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Go European: Discover European products and services

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121–130 of 402 posts

Re: Go European: Discover European products and services

#121
post #95

(Rant sorry) While i'm from EU and I support the movement, after I looked over some numbers it is hard to ditch something like Amazon. 1st thing for me are the prices and monthly I can save at least 100 Euros just from shopping on deals. Second Amazon employs 150k people across EU and this is not a low number (how about them?). Yes we need alternatives but the rich EU guys also have to invest some. Sometimes I feel t…

If you can't afford it, don't. But perhaps you will find alternatives for some of your purchases.

Re: Go European: Discover European products and services

#122
post #95

(Rant sorry) While i'm from EU and I support the movement, after I looked over some numbers it is hard to ditch something like Amazon. 1st thing for me are the prices and monthly I can save at least 100 Euros just from shopping on deals. Second Amazon employs 150k people across EU and this is not a low number (how about them?). Yes we need alternatives but the rich EU guys also have to invest some. Sometimes I feel t…

Similar here. It doesnt have to be all or nothing. Im in the u.s. and have a cool local co-op. So i buy most commodities at the cheapest grocery store and then some fancy stuff at the co-op to help them stay afloat and support local farmers. It's probably enough if everyone spends to their ability and maybe pushes themselves a little too.

In the summer we also have farners markets and thise are about the same price as the cheapest stores so i switch to them for fruits and veggies.

Re: Go European: Discover European products and services

#123
post #3

If you are advocating for European products, I would expect you to use Plausible or similar products instead of Google Analytics. This would allow you to avoid displaying the cookie banner.

> This would allow you to avoid displaying the cookie banner.

That isn't actually true (or at least is only allowed in the "it's a small enough violation of the law that the enforcers have bigger fish to fry" sense).

Cookie banners are required to gather informed consent, which is relevant for two EU legislations: the ePD, which requires it to access or store _any_ data from terminal equipment, and the GDPR which requires it for personally identifiable data. Most people only consider the latter, but the former is a much bigger hurdle to pass.

Despite Plausible's claim of not requiring cookie banners, their processing still accesses data from the terminal equipment. That was made very explicitly clear in a 2023 guideline from the EDPB[1].

The one saving grace for Plausible is that the ePD is a Directive, so the actual implementation into law differs by Member country. The claim might be true for some EU countries, but certainly isn't for all.

I've written a longer analysis of this in the context of Plausible for anyone interested[2] (although it might be worth skipping the first section, to get to the meat of the issue).

[1] https://www.edpb.europa.eu/our-work-tools/our-documents/guid... [2] https://jfagerberg.me/blog/2022-06-09-analytics-cookie-compl...

Re: Go European: Discover European products and services

#124
post #116

Economic nationalism is bad when Trump does it and bad when Europe does it too. We should have unilateral free trade. Ricardo showed this was better over 200 years ago.

Europe is not a nation, and the boycott is against a single country acting like an adversary. Europeans aren't boycotting Xiaomi or Huawei.

There are EU-wide tariffs though. Like those against Chinese EVs: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_...

Re: Go European: Discover European products and services

#125
post #42

While I do find it an interesting exercise to reflect over my own choices of products and services and consider how I could divest myself from relying on ones provided by US companies (and I do agree Europe is too reliant on the US in some regards), it is a bit sad to see how quickly things are spiraling here. People really love to have a clear enemy...

You don't need an enemy for this sort of campaign to make sense. It should be common sense to prefer local products, and even more so to avoid extreme dependencies like the one most of the West has on American tech companies.

In my view, we (Europe) have long been acting foolishly by passively sitting in the back seat and allowing the US to drive for us, thereby creating a radical dependency. This wouldn't be healthy even if the US were the most loyal ally. What Trump's antics are doing is trigger a return to what should have always been the norm.

Re: Go European: Discover European products and services

#126
I think this is useful more than just actual Europeans.

I'm an American, and my wife and I have been looking at "Made in…" labels on our products for decades. Not as a geopolitical protest; just as routine intellectual curiosity.

Over the last five years or so, we've noticed a significant shift in the locations listed on the things we buy. A lot of what we buy used to read "Made in China" (and before that shift, "Made in Mexico") but these days more and more of it is from Europe.

Sometimes it's the vague "Made in the EU," which I assume means Turkey or Romania or some other less-fashionable quarter. But increasingly, it's France and Switzerland, and the U.K.

(My personal, completely unscientific guess is that the next shift in manufacturing will be to Africa. Lots of cheap labor close to raw materials and access to both hemispheres by sea.)

Re: Go European: Discover European products and services

#127
post #95

(Rant sorry) While i'm from EU and I support the movement, after I looked over some numbers it is hard to ditch something like Amazon. 1st thing for me are the prices and monthly I can save at least 100 Euros just from shopping on deals. Second Amazon employs 150k people across EU and this is not a low number (how about them?). Yes we need alternatives but the rich EU guys also have to invest some. Sometimes I feel t…

Amazon is probably the easiest for me to ditch. It's not really that much cheaper, and when you include shipping it's certainly not cheaper. Shipping times are horrible, search is broken, half of everything is a scam and again, it's not that much cheaper, if at at all.

I can see that being very dependent on what you're buying though.

Re: Go European: Discover European products and services

#128
post #42

While I do find it an interesting exercise to reflect over my own choices of products and services and consider how I could divest myself from relying on ones provided by US companies (and I do agree Europe is too reliant on the US in some regards), it is a bit sad to see how quickly things are spiraling here. People really love to have a clear enemy...

I'd always rather, if possible, give my money to a company that pays their tax where I do. That's simple self interest.

Self interest is not something to be proud of.

Re: Go European: Discover European products and services

#130
post #38

I'm always sad that very successful European companies got fully incorporated in the US: datadog, algolia, dataiku, dashlane, etc. Also it seems to be missing some techs company: pigment, aircall, contentsquare (but not sure if it's a mistake)

America loves investing in risky ventures, and startups love money so they go to fish where the fish are. If Europe would invest into local startups instead of propping up the real estate bubble, they wouldn't sell themselves to the US for money. Our downfall is by our own design here. Governments don't create startups but they can 100% create the right legal, monetary and tax incentives to steer private capital and…

Or America's advantage is by its own design.

Rich people can invest relatively small amounts in hundreds, if not thousands of startups through preferentially treated retirement funds and pay no (or little) tax on the ones that make it big.

This is what has made it so easy to secure funding in the US.

Should Europe do the same? There's definitely an ethical dilemma in making the rich, richer for the sake of innovation.

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