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How new US tariffs are forcing Europe to rethink its entire tech stack

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Re: How new US tariffs are forcing Europe to rethink its entire tech stack

#21

Post by mywacaday »

favflam wrote: post #3

I believe politicians in the EU are chomping at the bit to get a digital services tax implemented against US big tech companies. I think Silicon Valley tech titans really screwed the pooch here. They are going to be big targets for trade retaliation and I am not sure how much help the US government will be able to offer. Moreover, if the administration changes, the Democrats will absolutely take apart these tech comp…

The administration has screwed the pooch here, all trust built between the EU and US since WWII is effectively gone forever. The trust that allowed the EU to assume that the US was largely aligned with European standards and goals and that the US could be trusted as a long term partner for trade, supply our weapons systems, fly our satellites into space, provide our network hardware, our business operating systems, store our documents in the cloud, give us satellite broadband, the dollar as a reserve currency, store our gold, provide our social media platforms, share intel etc. etc. is gone forever. The EU now has no choice but to look internally first for anything that is that even has a whiff of strategic importance. Even if the current administration rolled back everything today the damage is done and the EU has no choice in how they proceed in the long term and has to manage and mitigate the long term risk of being dependent for so much externally.

Re: How new US tariffs are forcing Europe to rethink its entire tech stack

#23

Post by UncleEntity »

borisk wrote: post #7

EU, UK, Switzerland, Norway have huge government innovation funds. Unfortunately they are mostly given to manage to politicians who are loyal, but not very bright, and possibly corrupt. Now would be a perfect time to take advantage of the stupidity of Trump and channel these government investments into building European infrastructure providers (cloud and AI), but I very much doubt this will happen. Without goverment…

> A few years ago somebody took pictures of their leader sleeping in his bedroom, surrounded with gold bars and stacks of euros.

Honestly, who doesn't do that?

Re: How new US tariffs are forcing Europe to rethink its entire tech stack

#24

Post by bryanlarsen »

bilbo0s wrote: post #19
mandeepj wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem they had was Lina Khan, who was dead set on breaking up their monopolies. Guess what? The breakup of their monopolies is still going to continue :-) Free speech? Did Biden put a Bridle in their mouth to control their speech?

The breakup of their monopolies is still going to continue You believe that, if it brings you comfort.

Yes, if Europe creates alternatives to American monopolies, they won't be monopolies any more.

Re: How new US tariffs are forcing Europe to rethink its entire tech stack

#26

Post by kfk »

I run a small IT consultancy in EU mostly for companies with factories, so I have some biases. I have a few issues with the way IT leadership in EU has been running things the past 20 or so years:

- Absolutely 0 care for having a de-risked supply chain. In fact, IT leaders are extremely happy to have fewer and fewer suppliers, I think it is even one of their goals! And look at it now, what to do when 70% of your company runs on Microsoft and this happens?

- Buy always, no matter what the process is, just buy more tools. So what could have been 1 Python script now is a 5 years contract with yet another US supplier, all data stored in proprietary formats locked under complex APIs of course

- Bundle everything, and I mean everything, in the ERP. Make the ERP so big and complicated that adding anything to it requires tens, or even hundreds, of thousands of euros and multiple months of "development" (as an aside, did you know SAP ABAP code is stored in a database???)

- Lock yourself up completely with whatever Cloud provider you decide to use. Using AWS? Let's do everything with lambdas! Because, who cares about being Cloud agnostic and de-risking your AWS investment?

- Never invest in your internal tech talent, always go after shiny new tech solutions that deliver at best 20% of what they promise, while good motivated employees could have delivered 80% at a fraction of that cost

- Never push back on business asking for specific tools just because the vendors of such tools are amazing at marketing. 90% of manufacturing companies could replace Salesforce with much simpler tools (who knows, maybe even EU based?) and save millions. But no, let's go after brands and never consider the actual 1) business process we are trying to improve; 2) the reference architecture; 3) the underlying data we want to do CRUD on

The re-thinking of the tech stack is not a US tariffs issue, it is an IT leadership problem, and a serious one. The overwhelming lack of understanding of simple risk management strategies has gotten us here, EU companies should never, ever, have put themselves in this position in the first place.

Re: How new US tariffs are forcing Europe to rethink its entire tech stack

#27

Post by toss1 »

notachatbot123 wrote: post #4

It's not the taxes, it's the loss of trust and security.

THIS

Ordinarily, trust is earned in drops and lost by the barrel.

However, in the last eleven weeks, the current administration has sunk and destroyed supertanker-loads of trust in The United States Of America, and in every field including defense, security, health, science, academics, political, economic, and anything you can think of.

Even if the goals are good, the way they are being implemented is insanely stupid and damaging to everyone involved. (And I mean stupid in Cipolla's formal definition [0] of actions that harm both others and yourself.)

Any rational non-American person will not consider the US to be a reliable trustworthy partner in any venture. They may do deals at arms-length, but never again as a trusted partner.

Even if the policies are 100% reversed, the uncertainty will linger. Will international students really trust they won't be disappeared into a Central American prison if they say the wrong thing on social media? Will businesses really make a major capital investments when random tariffs may be added or removed on any day? Will allies really trust we will be there to defend them as they have come to our aid every time? A key part of trust is certainty, and uncertainty alone is deadly to relationships.[Edit: added this paragraph for clarity]

Much of America's prosperity was based on the tacit assumption of goodwill.

That is GONE.

If it is ever rebuilt, it will take not years or decades, but generations.

[0] https://principia-scientific.com/the-5-basic-laws-of-human-s...

Re: How new US tariffs are forcing Europe to rethink its entire tech stack

#28

Post by nradov »

mandeepj wrote: post #15
_fat_santa wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at the situation from the shoes of a tech titan (Zuck, Musk, Bezos, etc), i almost see it as the lesser of two evils. The problem they had was Lina Khan, who was dead set on breaking up their monopolies. They all decided to get into bed with the Trump admin and help het the guy elected, they all say it was for free speech but let’s get real it’s only because Lina Khan is no longer at FTC. But now they have a…

> The problem they had was Lina Khan, who was dead set on breaking up their monopolies. Guess what? The breakup of their monopolies is still going to continue :-) Free speech? Did Biden put a Bridle in their mouth to control their speech?

The Biden administration coerced social media and technology companies into censoring user content. There was an implied threat that if the companies didn't comply then the administration would hit them in other ways. This was a violation of the spirit of the First Amendment, although not technically illegal.

https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/justices-side-with-biden-...

(Yes, I am aware that other administrations have also attempted various forms of censorship so let's not waste time on whataboutism.)

Re: How new US tariffs are forcing Europe to rethink its entire tech stack

#29

Post by add-sub-mul-div »

nradov wrote: post #28
mandeepj wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem they had was Lina Khan, who was dead set on breaking up their monopolies. Guess what? The breakup of their monopolies is still going to continue :-) Free speech? Did Biden put a Bridle in their mouth to control their speech?

The Biden administration coerced social media and technology companies into censoring user content. There was an implied threat that if the companies didn't comply then the administration would hit them in other ways. This was a violation of the spirit of the First Amendment, although not technically illegal. https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/justices-side-with-biden-... (Yes, I am aware that other administrations h…

Trying to control misinformation about an unfolding pandemic is not the same as this: https://pen.org/banned-words-list/

Public health is primarily a responsibility, not a culture war.

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