[VWWHFSfQ]

Europe will never have digital sovereignty from the US.

It will take 100 years and an extremely expensive, government-mandated reimplementation of every critical US tech service and company.

No EU country is putting up budget for this, and no private enterprise is going to do it because building a worse version of AWS just so that it is "European" makes no financial sense and would most likely just fail anyway.

[cjrp]

> building a worse version of AWS just so that it is "European" makes no financial sense

Unless it becomes necessary because of EU regulation?

[jesterson]

Can you mention a single decent product that came out "because of EU regulation"?

[yurishimo]

Hetzner seems to be a pretty good example. It wasn't solely because of EU regulation, but once GDPR made it a worthwhile investment to companies to segregate their data, European data centers have been growing steadily.

[cjrp]

I didn't say it would be decent, just that it might make financial sense.

[HatchedLake721]

iPhone with USB-C

[ExoticPearTree]

Hopefully not. This hate towards good technology and innovation because you don’t like the current president is ridiculous. He’ll be gone in two years or so and then we’ll get back to normal.

[pjmlp]

Wishful thinking at the early days of any autocratic government, until reality kicks in elections are only a ritual to pretend otherwise.

[CRConrad]

Well, if the technology were even all that good, maybe. (Also, "innovation" just for "innovation's" sake is stupid. Lots of new shit is just that: shit.)

And no, him being gone in two years isn't all that much comfort. The problem is not just him, but the American people that elected him: The first time one could think it was a temporary aberration — 2016 was weird, what Brexit and all; maybe there was something in the water? Solar flares...? — but then they (you?) went and did it again in '24. It's not temporary any more.

[Boltgolt]

I heard this one a lot 6+ years ago

[blitzar]

> This hate towards good technology and innovation

Mine is to a collective people that vote in these people. I get that people can change, grow, evolve etc but I didnt trust a german for 60 years, I wont trust an american for at least a generation.

[Tangurena2]

It isn't just Trump. The CLOUD Act basically gives Washington the power and ability to turn off any server operated by any US company at will/whim.

The Wikipedia page only talks about stored data on (optionally foreign) servers without any sort of regard for the laws of the country where that server is located. It ignores the part of the statute where the feds can basically "turn off" that server. And that is the part that the EU is panicking over.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act

[microtonal]

And they already did that. The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague was cut off Office 365 (and e-mail hosted through that), as well as credit cards and bank cards. This did send a shockwave through Europe.

[ExoticPearTree]

To be fair, the ICC should not have existed in the first place. It was created to persecute the Serbs and then other people that were not liked by Europe mostly.

[lyu07282]

and Africans predominantly that's why the AES withdrew from it too. But the Europeans were under the impression their vassal status would always be benefitting them against their former colonies in their neocolonial efforts.

Trump made that whole arrangement cracking a little bit, but I still think it's mostly just the optics of it all they are still loyal servants. Nobody in Europe that matters gives a shit about Karim Khan or Francesca Albanese getting debanked and sanctioned, they would and love to do it themselves.

[ExoticPearTree]

The same thing that any EU based company can be forced to by the country under which jurisdiction it operates.

I don’t see what the problem is. That they actually used it first?

[surgical_fire]

I don't thing things are going back to the previous state of affairs after this.

[jabwd]

Has nothing to do with Trump. Trump just made the need more obvious but these talks are not new.

[psychoslave]

As things are moving, there's currently no garantee that Trump won't hold his promise US citizen will never have to vote again.

And even if the bipartisan system make a small turn over, the issue is systemic.

[Escapado]

I agree with the premise but have the feeling that it’s less about the money. People here in Germany use WhatsApp and Instagram and Gmail and MS Office and Windows not because there are no alternatives but because they either don’t know or don’t care to switch. People are notoriously difficult to convince to switch platforms even if they‘d get more benefits on the other side. My mom does not want to touch any email client besides outlook and she does nothing but read and very occasionally reply to singular emails and she requires only the barest functionality of an email client. Half of my family gets a panic attack when the windows interface changes again. The idea of switching messengers recently in my rather tech sawy circle of friends has resulted in a multi day discussion with no real outcome mainly because some just don’t want to deal with two messengers while their friends and family remain unconvinced. We already have social media, hosting, email, operating systems, messengers and the likes from European providers. People just don’t want to switch.

[mft_]

Eh, it's less fixed than you describe.

If there is a higher level mandate or incentive to switch, people absolutely will - for example, if a government decides en masse to switch away from one OS or platform. [0]. This will likely be hugely influential, as then everyone who wants to communicate effectively with that government needs to make sure that they are compatible - which will likely drive adoption of the alternate technologies over time.

However, IMO the big challenge is MS Office - as much as people like to mention the FOSS Office alternatives, there's still a huge gap to cross before mainstream companies will adopt them. (To paraphrase, no-one gets fired for choosing Microsoft Office.)

Beyond this, on the more 'personal' level you discuss, the picture is more varied than you describe. Some people's elderly parents absolutely can and do switch to different email clients or browsers. Some groups of friends can and do switch messenger platforms - my personal comms are now split roughly 80:20 between Whatsapp (the default) and Signal. (It just took a determined minority deciding to switch, and the others followed.)

> We already have social media, hosting, email, operating systems, messengers and the likes from European providers.

Yes, but they aren't really competitive, as they currently aren't the easy/free/well-marketed/popular options that everyone defaults to when they first get a computer, or that their friends are already using. It's just network effect and inertia.

This can and will change if the need for a reduced dependence on the US continues to be front and center of people's minds. (Note this is mostly driven by the Trump administration's behaviour; the next president could probably heal many of these wounds and our European politicians will move one to caring about something else.)

[0] https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20260417-france-to-remove-windo...

[pjmlp]

Mostly true, until reality forces otherwise, e.g. Huawei.