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

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

#261

Post by InsideOutSanta »

Maken wrote: post #225
InsideOutSanta wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For privacy reasons, I've already started slowly switching away from US providers before all this insanity happened. I've switched my Email to Proton (Swiss), cloud files to Filen (German), most LLM usage to Mistral (French), and search to Ecosia (German). [Edit: I've now switched to Mojeek; see comments below.] But in the past two weeks, I've done the things I've previously put off because they require real work. I'…

Why Proton mail? I'm currently looking to switch away from GMail but I lack good/bad references about the different EU providers.

They're located in a country with relatively good privacy laws, they're big enough that I trust them to remain alive for the foreseeable future, they have relatively good uptime compared to other email providers, they're popular enough that they don't tend to land in spam filters, and their corporate structure makes them more immune to enshittification than other companies.

On the minus side, the way their email is set up means you can't easily use third-party email clients without using an intermediary tool (Proton Mail Bridge), and because email is encrypted at rest, their own email search is abysmal.

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

#262

Post by LightBug1 »

mentalgear wrote: post #84
dinga wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Changed default search-engine on my laptop and cellphone. I still use google but rather as a fallback and I have to actively type in google into the address-bar.

I switched from Google to DuckDuckGo as my standard search engine and I'm super happy with it. I found it quality-wise indistinguishable from Google, and even better since no sponsored spam.

Thanks for nudging me that way again. I'd tried DDG before and was slowly moving towards, but had still been relying on !bangs.

However, I just replicated the most obscure search request that I can remember, an extremely obscure automotive request for help - and, in one go, the DDG result actually got to exactly the end result it had taken me ages to Google.

I'll give DDG another shot.

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

#263

Post by impossiblefork »

criley2 wrote: post #221
iammjm wrote: 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…

Both are a good thing? Even from folks in America who strongly dislike the fascist leadership, you'd be hard pressed to find folks who think "Europe should underfund their military and rely on the American tax payer for defense" or "Europe should be uncompetitive in technology and just buy American and Chinese solutions" I don't understand why Europeans have to blame Trump for "spending a fair minimum on their own de…

For us Europeans it's a good thing. There have been sane people here in Europe who never wanted to be reliant on US subscription software etc., but who had no chance of getting their view through.

For the US though, this European reliance on what is in effect rubbish is great. Rubbish in return for cars and all sorts of sophisticated technology.

I don't like calling ad firms etc. 'tech'. Technology for me is things like new chemical processes, whatever TSMC is doing, etc. and the US does have that, but firms like Meta are not a big player outside of machine learning research.

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

#264

Post by [deleted] »

notTooFarGone wrote: post #195
_7acn wrote: post #97

For me personally, it’s completely irrelevant. As a European, I feel exactly the same kind of “connection” to Europe as I do to the USA. It’s a different story when it comes to the country I live in. If a local (national) product is comparable to a foreign one, I’ll usually choose the local one. But all this EU vs USA fuss means nothing to me. I often choose American products simply because they’re the best.

It's often also not about the ethical, "vibe-based" decision. There are serious consequences that can happen in a trade war. Digital Services are how the U.S. makes billions of profits from the EU. In a trade war it is possible that digital services are hit with tariffs as it would hurt the most. This will not happen with EU products.

[deleted]

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

#265

Post by hypeatei »

JdeBP wrote: post #164
nkmnz wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are like… 2% farmers in the US?

Bear in mind that the President of the United States is not directly elected by a popular vote. The mathematics of who gets the largest voice are distorted, intentionally so by the Framers. They did not want low-population agrarian states to be permanently in effect disenfranchised. It is ironic after all of these decades of originalism being seen as a reactionary thing against minorities that the Framers put positiv…

> explicitly to prevent "tyranny of the majority"

Yep, as if tyranny of the minority is better. Of course Republicans think it's good because it gets them elected but this country is regressing because of the status quo.

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

#266

Post by Propelloni »

deadlydose wrote: post #184
tossandthrow wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The down votes are due to the persons inappropriate snarkiness and complete lack of awareness. The current trade war is initiated by the US, why it is interesting how EU consumers react to that. This is akin to me hitting you in the face, then you hitting me back - and then I could ponder how you would feel about being hit in the face and how that could teach you a lesson - well, I just saw what happens when I hit yo…

> initiated by the US While I don't approve, didn't the EU charge the US tariffs that were twice as high as what the US charged the EU?

You can take a look at the slightly out-of-date import duties here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tariff_ra...

To summarize, EU countries levied 1.49 % on average on imports in 2021, the US levied 1.48 % on average. Probably there are singular items that diverge from this average.

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

#267

Post by dachworker »

iammjm wrote: 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…

There is a weird attitude among European elites where on the one hand, they point out how European countries have always been in a subservient position within the American sphere of influence, but then, instead of cheering that this era is ending, they seem to be all upset about it and want their collar to be put back on. Help me understand this. To me it seems that maybe the interests of EU elites differ from the interests of the EU common classes. The EU elites seem to have considered themselves as basically equivalent to American citizens in all but name, and were quite happy selling out their native countries in return for access to America.

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

#269

Post by OvbiousError »

csomar wrote: post #185
iammjm wrote: 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…

> hus forcing EU to invest in their own tech & military, thus becoming a competitor to the US products. Not sure how you made the jump here. EU is signalling increased military spending but there isn't really much talk about tech (beyond reddit-like enthusiasm which leads nowhere); which is funny because the top referrals for this site are .. american companies themselves. That being said, increased spending doesn't…

Signalling? Talks about investing 800 billion in the military industry across the EU would have been unthinkable 4 months ago. Now they're proceeding at a speed that is staggering when you see how long these talks/processes normally take.

EU cloud is certainly much discussed, and more than that. Holland for instance voted and accepted a resolution last week for more digital sovereignty. This doesn't mean we'll have an AWS competitor overnight, but we're also only 3 months in.

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

#270

Post by pbhjpbhj »

mixedbit wrote: 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.

I've not seen large companies advertising "from Europe" despite this now being something a lot of people seem to be looking for (hard to tell with social media). Perhaps they fear losing USA sales?

It's going to take time.

Media services (films, video games, social media) is pretty tricky to move on.

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