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Dutch Parliament: Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options

theregister.com

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Re: Dutch Parliament: Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options

#221

Post by SEJeff »

Tainnor wrote: post #208
SEJeff wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> closer trade ties lower the likelihood of armed conflict This was 100% what Europe believed and the Merkel administration in Germany more than anyone. Not to bring politics into HN intentionally, but I think the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and threats of invading Poland, Finland, and Germany from Russian spokesmen or MPs kind of throws cold water on this theory. No matter how well meaning you are, you can't expect…

That's ignoring all the times when closer trade ties did lower the likelihood of armed conflict - not in the least, within Europe itself. I agree that we badly miscalculated Russia, but not every actor is Russia and willing to tank its own economy for revanchism.

Note that I said specifically dictators, and most of Europe isn’t that. The closest would be Orban and maybe Erdogan. But Hungary is seemingly a disliked minor player. Turkey is actually interesting in that Erdogan is a strong man and he’s actually really good at it seemingly. He’s also got a very modern and well trained military.

Re: Dutch Parliament: Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options

#222

Post by egorfine »

atwrk wrote: post #174
egorfine wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh, it’s possible in Germany Of course. How do I fire an employee? That's right, I don't. Otherwise sure it's possible.

> How do I fire an employee? That's right, I don't. It's easy to fire employees in Germany (especially in small shops), e.g. when they steal, are always late, are badmouthing colleagues, are talking about company internals, are insolent to customers, deliver bad work, and on and on. You simply have to follow a defined process (basically at least one written warning for the same thing before firing). What you can't do…

> What you can't do is having a Musk style temper tantrum and fire someone at will because you feel like that.

This is kind of double-sided coin. Like, people are feeling protected and have a sense of security and that's what defines Europe. On the other hand, businesses hands are tied and they cannot scale dynamically as in the US.

> follow a defined process

And that's the main problem in the EU. There's a process for everything and sometimes it's a burden and limits the abilities to change things.

Re: Dutch Parliament: Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options

#223

Post by rdm_blackhole »

It's always the same song and dance.

We need to move away from US tech? Ok Great, where to? The European AWS or Google Cloud? Those don't exists.

What about the European Stripe which is a big pillar of the new digital economy? Still no.

What about the payment cards? Mastercard, Visa, Amex? Where are the EU alternatives?

The EU is all talk and no bite. We fine US companies for breaking the law but instead of using that cash to foster innovation, we use it to hire more paper pushers in Brussels to come up with the next idiotic regulation like the bottle cap one.

The best time to replace US tech was 10 years ago but that did not happen and it's not going to happen now.

Do you know anyone who is ready to give up their IPhone or Mac?

Re: Dutch Parliament: Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options

#224

Post by SEJeff »

wolframhempel wrote: post #195
SEJeff wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> closer trade ties lower the likelihood of armed conflict This was 100% what Europe believed and the Merkel administration in Germany more than anyone. Not to bring politics into HN intentionally, but I think the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and threats of invading Poland, Finland, and Germany from Russian spokesmen or MPs kind of throws cold water on this theory. No matter how well meaning you are, you can't expect…

I agree with what you're saying, but lowering the risk does not mean completely eliminating the problem. It's always hard to argue the counterfactual, but I feel the number of conflicts since 1990 that HAVEN'T happened due to countries being economically dependent on each other is significant.

The approach overall is a good one. It’s mutually assured (economic) destruction.

Dictators just don’t care however and Europe hasn’t had a ton of those since the 90s sans Putin.

Re: Dutch Parliament: Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options

#225

Post by egorfine »

crote wrote: post #154
egorfine wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh, it’s possible in Germany Of course. How do I fire an employee? That's right, I don't. Otherwise sure it's possible.

Oh, you can. You just need to provide a valid reason, that's all. Firing someone because they are stealing from the company, harassing a coworker, consistently underperforming, or because you're shutting down a business unit? Easy! Firing someone because it's a Tuesday, or because they got pregnant? Sorry, can't do that.

Collecting data in order to come up with a valid reason is prohibited. Like, impossible to fire a programmer if he only does a bare minimum and simply is not productive.

Re: Dutch Parliament: Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options

#226

Post by egorfine »

4ggr0 wrote: post #123
egorfine wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh, it’s possible in Germany Of course. How do I fire an employee? That's right, I don't. Otherwise sure it's possible.

always amusing when people realize that workers have and deserve rights in other parts of the world.

Social security is an incredibly good thing. It defines Europe.

There's a price for it and that's what we're discussing here.

Re: Dutch Parliament: Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options

#227

Post by egorfine »

crote wrote: post #133
egorfine wrote: post #45

And replace with what, more regulations? Source: am a startup in the EU. The amount of bureaucracy is kafkaesque.

Funny, because those motions were for a good part inspired by local companies complaining that they weren't even approached prior to critical infrastructure being outsourced to Amazon. There's undoubtedly bureaucracy, but that hasn't stopped local companies from popping up. The bigger problem is CxOs thinking a transition to $LocalCorp would look less sexy on their resumé than a transition to Amazon or Azure. Besides…

I'd love to become a larger AWS competitor for a certain service.

I've got a colocation agreement in a large local datacenter, a few racks of servers are humming day and night and you know what? The more energy I consume, the more I pay per kw/h because green.

Yeah, sure, you are welcome to scale up and compete with AWS.

Re: Dutch Parliament: Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options

#228

Post by pjc50 »

damnitbuilds wrote: post #8

Yeah, that Military-Industrial Complex thing that we hated? Well, now we want one.

a) that was noted European socialist Dwight D Eisenhower's phrase

b) the entire history of Europe from before the first world war (+) has been tied up with industrialized war. It was sufficiently awful that great steps have been taken to move away from it. The US tried to keep a balance between "preventing the USSR from invading Germany further" vs "preventing Germany from invading everywhere again".

Re: Dutch Parliament: Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options

#229

Post by hello_moto »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #177
wolframhempel wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making more stuff in the countries with the cheapest costs also means that people in those countries are being lifted out of poverty. China's GDP per capita went from ~350USD in 1990 to 12.500USD in 2023 and similar growth happened for India, Bangladesh and lots of other poorer countries. Globalization brought affordable goods to wealthy nations and better living standards to poorer nations. In addition, closer trade…

Meanwhile people in the West are being dropped into poverty. The environmental costs of globalisation are (literally) horrific. And a surprising amount of it is useless makework - disposable "fashion", faddy toys, and shoddy consumer goods that break after a couple of years. As for lowering the risk of armed conflict - how's that working out for everyone?

If you keep squeezing the middle income class, that’s the direction you’re going: poverty.

Regardless of the existence of Manufacturing.

Tax your rich fairly and you will see major shift.

Re: Dutch Parliament: Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options

#230

Post by hello_moto »

elcritch wrote: post #166
wolframhempel wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making more stuff in the countries with the cheapest costs also means that people in those countries are being lifted out of poverty. China's GDP per capita went from ~350USD in 1990 to 12.500USD in 2023 and similar growth happened for India, Bangladesh and lots of other poorer countries. Globalization brought affordable goods to wealthy nations and better living standards to poorer nations. In addition, closer trade…

I’m all for poorer countries getting a slice of the pie. Long term I’m not convinced it’s beneficial for the whole population of richer countries to continue, but rather only the elites of those countries. The amount income inequality has skyrocketed in recent decades sort of undermines the theoretical benefits economists love to tout. Nowadays manufacturing does not have to be uncompetitive. Advances in automation b…

You’re missing another ingredient: taxing the rich fairly will do a lot of goods
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