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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?

#471

Post by npteljes »

fundatus wrote: post #434
npteljes wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, truth is, networks have no replacement. At the end of the day, social sites live and die by the circles of people that are there. One way out of this would be if content creators would en masse upload to multiple sites. Even with preferential treatment for YouTube, this would enable consumers to follow their favorite creators outside of YouTube, and get the same content. Of course, this onus is now on the creato…

Agree! But it's not impossible. I signed up for Bluesky in late 2023 and it was... like a tumbleweed tumbling across my screen. But now? It really feels like they've crossed some kind of threshold and it very much feels like Twitter back in the day™. I think they just crossed 30m users, maybe that is the magic number?

I'm happy for Bluesky's success. To me, it feels like that platforms began to figure out how to balance the hostile features vs the user retention. Major platforms were abusive left and right in the last couple of years, and people predicted their demise, as they always do, but nothing major happened, that is comparable to the MySpace or Digg or Slashdot demise back in the day. This is why I'm not holding my breath wrt/ YouTube as well. For better or worse, they do a damned good job with keeping the platform alive. I'm a premium subscriber even.

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

#472

Post by breadwinner »

afpx wrote: post #368
epolanski wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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").

Maybe their actual interests are different from what others think they should be.

Sure, if their actual interests are to suffer devastating economic consequences.

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

#473

Post by leokennis »

tored wrote: post #322
jjevanoorschot wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An important distinction is that US and EU interests aligned on many important areas up until recently. So it was less of a subservient relationship, and more of a mutually beneficial one. Now that the US wants to turn it into a subservient relationship, the EU is naturally looking for other options.

No, Europe is a de facto vassal state to US since WW2. What Europe didn’t understand or didn’t want to understand was the US agenda differs from Europe agenda , always has. But now they start to wake up facing this reality.

I think Europe was of the understanding that the "ongoing deal" was mutually beneficial.

The US paid by far the most for defense and so had by far the most influence and power in the world, and the peace (at least in the Western world) that US defense brought made sure both the US and the EU could freely trade and benefit financially.

What now changed is that apparently the US thinks it does not need this hegemony anymore (by forcing the EU to become a competing military power), or that they can replace the role the EU played with some other combination of countries. Or alternatively, the US is just looking for some "splendid isolation".

To European spectators, the above seems ridiculous. But who knows, maybe Trump is correct... Either way, the US had a good thing going and is now abandoning that. Not strange that Europe is surprised by that move.

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

#474

Post by ETH_start »

sofixa wrote: post #200
ETH_start wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just about market valuations. That's just a proxy of overall productivity, where the US now has a 50% advantage over the EU.

First, the difference is much smaller: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/economic-bulletin/focus/2024... And most "productivity" stats use GDP as a proxy for the productiveness of output, which is of course biased with the aforementioned overvaluation - the fact that in the US a burger costs $25 with tax and tips included, but 15 euros in France doesn't mean that a US server and cook are more productive. And in any cas…

The Soviet Union analogy is not a direct comparison. My point was narrower: excessive centralized control, even in a market system, can stifle economic dynamism, much like the Soviet model did in an extreme way. The EU’s heavy regulations (GDPR, DMA, labor laws) aren’t command economics, but they lean toward a similar logic of prioritizing control over freedom, with measurable results.

US stocks may be inflated but the gap — 241 US companies worth $30 trillion vs. 14 EU ones at $430 billion — reflects more than hype. It shows the US consistently produces globally dominant firms, a sign of higher productivity and innovation. The EU’s regulatory burden likely plays a role in why its startups rarely scale that big. For productivity, I cited the US economy being 50% larger (nominal GDP: ~$28T vs. ~$18T for the EU). Your ECB source doesn't contradict my point. It used a baseline of 2019 for both regions, to measure productivity growth, but the regions started at different baselines in 2019.

Anyway, getting back to my point: the US does a better job of creating new industries in large part because it avoids the EU’s regulatory morass and therefore has a more market-based economy.

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

#475

Post by _7acn »

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.

So maybe let’s wait until prices actually go up, and then we can start worrying? I don’t see the problem.

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

#476

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

tossandthrow wrote: post #465
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They don't despise you. They dislike your government. Then why are my comments in this thread being downvoted? I'm trying to share my perspective, and I get sarcastic replies like "Cry me a river." All of my most acrimonious arguments on HN have been with Europeans talking about transatlantic relations. There just seems to be something uniquely dysfunctional about the US/Europe relationship. From my perspective, I'm…

From your link > Do European countries appear to perform worse than White Americans in standardized tests because of low-performing immigrants? You are literally citing material that compares as race segregated US to other countries as wholes. I have a lot of very smart American friends, from all across the political spectre. I have mostly worked for us companies. And luckily you are not representative of the average…

>You are literally citing material that compares as race segregated US to other countries as wholes.

Yes, the claim is that apparently low US scores have more to do with US racial composition than a problem with the US educational system. That's the point?

I hedged with "seems to have pretty good education outcomes" because I'm not sure about the racial composition of Europe for 3rd+ generation immigrations. My expectation is that mass migration to Europe is mostly just in the past couple of generations (accounted for in that thread), but I haven't looked into it.

>And luckily you are not representative of the average American.

I didn't vote for Trump. I actually think he's a terrible president. But many Americans did. If Europe wants to get along with the US, it would be useful to understand how Trump supporters think. Since I do sympathize with them in some respects, I've been trying to explain that perspective, as I understand it, to users in this thread. If you want to understand the "average American", you can't just write off a huge fraction of the American population and refer to Trump as "Agent Orange", as was done elsewhere in this thread.

You claim to have American friends from all across the political spectrum. What have you learned from your Trump-supporting friends which helped you understand their perspective? It looks to me like you had me pegged as a Trump supporter previously (ascribing views to me I did not hold), and immediately became sarcastic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43459849

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

#478

Post by _7acn »

pjc50 wrote: post #217
notTooFarGone wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Also the now non-zero possibility of an actual conflict if the threats to invade Canada and Greenland aren't complete bullshit. (Which is the only defence Trump supporters have for those statements, of course)

I don’t really understand why I, as a European (from a country other than Denmark), should care about the affairs of the USA, Canada, or Greenland. And vice versa - why should those countries be concerned with the issues of my country? As a consumer, their internal conflicts have no relevance to me at all.

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

#479

Post by Macha »

usrnm wrote: post #412
nosianu wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the main idea right now seems to be massive amounts of debt, which can get very ugly in the long run The economy, unlike one's personal finances, is a circle. Unless the Europeans buy abroad, all that money is going to stay in Europe, circulating and stimulating the economy. Even if it's "only" arms, spending it to maintain industry is way better than many alternatives. Manufacturing infrastructure and lots of skil…

That's exactly the same reasoning we heard during Covid, injecting massive amounts of money into the economy was supposed to be perfectly safe and even a good thing. Definitely not supposed to lead to any inflation. Guess what happened next.

The argument during COVID wasn't that it was "perfectly safe", but that it was better than the alternative of leaving all the people living paycheck to paycheck get laid off and starve.

People just have short memories and see the bad outcome we did get (high inflation) and not the bad outcomes we avoided (unmitigated COVID, economic collapse).

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

#480

Post by flanked-evergl »

fransje26 wrote: post #419
flanked-evergl wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both facts. EU is pushing for an end-to-end to end encryption and there is no freedom of expression in Europe. Norway tried to jail a lesbian for believing that men can't become women. You may disagree with her, but it's ridiculous that she should be in jail for her view. Scotland makes it illegal to pray silently in your own home in some cases. UK already makes it illegal to pray silently in your own head. How much…

> Both facts. EU is pushing for an end-to-end to end encryption No. Some actors are pushing for an end of end-to-end encryption, which doesn't mean it's an EU fact. In fact, it just got rejected in the French parliament. > Norway tried to jail a lesbian No. A person got investigate for hate-speech, which is perfectly within the bounds of "freedom of speech". The fact that she did not go to prison shows the system wor…

European Threat To End-To-End Encryption Would Invade Phones

https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/05/07/europ...

European Police Chiefs call for industry and governments to take action against end-to-end encryption roll-out

https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/euro...

Norwegian actress Tonje Gjevjon faces up to 3 years in prison for saying men cannot be lesbians

https://nypost.com/2022/12/15/tonje-gjevjon-faces-up-to-3-ye...

British Man Convicted of Criminal Charges for Praying Silently Near Abortion Clinic

https://reason.com/2024/10/17/british-man-convicted-of-crimi...

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