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I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

coinerella.com

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Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#191

Post by palata »

willy__ wrote: post #53
palata wrote: post #49

> Your users expect "Sign in with Google" and "Sign in with Apple." You can add email/password and passkeys, but removing social logins entirely is a conversion killer. I know this is true, but I genuinely don't understand it. I want email/password and passkey, I will always go out of my way to avoid "Sign in with ...". I just don't get why people love this.

People usually have either one or the other account already, because it came with their smartphone. It is friction less from their point of view.

Sure, but what the post says is not that they will go for the easier path. It says that if they don't get to link their account go Google/Apple, they will completely give up (it is a "conversion killer").

Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#192

Post by palata »

apexalpha wrote: post #170
palata wrote: post #49

> Your users expect "Sign in with Google" and "Sign in with Apple." You can add email/password and passkeys, but removing social logins entirely is a conversion killer. I know this is true, but I genuinely don't understand it. I want email/password and passkey, I will always go out of my way to avoid "Sign in with ...". I just don't get why people love this.

My email goes to the same company I can login with so might as well tap the button.

But if there is no Google/Apple button, will you just leave? Like not even create an account? That's what "conversion killer" means.

Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#193

Post by znnajdla »

pbronez wrote: post #185
znnajdla wrote: post #74

Thank you for this. I'm in Europe with an established SaaS that's been running in production for years and I've converged on a similar stack (OVHCloud instead of Hetzner). However, I've realized you can stay sovereign and independent in any jurisdiction (not just Europe) just by simplifying your stack and running a few baremetal servers in-house. Just buy a few Mac Studios and run them in-house with power supply back…

Are you actually using Exo for local clustered AI inference? I’ve considered it a few times and keep finding horror stories. Never seen someone report it’s actually working well for them.

No not yet. Planning to. But Qwen3 Coder Next 4bit runs decently well with LM Studio on my M3 Max with 96 GB RAM (50 tok/s at low context).

Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#194

Post by palata »

hnarn wrote: post #143
palata wrote: post #49

> Your users expect "Sign in with Google" and "Sign in with Apple." You can add email/password and passkeys, but removing social logins entirely is a conversion killer. I know this is true, but I genuinely don't understand it. I want email/password and passkey, I will always go out of my way to avoid "Sign in with ...". I just don't get why people love this.

> I just don't get why people love this. I wonder if there will ever come a day where the average HN user actually understands how normal people use technology. Just observe anyone in your social circle that does not "care" about technology and you'll see their reaction to a login prompt when trying, not rarely under time pressure, to access a service they haven't used for a while. They will sigh, maybe roll their ey…

> I wonder if there will ever come a day where the average HN user actually understands how normal people use technology.

Well, I wouldn't say I don't understand it. If someone uses their smartphone as a hammer, regularly break it and regularly buy a new smartphone, I understand what they are doing. I just don't understand why they are doing it, I guess?

In this case, the post says that it's a conversion killer. So people are so damn lazy that if they can't click on "share the information with Google", they will just leave.

Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#195

Post by willy__ »

palata wrote: post #191
willy__ wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People usually have either one or the other account already, because it came with their smartphone. It is friction less from their point of view.

Sure, but what the post says is not that they will go for the easier path. It says that if they don't get to link their account go Google/Apple, they will completely give up (it is a "conversion killer").

Well.. it's the flip side of those social logins being known and proven conversion boosters. If you actively decide against them, you are losing a low effort tool to boost your CR.

Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#196

Post by worldsayshi »

TrackerFF wrote: post #42

Here in Norway (and probably Sweden, too) BankID is a widely used authentication system, and most domestic services will use that as a auth / login. Only "drawback" is that it requires 2FA, which is quite trivial today. But there are still tons of users that want their "login with FB / Google / etc." . And a last but: If using such auth systems, one would have to account for all the different systems unique to countr…

BankID is very convenient but the lock in is ridiculous. Owned by a private company and pretty much every service that you use depends on it. You're forced to own a new Google-approved Android or iPhone to use it and to function in society.

We definitely need a vendor independent ID system.

Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#198

Post by fauigerzigerk »

msh wrote: post #173
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Presumably you have a home where you live? Yes, but not where my customers live. The whole point of "sovereignty" is to serve customers from a location that is bound by the laws of _their_ jurisdiction, not mine.

But for that it does not matter that much where the servers are located, more where the company controlling them is located.

There are quite a few factors that matter. The place where data processing and storage takes place is one of them.

It matters who can physically take control of the servers. It matters where the encryption keys are stored. The storage and processing location also matters for compliance with data residency laws.

But it's not the only thing I mentioned. Having physical offices and staff in a jurisdiction usually goes along with setting up some sort of legal and taxable entity that has personally responsible directors.

The whole issue is very complicated.

Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#200

Post by zelphirkalt »

swiftcoder wrote: post #149
aa-jv wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great post, and interesting setup - harkens to days of old, when this was simply how things were done in the first place - but one question that I have, apropos: >.. serve more than 10k - 100k requests/second which is good enough to serve a million customers. What is your network connectivity like for this setup? Presumably you operate in a building capable of giving you fiber, with a fixed IP, or something like that…

> Presumably you operate in a building capable of giving you fiber, with a fixed IP, or something like that? That is not really a rarity these days. I have symmetrical gigabit fibre with a fixed IP here in a Spanish farmhouse 45 minutes from the nearest population centre

In some countries and with some ISPs, you cannot get a fixed IP address at all, unless you register a business and prove to the ISP that you are running a business. I am guessing they will bill you accordingly then, and still have the same shoddy connectivity. I have seen shoddy connectivity with Pyür in Germany for a whole office building. Even as a business you are not immune to bad ISPs.
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