Live data from Hacker News

Go European: Discover European products and services

goeuropean.org

191–200 of 402 posts

Re: Go European: Discover European products and services

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No we don't have a megacorp like Amazon, why would we want one? You think we cant buy things online without them?

For anything time critical Amazon Prime is a godsend. 1) Anything PC related I can get shipped to me tomorrow. There is one local computer store and they just repair laptops and phones with absolute rip off prices (£70 for a HDMI cable). Before Amazon it took days to get an order shipped from one of the big PC suppliers in the UK, Payment used to an absolute PITA frequently card gets rejected on dubious grounds. I've…

I have several options within walking distance that sells HDMI cables for same price as Amazon, and I can trust that they sell a cable that works according to spec.

Amazon uses a 3rd party to deliver here, and their short delivery times is really only available in larger cities if the item is in that particular warehouse. Since they use 3rd party to deliver I can buy from other stores and also have next day delivery, not like delivery times were bad before though. Have several package locker services available as well, next day delivery is common but depends on how far it has to travel.

Can Amazon be better for some niche stuff? Probably, but its unlikely to be in the warehouse close to me anyway. I'd rather wait an extra day than exfiltrate barely taxed money to the US if I can help it.

Re: Go European: Discover European products and services

#192

No top level domain alternatives? Org, com, net, gov, mil are US TLDs.

There are plenty of national TLDs, but internationally the English language ones are more common.

gov and mil aren't available to non-American institutions anyway, and .edu locked down to American-only around 2001.

Perhaps this website could've gone with .eu, but this movement is larger than just the EU. I don't think TLDs matter much at the moment, at least not until America's trade war starts affecting TLDs as well.

Re: Go European: Discover European products and services

#193
post #64

[flagged]

First is often repeated bullshit - China is heavily investing in renewables, and heavy industry in EU fares better than in US.

Second is funny as current war in Ukraine proves that super-advanced tanks are that important anymore.

Europe has two issues that are real

1. In reality it doesn't exist (if understood as a single political entity).

2. European Union, and especially Germany, was handicapped by stupid fiscal policy.

Re: Go European: Discover European products and services

#195
post #90

Is there any European alternative for Hacker News? And if yes, what's its URL/web address? Preferable in French or Italian, or maybe even German, which I wanted to learn for a long time and this would be a good enough motivation, because, and with all due respect to the Irish, having a continent-wide conversation in a language natively spoken by only ~5 million of its own people is not very conductive to the forming…

> having a continent-wide conversation in a language natively spoken by only ~5 million of its own people

Did something happen to the UK?

Re: Go European: Discover European products and services

#196
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…

In Switzerland amazon never bothered to enter the market, so local competition filled the gap, and it created much better service while doing it.

I speak specifically about galaxus/digitec which often have more and more available stock than actual amazon in EU, any category has 1000s of items, much better organized and findable. Plus it has many great features not seen or usable elsewhere - directly showing evolution of price across the time, reviews which are absolutely not gamed due to tiny market, so I can rely on them very well (while on amazon its tricky at best). You can easily buy used versions of same item at fraction of the price, its showed at top of each product page.

Their guarantee handling is stellar. And for stuff in stock its next day delivery.

Re: Go European: Discover European products and services

#197
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now directories like this are getting popular mostly because they offer alternative to US products. Pretty sure Europeans would be happy to use a Canadian alternative to a US service.

But not alternatives to Chinese products? China’s human rights, environment, currency manipulation, tariffs, IP theft — some people seemingly unify as anti-Trump, but ignore China? This tells me the resistance isn’t principled at all, but simply grandstanding.

I think you don't understand the situation.

The situation with China hasn't fundamentally changed in the last two months. People operate under the assumption of some kind of stability in this relationship. The West imports and exports products from/to China, with some restrictions: critical infrastructure like antennas cannot be built by Huawei in many countries, for instance. People in the West wouldn't use a Chinese email provider, etc. Today China is not an ally, but not an enemy either; rather a partner. There is no reason to expect a change in behaviour right now. It doesn't mean that the West agrees with everything that China does, of course.

Now regarding the US, it has fundamentally changed in the last two months. From the US government threatening to invade allied countries to actively destabilising them through people close to Trump downright making nazi salutes. On top of threatening militarily, the US is attacking its ex-allies economically with tariffs. The people in power in the US are explicitly talking about destroying Europe, and the US is now becoming an ally of Russia (which again makes it look like an enemy to the West).

Two months ago, people were operating under the assumption that the US was an ally. Now it's a partner that is going down the slope of becoming an enemy. Go ask if Canadians or Europeans feel threatened by China right now. Ask the same question about the US.

So yes: people are more scared of the US right now, and the US look more like enemies than China right now.

> This tells me the resistance isn’t principled at all, but simply grandstanding.

TL;DR: It is obviously resistance, against the US becoming an enemy. There are two obvious reasons for finding alternative to US products:

1. If it hurts the US economy (and therefore the US citizen), the hope is that maybe they will realise that Trump is not helping them and push for stopping this madness. The US won't get back to beeing trusted allies anytime soon (that ship has sailed), but they could stop from becoming enemies of the West.

2. National security: the US cannot be trusted, so it is very urgent for the West to turn to alternatives and run away from the US as fast as they possibly can.

Re: Go European: Discover European products and services

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No we don't have a megacorp like Amazon, why would we want one? You think we cant buy things online without them?

For anything time critical Amazon Prime is a godsend. 1) Anything PC related I can get shipped to me tomorrow. There is one local computer store and they just repair laptops and phones with absolute rip off prices (£70 for a HDMI cable). Before Amazon it took days to get an order shipped from one of the big PC suppliers in the UK, Payment used to an absolute PITA frequently card gets rejected on dubious grounds. I've…

In the Netherlands we have Bol.com which also offers one-day delivery for many (most?) products.

Re: Go European: Discover European products and services

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Add to that how amazon boxes stand out, and are easily targeted by porch thieves.

I don't think that's much of an issue on this side of the pond. Trust has been low enough for a long enough period of time that packages don't get left on porches.
Post reply on HN