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I moved my digital stack to Europe

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Re: I moved my digital stack to Europe

#261

Post by thrownthatway »

joe_mamba wrote: post #155
throwaway2037 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that has never happened to any European company, right? (I'm looking at you ASML.) By your logic, does that mean that most European nations are "no longer the safety many assumed before"?

Not just ASML, when I working in EU at another major Dutch semiconductor company, the leadership and decision making was mostly US-based and centered around US policies, even if the HQ was still technically in the NL, but because PE and most other major investors were all US Bay Area. For example my manager had to reject a candidate from Iran, simply due to US policies, even if that wasn't against the EU policies, an…

Out of curiosity, did the startup you used to work for survive?

Re: I moved my digital stack to Europe

#262

Post by rapnie »

patrickmcnamara wrote: post #238
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely there would have been mumblings in certain sectors of the EU since the first Trump administration? It’s just that they started to execute now?

Trump 2 is worse than Trump 1 by far from EU perspective. And it also proved that it wasn't a once-off that Americans will vote in someone who threatens to dismantle NATO, invade Greenland, or start trade wars with allies for no reason.

Let's face it. Trump 2 is about dismantling democracy. The administration radiates hostility and aggression to anything democratic. In the new national security policy the EU is the adversary of the US. If that isn't a wake-up call.

Re: I moved my digital stack to Europe

#263

Post by raincole »

AllanSavageDev wrote: post #176
embedding-shape wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Definitely a change, because it is not something I can recall being important just a couple of years ago. I work as a consultant and freelancer across a bunch of companies, some American but mostly European ones. Last ~8 months or so, the sentiment about "Hosting our data in EU or even our own country" has drastically changed, I don't think I've seen such a clear shift in public opinion so fast before. The amount o…

EU hosting their own ops like they built the Airbus A380: Database runs in France, front end in Belgium, Operations in Spain... EU Fairness dictates they all need to get a slice of the pie so this will be interesting (and by that I mean absurdly hilarious).

I think we're going to witness a very inefficient system getting brought to work by policies alone.

And I'm not even bashing EU. The closest example still working today is probably the US's Jones Act.

Re: I moved my digital stack to Europe

#264

Post by mark_l_watson »

I am in the US but my daily chat AI is Proton's Lumo+. Adequate, good features, not too expensive. I am near the end of a 1 month experiment using Google's $250/month Ultra AI plan and I wanted to try something different when the Ultra plan ends. I have tried Mistral's Vibe command line coding agent and considered it, but decided on a one month OpenCode + Deepseek v4 experiment.

I understand why Europeans might want to go all in on their own tech stacks, but it might be more strategic to just not get locked in to specific providers. Maybe a mix of European, US, and Asian tech - with a good plan for easy migration.

Re: I moved my digital stack to Europe

#265

Post by embedding-shape »

GJim wrote: post #142
schnitzelstoat wrote: post #13

While I agree with him that the US is becoming more unpredictable, I don't think the EU is much better, especially with regards to digital things where they can be worse in some ways. For example, they are discussing restricting VPN access for 'child protection'[1] [1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/EPRS_AT...

> they are discussing restricting VPN access for 'child protection Oh FFS! Governments discussing such things doesn't _remotely_ mean there is a political will for them, or that they will be voted into law. Governments are expected to research and discuss paths of legislation (and in this case, come to the conclusion banning VPNs is both harmful and ridiculous). This is how our democracies work! Implying government d…

> Implying government discussions will be approved legislation is, at best ignorant, at worst trolling.

Don't get too much up in your arms about it, any topic about Europe and EU on HN ends up with huge swaths of American commentators seemingly willfully misunderstanding or spreading FUD in these comment threads.

You'll get used to it eventually, so you can identify what's the real criticism and worthwhile discussions, vs the easy trolling attempts.

Re: I moved my digital stack to Europe

#268

Post by palata »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #188
embedding-shape wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Definitely a change, because it is not something I can recall being important just a couple of years ago. I work as a consultant and freelancer across a bunch of companies, some American but mostly European ones. Last ~8 months or so, the sentiment about "Hosting our data in EU or even our own country" has drastically changed, I don't think I've seen such a clear shift in public opinion so fast before. The amount o…

Surely there would have been mumblings in certain sectors of the EU since the first Trump administration? It’s just that they started to execute now?

I feel like the concern started getting popularised during the first Trump administration, because the US were overtly bullying the EU (and others of course). But the main change was that it was done overtly: before that the US has always been a big power trying to... say "defend the interests of the US" abroad. E.g. the US have been spying their allies forever. So I think it was more of a "they should stop bullying us in a few years", and indeed it went back to normal with Biden (again, "defending the interests of the US" and "leveraging their dominant position", which was kind of accepted).

The second Trump administration moved from "overtly bullying" to "behaving like a potential threat". In the second Trump administration, the US has used the tech monopolies against the EU and has become a military threat (not to mention the commercial war with tariffs). For many Europeans, it's not that the US are abusing their dominant position in negotiations anymore: it's that they are not an ally anymore. Not that they are seen as an enemy, but rather an unreliable partner who threatened to become an enemy.

I think that this is a very big shift, and that is why things are actually moving. And I don't think that this will change, because the risk of depending on the US monopolies has now materialised. That cannot be undone.

Re: I moved my digital stack to Europe

#269

Post by embedding-shape »

hankerapp wrote: post #80
schnitzelstoat wrote: post #13

While I agree with him that the US is becoming more unpredictable, I don't think the EU is much better, especially with regards to digital things where they can be worse in some ways. For example, they are discussing restricting VPN access for 'child protection'[1] [1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/EPRS_AT...

Also, the "open your app store to competitors" was just bullshit, eyewash, cop out. The apps on these "alternative app stores" still need to jump through all the hoops, pay apple development fees, get approved etc.

American company maliciously complying with the law, thinking they can get away with it? Never heard about such thing!

Jokes aside, the long arm of the law takes some time, it took us long time go get Apple to even allow alternative app stores. Eventually they'll get fined and actually start following the spirit of the regulations, but it'll take time as they try to drag it out as much as they can.

Re: I moved my digital stack to Europe

#270

Post by pjmlp »

kreco wrote: post #241
pjmlp wrote: post #227

The biggest issue, is that the whole stack keeps being dependent on external nations, as per the companies that actually contribute to FOSS with big money. https://insights.linuxfoundation.org/project/korg/contributo... Then it is Go (Google), Java (Oracle, IBM, Red-Hat), .NET (Microsoft), Rust (Amazon, Microsoft, Google), Typescript (Microsoft), C and C++ (Red-Hat, IBM, Microsoft, Apple Google, ...), and so on.

Using a programming language is not the same as using a service. I can't seen any reason for this to be "the biggest issue".

Attack vectors and supply chain, every piece of the puzzle matters.

There is no accident that folks like Oxide go through the trouble to control the whole stack, hardware, software, programming language toolchains they are using, only working with vendors that provide them every single documentation and customisation points they need.

Unfortunely we lack an European Oxide.

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