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I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

coinerella.com

221–230 of 391 posts

Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#221
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.

Something I didn't see in the other comments is users who are using the startup's service for work, as an employee.

Why wouldn't you choose the simplicity of "sign in with Google" if your work email is on Google Workspace, using the entire Google suite of business tools for everything (gmail, chat, meet, docs, drive, auth, etc) any everything you do at work is known to Google anyway?

Making an email/password account with your work Gmail is just extra steps, one more password to store, and perhaps the inconvenience of one more 2FA thing. Google gets the same information either way.

Similarly why wouldn't you choose the "sign in Microsoft" if your work is all in on the Microsoft suite of business tools (teams, office, onedrive, auth, etc.) and everything you do at work is known to Microsoft anyway?

Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll still have your e-mail address exposed, which you may not want if it is to some random porn site. Moreover, password managers do not work if you use multiple devices for log in, which most people actually do.

I use my password manager across multiple devices daily. Apparently it has not been working without me noticing it?

I assume they're thinking about the 'offline' style where one would shuffle a database file and probably resolve conflicts. There's an app/extensions nowadays, man!

I don't even bother with a VPN, just occasionally push a 'sync' button on the roaming devices [when they return to LAN]. DB transactions [new credentials] averages ~0 per month... but there's plenty of capacity. Works extremely well.

Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#223
post #176

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…

> Just buy a few Mac Studios and run them in-house I fail to see the point of this when the system you've to decided to run "yourself" is entirely owned and dependent on another American company.

It has the standard property of ownership: nothing gets turned off without YOUR permission, or at minimum legal proceedings in the area where you are located.

Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#224
post #187
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume your circle is mostly tech people? Outside that bubble, it's pretty obvious. People just want easy, don't understand security in many cases, it's the simplest path. Even absent the above. Imagine a signup flow. I can either click or I can go through a manual flow with input fields. The former is much faster than the latter. It surprises you people choose the path of least resistance?

It does not surprise me that people choose the path of least resistance. I find it sad that they happily connect everything to Google/Apple. What surprises me is that it is a "conversion killer". So if you ask people to create an account, it's sooooo very hard for them that they will just leave. And spend the next 30 minutes scrolling TikTok, I guess?

It definitely surprised me just how lazy humans are on average. The amount of effort people are willing to exert on sign ups, etc... The drop off with each additional field blew my mind.

Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#225

Great post, I did a similar switch mid last year. Hetzner was something I already used, so I just doubled down. I have a single OVH instance where I ma playing with Openclaw, but that was because I was having issues with Hetzner that day on their new instance page (was fixed the next day) I use Bunny for my CDN, I just wish they have the capabilityt to route IPv4 and IPv6 traffic to IPv6 only origins. If your origin…

How does dot.bs make money? The about page and FAQ don’t explain what they’re monetizing.

Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#226
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How has your experience with Bunny been? I'm quite split on it. I used to work for a business in a pretty competitive area, where tactics like fake DMCA requests and abuse cases are routinely used to attempt to take down information, be it from Google, or from the CDN/hosting provider. While at first Bunny support seemed understanding of it, later they unceremoniously blocked the account on the basis of too many comp…

it's a super cheap "CDN" that runs on Hetzner and random hosts or their colo, it's not as proper as the other ones. for anything DMCA heavy maybe just buying dedicated servers or something instead could work?

[deleted]

Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#227
post #142

Ehm sorry but no. Sovereignty means you own the stack not that you just choose other suppliers. Build on EU infra means owning a machine room with some servers, having fiber optic good enough for your traffic and that's is. What the author describe is just a supplier switch still owning next to nothing.

Perhaps the term is overloaded, and a better one would suffice, but the bigger point is to ensure that none of their infrastructure is under the purview of any US entity, public or private.

Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is your all-European made computer, then?

On that subject, I'd be curious to see any computer that's not mostly made in Asia.

HP makes them, so does Dell. They cost a bit extra, but essentially the whole Federal government runs on nothing else.

The difference between EU and US is that it's possible to make all components in the US, using US equipment, and so some companies do because it commands a pretty decent premium. It's not even that hard since most components (e.g. reference motherboard designs) are still designed and actually built in the US. China still really mostly does what you might politely call "commercializes US tech". And let's not discuss too deeply if they correctly pay licensing for all the components they make, because nobody enjoys that discussion.

And yep, as you might expect, only Intel chips, no Nvidia cards ... and that's not the end of the limitations. The previous version had no USB-C monitor support, never mind one USB-C cable to multiple monitors, but last year intel really pushed a bit harder. But even this year, I'd hope you're not going to be trying to use these machines for gaming.

The EU can't even make a modern motherboard's USB port chip.

Oh and yes, there are cracks in the US version too. The phones used, for example, are iPhones. Radio designed in South Korea ...

Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#229

What exactly is your goal in doing this? What has it brought you?

Can't speak for the author, but freedom from US spying ideally. Additionally, not providing any revenue to a US-company that in turn pays taxes to a government that they don't support the actions of.
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