and provide the most value to most people.

As a user, I wouldn't want the government to tell me what software I should use. As a software engineer, I wouldn't want to be told what software I should write.

If the problem lies in bad foreign apps, a possible solution is to educate citizens using facts and evidence.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#190

Post by dijit »

vbezhenar wrote: post #140
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The USA is in a position to shutdown all the technological infrastructure of Europe (AWS, Google, Facebook, Azure, ...) and to openly spy its citizens OK, and what can we do about that? We build our own successful cars, we build our own successful planes but it seems like when it comes to building highly scalable world dominating software we are powerless even though our universities churn out tons of talented CS en…

I thought that in US salary is significantly higher than in EU. Probably that's the main differentiator.

It tends to be a fabrication of people miscalculating. You look at the total income sum "Wow!, 120k is twice 60k!" and you judge based on that.

It's similar to items appearing cheaper in the US because they do not include taxes, salaries "the sum" does not accurately reflect the quality of life. The number is higher but it doesn't reflect purchasing power accurately.

It's hard to explain, but I did these calculations a whole bunch of times because I keep considering moving to the US, but ultimately it comes down to:

A) Having a huge benefits package (which is not optional for an employer to avoid paying out for in the EU, especially Scandinavian countries)-- this includes insurances for loss of employment or sickness, but also pension contributions which are actually illegal to avoid in most European countries (5% matching contribution being pretty standard).

B) QoL differences up to and including healthcare, paid vacation time, paid sickness leave and paid parental leave. (from 2w-480d depending on country)

C) Childcare.

D) Taxes (and an accountant's time to file them on your behalf, this is assumed to be a minor cost)

Ultimately I did the math, and I'd have to dig it out again, but unless you're 20-30, very healthy, childless and a low-risk taker that enjoys driving: it is unlikely that you'll be better off working in IT in the USA.

Obviously there's 10x developers who would out-earn me there though.

If you want to earn large sums of money in a European country, that can still be done in Ireland or Switzerland.

FWIW: in my calculations 120k USD in Los Angeles was roughly equivalent to 55k EUR in Stockholm (50k SEK/mo)

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