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I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

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Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#261

Post by GeorgeOldfield »

stackbutterflow wrote: post #17

In conclusion from the `What you realistically can't avoid` section is that running entirely on non american services will never happen. Unless some entity pours hundreds of billions (trillions?) of euros into solving this over multiple decades there will be no way to replace google ads and sign in with google/apple. The AI part seems to be the easiest thing to solve in the list, that says something.

yeah I think trillions alone wouldn't be enough to replicate Apple's success and market dominance (especially the most valuable demographic)

Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#262

Post by oytis »

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.

For the same reason why companies implement SSO for employees? It's just easier to have one account with one password to rule them all.

Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#263

Post by GeorgeOldfield »

wvh wrote: post #60
stackbutterflow wrote: post #17

In conclusion from the `What you realistically can't avoid` section is that running entirely on non american services will never happen. Unless some entity pours hundreds of billions (trillions?) of euros into solving this over multiple decades there will be no way to replace google ads and sign in with google/apple. The AI part seems to be the easiest thing to solve in the list, that says something.

While it's true Europe might not be producing the next Apple or Google, there are lots of alternatives, like national academic login systems, logging into third parties with bank credentials or government IDs... Solutions that depend less on one commercial company capturing the market, that are in place on a national level and work well. It's a different landscape. Factors like current day political turmoil make peop…

the problem is - these don't work unless everyone uses them worldwide.

Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#264

Post by znnajdla »

spwa4 wrote: post #228
vanviegen wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

> The difference between EU and US is that it's possible to make all components in the US, using US equipment

False. ASML is in the EU.

Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#265

Post by throwaway772549 »

r_lee wrote: post #207
throwaway772549 wrote: post #175

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?

We used to expose the dedicated servers directly (i.e. no CDN at all), and while that was fine latency-wise, the lack of DDoS protection was really the limiting factor. E.g. Hetzner will just blackhole your subnet if you get DDoSed.

It feels rather unviable nowadays to run a business without some CDN/DDoS protection service in front of your website.

Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#266

Post by palata »

oytis wrote: post #262
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. For the same reason why companies implement SSO for employees? It's just easier to have one account with one password to rule them all.

Companies implement SSO to have control over the accounts of their employees... Pretty sure they would still do it if it was more complicated.

And that is also why companies don't allow employees to use anything other than the SSO.

Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#267

Post by palata »

touristtam wrote: post #233
palata wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

How many services do you have subscribed to? from simple PHPBB boards to very much official product and online shops? How do you manage all those username/password? The single point of failure of relying on Google/Apple is real, but so is the manual and laborious process to auth via email/password and the managment that goes with it.

I have 400 entries in my password manager. I manage them with my password manager. There is no single point of failure.

Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#268

Post by rithdmc »

lII1lIlI11ll wrote: post #259
rithdmc wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > HN is going to skew towards people with password managers

But everyone has a password manager now. They come builtin to all major browsers, Apple ecosystem, etc. My non-technical girlfriend uses one.

Yeah, and I support anything that makes security by default easier. I'd love to see adoption numbers for in-browser password managers, though, because I feel it's not very high yet.

Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#269

Post by palata »

rithdmc wrote: post #256
lII1lIlI11ll wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> passwordless-based authentication like 404media (you want to sign in? You've been emailed a code) How is this low friction to manually copy/paste a code from email as opposed to allow a password manager to log me in automatically?! This kind of authentication is the stupid current trend I hate the most TBH.

> > HN is going to skew towards people with password managers

Towards people with password managers, or towards people who want to have the freedom to choose how they log in? I also hate those damn login emails.

Re: I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure

#270

Post by palata »

s_dev wrote: post #219
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. For a single personal user it's only a small bit of friction but if you're in charge of 30 people SSO is a godsend for boring compliance work and managing groups of people. You want to change a domain in the company not a big deal. Don't have to rotate passwords every quarter, need to restrict an employee from a service etc. You aren't imagining other challenges other than you…

That is an interesting take, but it's off topic.

The post says that if you don't have the SSO, it's a conversion killer. I.e. users just won't log in if they cannot do it with an SSO.

Of course companies use SSO because it gives them more control over the employees accounts. I understand why company do it.

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