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Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?

plausible.io

131–140 of 640 posts

Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?

#131
post #22
post #8

The incoming Q1 earning reports will show if these actions are mainstream enough to make a visible dent in companies quarterly earnings. For now, the already reported Tesla sales numbers in Europe are substantially down, but Tesla is the strongest target of the boycott. It will be interesting to see if consumer companies such as Coca Cola, Nike, Amazon also report a substantial drop in EU sales.

Not sure how much it gets consumed, but many places in Germany rather sell Fritz-Kola only.

Even before everything happened I prefer to get Fritz Cola in German supermarkets because I can get Coca Cola literally anywhere else in the world. If only they would sell 0.5L glass bottles with screwtops more / start selling 0.33l Aluminium cans, I would switch over entirely.

Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?

#132
post #118

Europeans were perfectly happy to buy American tech und military exports, thus earning U.S. money and making EU technologically and politically dependent from the U.S. - it really was perfect for the U.S. But the US decided that it was actually a BAD DEAL and they wanted to extort even more money and dependence from EU. So now EU is investing in their own tech and military, thus reducing the amount of money US is get…

> Your boy trump did do deliver, is the US now GREAT enough for you yet? Not our boy. Trump was elected by uneducated farmers, not by HN crowd. Almost 78% of farmers endorsed his most recent presidential run. https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-farmers-voted-trump-feeling-210...

I always say ... there are obviously many, many great people in the USA. You're likely one of them.

But your democracy has spoken now. The first time can be waived off as an aberration. The second time you have to own it.

Now, either you're commenting reactively on HN about it, or you're doing something about it and not taking it personally.

Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?

#133
post #118

Europeans were perfectly happy to buy American tech und military exports, thus earning U.S. money and making EU technologically and politically dependent from the U.S. - it really was perfect for the U.S. But the US decided that it was actually a BAD DEAL and they wanted to extort even more money and dependence from EU. So now EU is investing in their own tech and military, thus reducing the amount of money US is get…

I believe most users here are not in favor of Trump, and these snarky and confrontative remarks are generally a bad tone.

Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?

#134
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this once before a few years ago with Huawei stuff. Shouting to the Board of Directors at any company about security risks and geopol implications usually meant screaming into a void. "But their HQ is here." "We have a solid security annex in the contract!" "Their sales person was here and he promised me." Classic lawyer C-suite talk. But when the attitude started shifting billions were thrown around to mov…

Herd behavior in CEOs is a very strong problem. It's one thing to make a mistake, but if you make a different unorthodox choice and something goes wrong then it looks especially bad.

One man's problem is another man's opportunity, I suppose.

There is a reason every product page usually has a reel showing what other well known companies 'trust' their solution. It works.

Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?

#136
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what we are seeing in Europe since the invasion of Ukraine, and even more since the end of last year, is similar. People are fed relentless propaganda by the media and are buying it with no question asked.

We've always had a media problem, especially from the Murdoch media and Berlusconi's TV station, but the support for Ukraine is about as organic as it gets when dealing with international events.

On the contrary, everything we have seen and are seeing is neither organic nor caused by "right-wing" media ("left-wing" are no less problematic). It is organised and deeply so. The power ond effectiveness of the shaping of public opinion shows when people think they have not been influenced.

Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?

#137
post #32
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Globalisation is over, and we were not the ones triggering its end.

i really really don't understand how americans don't realize that their president is sabotaging their economy. They were number 1 everywhere, and yet he destroyed all relationships with their main economical and military allies. It's totally impossible to understand, except with some hollywoodest scenario. But the fact that some american support this is borderline crazy.

Just like the average person doesn't understand income tax (i.e. they think "tax breaks" means they will pay less in taxes even when the tax breaks don't significantly affect their income brackets because they think X% on income exceeding $Y means if you make more than $Y all your income will be taxed at that rate), the average person doesn't understand tariffs (i.e. that it's a kind of tax paid to your own government by the domestic corporation or individual importing the tariffed goods, not something the foreign exporter pays, and that it can compound for goods that need to move multiple times across borders during the manufacturing process) and the average person doesn't understand that "trade deficit" is completely meaningless when it comes to determining who's taking advantage of whom (i.e. it's not about the difference in relative value of the goods exchanged, it's about which side of the exchange uses more currency than goods and services for the exchange; e.g. Hong Kong has a trade deficit to the US because it imports American goods and services but the US imports very little from Hong Kong - but the US has a major trade deficit to Mexico because it imports a lot of goods from Mexico, presumably especially from manufacturing outsourced to Mexico?).

This isn't a uniquely American phenomenon but Republicans have spent decades fermenting "post-factual" propaganda and a culture of deliberate ignorance to an extent that is difficult to compare. In Germany we've only really seen anything of this level during COVID (this was when Germany became the country with the largest QAnon movement outside the US) although of course media like the Springer news publishing outlets have also been pushing deliberate misinformation for half a century - it just didn't really connect to a political movement until relatively recently. Prior to the Ukraine invention and the sanctions on Russia, a lot of this in Europe also seems to have had close ties to Russia - either through direct financial support or through Russian "alternative news" channels like Sputnik and RT.

It's also worth remembering that not all Americans support Trump's policies and most don't support all of them. Most that do express unconditional support don't want to talk about the policies they don't like or outright deny them. I've seen Trump supporters in the same thread argue that there won't be a recession, and that a recession is good and necessary actually - but never with each other, always only attacking their shared outside enemy. It's not really about the politics for them, it's about allegiance and loyalty. But these are not the majority of people who voted for him - they're just the most dedicated ones.

Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?

#138
post #118

Europeans were perfectly happy to buy American tech und military exports, thus earning U.S. money and making EU technologically and politically dependent from the U.S. - it really was perfect for the U.S. But the US decided that it was actually a BAD DEAL and they wanted to extort even more money and dependence from EU. So now EU is investing in their own tech and military, thus reducing the amount of money US is get…

> Your boy trump did do deliver, is the US now GREAT enough for you yet? Not our boy. Trump was elected by uneducated farmers, not by HN crowd. Almost 78% of farmers endorsed his most recent presidential run. https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-farmers-voted-trump-feeling-210...

Europeans had to fight for our rights and freedom. In this sense, it is your civic duty to ensure order in your own country.

The critique is that too many Americans have become complacent and allowed the political system and media landscape to evolve as it has. The Democrats are also corrupt and need to be replaced, but it requires a sacrifice of wealth that people aren't willing to give, for selfish reasons.

But you will experience the consequences.

Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?

#139

It's one thing to visit the website, but I would be interested what % is actually migrating? For me personally, I had to install the "Go European" browser extension [1] before I actually started switching, due to more frequent reminders, from using mostly chatGPT/claude to LeChat by mistral (which feels at least as good). My Take-away: User stickiness is hard to break due to providers' walled gardens, even for me who…

It will take time - but I absolutely will ensure the migration of our firm away from US related products (where possible).

Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?

#140
post #90
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i really really don't understand how americans don't realize that their president is sabotaging their economy. They were number 1 everywhere, and yet he destroyed all relationships with their main economical and military allies. It's totally impossible to understand, except with some hollywoodest scenario. But the fact that some american support this is borderline crazy.

No, across history and geography people are caught doing "unexplainable" things--and I use this word because I don't want to sound offensive--time and again. Here are a few examples: - The expulsion of the English from Havana in the 18th century - The European inquisitions, and while we are at it, some elements of faith in general. - Hitler's fascism (Hitler was elected) - Fidel Castro's Cuba - North Korea - Italy's…

> Hitler's fascism (Hitler was elected)

He wasn't elected. By the time he became chancellor his party was losing ground and couldn't form the government. Under pressure of the rich Hitler was appointed chancellor (not elected) because communists/socialists/unionists were bad for business and they were gaining ground.

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