[BugheadTorpeda6]

It would be interesting to see the hypothetical "return to fax machines" scenario.

If Solows paradox is true and not the result of bad measurement, then one might expect that it could be workable without sacrificing much productivity. Certainly abandoning the cloud would be possible if the regulatory environment allowed for rapid development of alternative non-cloud solutions, as I really don't think the cloud improved productivity (besides for software developers in certain cases) and is more of a rent seeking mechanism (hot take on hacker news I'm sure, but look at any big corpo IT dept outside the tech industry and I think you will see tons of instances where modern tech like the cloud is causing more problems than it's worth productivity-wise).

Computers in general I am much less sure of and lean towards mismeasurement hypothesis. I suspect any "return to 1950" project would render a company economically less competitive (except in certain high end items) and so the EU would really need to lean on Linux hard and invest massively in domestic hardware (not a small task as the US is finding out) in order to escape the clutches of the US and/or China.

I don't think they have the political will to do it, but I would love it if they tried and proved naysayers wrong.