Earlier quoted context omitted.
No it's still absolutely dominant in the western market - partly because they own a whole load of other brands, and they have absolutely unbeatable distribution. There's a few countries where Pepsi is more dominant. But the only place where a non-Coke/Pepsi soft drink is dominant is Scotland (AG Barr's Irn-Bru and other drinks). I think they even bought out the last other holdout (Peru's Inca-Cola)
Well, if you accept Irn-Bru as a Cola replacement then Germany already isn't a Cola country anymore. The vast majority of sodas consumed is rather of the Cola-Mix kind (there are two very common products named "Spezi" and a ton of smaller brands) and Apfelschorle. CocaCola dominates the Cola market only, the sum of all the other sodas is far greater.
Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?
361–370 of 640 posts
Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Last time Nato's article 5 was invoked it lead to Europeans dying in US wars. US service members represented about 68% of the coalition deaths in Afghanistan and about 93% in Iraq: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_casualties_in_Afghan... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Coa... The expectation for a European war should be similar. Europe should supply about 80% of the effort, since they…
> The point of having a strong military is to deter your enemies, not fight them. That breaks the premise for this thread which was people lost in war. > It's really striking the amount of anti-Americanism that comes out of Europe relative to other US allies. You broaden up the premise from lost casualties in war to the entire relationsship - I think that is multiple PhDs to figure out whether this is anti american o…
lupusreal talked about the "risk of Americans once again dying in yet another European war" (emphasis mine). By making Europe part of its security umbrella, and deterring the USSR/Russia, the US shouldered that risk.
It's simple. I don't want to shoulder risk for people who despise me. Every time Europeans downvote my comments in this thread, it makes me want to shoulder risk for them less and less. And I'm a registered Democrat.
>You broaden up the premise from lost casualties in war to the entire relationsship - I think that is multiple PhDs to figure out whether this is anti american or reasonable push back.
I'm trying to tell you, as a European, why Americans like me aren't enthusiastic about the alliance. What you do with that information is your business.
I think some pushback on the issue of Greenland is perfectly justified. That represents actual aggressive behavior on the part of the US. And I think it's fair to complain about the US voting with Russia at the United Nations. We could at least abstain from voting, like China.
What I don't like is the notion that the US has a special obligation to protect Ukraine.
* Everywhere on the internet, you'll see the "fact" that the US promised to protect Ukraine in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. That "fact" is false. All we promised was to seek UN Security Council action. Read the memorandum for yourself if you don't believe me: https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/P...
* There are ongoing armed conflicts all over the world. The US can't police everywhere. And it's psychologically unsustainable to do volunteer police work when people despise you for it. Given our limited resources, we need to prioritize. We might as well de-prioritize the interests of relatively wealthy countries, such as Europe, since those countries should be better able to provide for themselves: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflict...
>obvious anti trust malpractice
You're saying that you don't like how antitrust is practiced in the US? Why is that any of your business? The US is a sovereign country. If you're going to complain about Elon Musk commenting on German elections, why is it your place to complain about how antitrust law works in the US?
For many years, Europeans have had absolutely no inhibitions in expressing their contempt for US policies in guns, healthcare, etc. Yet somehow when Americans do the same, and comment on European policies regarding e.g. immigration, Europeans flip out.
>cultural imperialism
So Europeans, of their own free will, like American music and movies. This is supposed to represent the US oppressing Europe somehow?
I think these two complaints of yours actually underscore my point about European anti-Americanism. I can't imagine a Japanese person complaining that they are oppressed due to the way antitrust is practiced in the US, or that they are oppressed because so many Japanese like to watch American movies. Out of all our "allies", it's only Europeans who are in the habit of complaining about stuff like this.
>the country with the absolute biggest economic power and military power.
I think life is generally pretty good for Americans, and we don't have a lot to complain about. But we do have limited resources, and we can't help everyone. And it's very annoying to read all of the anti-Americanism online, even for situations where we tried to do our best, and even when we're arguably one of the most benevolent superpowers in world history. At a certain point I just don't want to be involved anymore.
Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think STACKIT is worth watching. They are owned by Schwarz Group, the largest european retailer, and seem to be on a significant growth path with major investment and commitment from the parent company.
Do they offer managed services? Their website suggests so but I'm not familiar with them.
Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?
#364Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of these 2% live in states whose influence on the outcome of the presidential election is disproportionately high due to the electoral system. So you have a high influence of farmers on states that have a high influence on the election outcome and those 2% end up looking more like 4% in terms of practical influence. It is disingenuous to lay the results at their feet only like the comment you're responding to s…
You're correct that this election was more lost by the Democrats than won by the Republicans, but Trump didn't actually get the popular vote. That meme took off well before the final vote count was completed. It was close, and American politics being what it is, it doesn't actually matter. Hillary Clinton did get a majority in 2016 after all, but the narrative was still that she was the worst and losing-est candidate…
What do you mean? In 2024, Trump indisputably won the popular vote - as in, he had more total popular votes than any other candidate (77.3 million votes compared to 75 million votes to Kamala, and nowhere remotely close for anyone else), which is what "winning a vote" means. In 2016 you're right that Hillary won the popular vote but still lost the presidency, but that's a different matter. And you're also right that he could have lost the popular vote again and still won the presidency, but that's irrelevant to the question of whether he did win or not.
Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?
#365Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you give some examples of this attitude? I'm not sure I've seen that behaviour anywhere, and it's very difficult to look up examples when your description is so vague.
How about the consequences of US proxy wars? Not a word about the reasons mediterranean european countries keep getting floods of displaced refugees. Maybe if the US stopped bombing their countries, we'd stop getting so many.
Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?
#366Europeans 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…
Trump wants countries to lower tariffs and not steal US jobs. So he hits them with reciprocal tariffs and dis-incentives for making stuff out of US. Trump does not want other countries to think US will defend them. So he makes it clear to them.
What is this deal about extortion and increase dependence?
Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're confusing the popular vote with electoral votes. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016 by a margin of almost 3 million[0]. But because states vote for President in the US through the electoral college, rather than people , Trump won the election with a slight majority of electoral votes. Hillary Clinton lost not because she was unpopular (she was, even in the most conservative estimate, about as popular…
They're not confusing popular and electoral votes. Trump won a majority of electoral votes, and a plurality of the popular vote, as they claimed; that is from the official count, not preliminary counts. He did not win a majority of the popular vote, but that is also the case both for Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton (twice, though one of those was a rare three candidate race where a majority would have been unlikely)…
Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
I grew up on a farm. Farmers as a class are not stupid, at least no more so than any other group of people I've dealt with. They do have different interests and priorities than city dwelling people which tend to be better represented by traditionally conservative parties, but that is not an absolute. In Canada, historically, farmers were also responsible for the social credit movement ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…
> Farmers as a class are not stupid Yet in my lifetime I have seen them consistently go or vote against their own interests (see Brexit which absolutely gutted British farmers which overwhelmingly voted against "evil EU rules").
Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't even know how you start a conversation like "aws works fine for us, but let's switch for political reasons" Some companies may see it as "let's switch for continuity-of-business reasons", not political reasons as such. Things may get worse over the next few years. Amazon is not spending billions on https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/europe-digital-sovereignty... for _fun_; even before ol' minihands's return,…
To be clear, I don't mean that there is no good reason to have such a conversation. I'm just really curious how you can't start it ; in the middle of the millions of things that your average company has to do, how do you knock on your bosses's door and tell them: "hey, you know that "cloud" thing that you have no idea how it works, but our whole business depend on ? We're using the same as everyone else; but we're no…
If the wheels come off the current arrangements that let European businesses operate on US-owned cloud services, then a lot of companies will be having similar conversations. Those companies who've investigated this _before_ the wheels come off will be in better shape. Some companies have been investigating and/or actively doing this for _years_.
Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?
#370As a European, I would like nothing more than for our ruling elites to stop acting like petulant teenagers that are upset that their parents voted Republican and instead move out and start supporting themselves. For decades here in Norway we have had talks about how we need to denuclearize, stop all industry, stop all energy production, stop all mining. This, if not directly a result of Russian interference, is at le…
> Right now, my data is more private in US than in most of Europe.
Could follow the train of thought until it catastrophically derailed in the last three sentences..