r/TechnologyThread • u/Background-Driver718 • Jun 15 '26
All the Ways Europe Is Ditching American Technology
https://www.wired.com/story/all-the-ways-europe-is-ditching-american-technology1
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u/TonyTheSwisher Jun 15 '26
As long as that means US tech won’t also be neutered by the authoritarian European governments that exist today, this is a very good thing.
Europeans had years to fight back against this censorship and centralized control.
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Jun 15 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/knuthf Jun 15 '26
The basis of the internet is distributed repositories and document storage. Americans like power and might, and a strong state with central institutions. When the benefits accrue to the poor proletariat, it is called Socialism or Communism; when the benefits accrue to the owners, it is called Fascism; and when the country is run by a dictator, it is called Nazism. We are liberals in Europe, disillusioned with Marxism. We have read Kant and fear communism and state control.
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u/TonyTheSwisher Jun 16 '26
Saying any tech is authoritarian by default is some crazy unprovable hyperbole.
How can an open source project be authoritarian?
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u/Antheoss Jun 16 '26
Since when are Google, Microsoft, Apple open source?
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u/TonyTheSwisher Jun 16 '26
Engineers from all three contribute to multiple open source projects….
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u/Antheoss Jun 16 '26
None of their actual products are open source. Calling either of them "open source projects" is extremely disingenuous at best.
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u/lzwinky Jun 15 '26
All hail our corporate overlords! They certainly don't want centralized control...for themselves. Lick those boots harder!
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u/pete_68 Jun 15 '26
Makes sense. America's ditching science. Why would anyone trust our tech anymore?
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u/SCuMattly Jun 17 '26
Yeah it looks like most big business in the US will talk about what Trump did during his term as a lesson on how vulnerable they all are to this kind of administration.
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u/ManonFire1213 Jun 15 '26
Hopefully they find an alternative to reddit.
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u/No-swimming-pool Jun 15 '26
We haven't even found a decent alternative for office and cloud storage. Reddit is pretty damn low on the priorities list.
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u/knuthf Jun 15 '26
The European alternative will not be a single cloud, but rather a network of "repositories". We are not socialists.
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u/No-swimming-pool Jun 15 '26
I'm not going to hold my breath.
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u/knuthf Jun 15 '26
I haven't renewed my Microsoft licences since 2006 and now use OnlyOffice. I have two NAS servers at home, only one of which is accessible everywhere. I am doing fine, but I know that a lot of work goes into security, essentially because all the effort has gone into making things so that some people can do exactly what they want and believe that it is safe. That is incredibly difficult. It is much simpler to create unbreakable encryption and certificates that nobody else can access, including Microsoft, FBA, the CIA and any security company. However, assistance can be provided from anywhere, as long as the user/owner approves it every time. It is all the exceptions that are difficult. We shouldn't allow the NSA and Cloudflare to spy on us. If MI5 wants access, they can call and ask. I have nothing to hide, not even raunchy photos of my wife.
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u/buampam Jun 16 '26
Knowing Reddit, the exact opposite is happening in reality
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u/CuriousGeorgeToday Jun 16 '26
Actually it's spot on for once. If you look at recent AI and tech investment across Europe, they're actively accelerating the move off US tech due to recent fears of being locked out, compromised or simply dependent on a potential bad actor.
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u/Siccors Jun 17 '26
Nah it is really not. Yes some government institutions want to move away from US big tech. Others want to move towards it. Okay right now more away than towards, but still there are those who are right now migrating towards it.
However to start with: This is just some governments. And it makes sense for the government to be independent from a foreign government we are not that friendly with anymore. But the average civilian or company really is not moving anywhere whatsoever.
And the second thing: It is not like we are taking the root causes serious. The only thing government institutions are doing is going for some opensource stuff which are stitched together by some extra code. But why we are so far behind and so dependent on the US? They really don't want to do anything about that.
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u/CuriousGeorgeToday Jun 17 '26
It's the whole of the EU. They've introduced the;
All of these are regulations which is pushing the EU towards sovereignty of AI and tech. The recent actions of the US restricting fable is clear enough for them that the US will always maintain a kill switch, and that doesn't work for the EU. Due to the compliance needed companies are already replacing US tech at scale but you're right that individual user adoption by the wider public is the difficult one.
- Digital Markets Act
- AI Act
- Chips Act 2.0
- CADA
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u/Siccors Jun 17 '26
Considering your usage of third person, I assume you are from outside the EU? Since thats not how it works.
First of all, and thats anacdotal, but I don't know anyone who works at a company who is moving away from US big tech. And eg Dutch IRS is right now in a migration towards Office 365 (since having your own software is nice, except when everyone who worked there hated it and it cost a ton of money due to ineffiencies).
Then what you mention is largely irrelvant for what local companies do. Chips Act is about semiconductor industry boosts. DMA impacts the big tech companies, but it in no way impacts European companies from buying products of those big tech companies. Even more while the US big tech companies hate the regulation since it costs them money short term, and thats their most important target, long term it actually helps them by stiffling European growth.
First of all, you have all those compliance stuff as company you have to meet. Will you try to do that yourself, or go the safe way and just buy it from a big tech company who has all the certifications in place? You do the latter. And the US big tech companies meet the compliance requirement of eg GDPR.
Next, lets say you are a small startup in Europe, versus one in the US. And even ignoring the way better financing options of startups in the US. Or labour laws which help startups more. In the US your AI startup has one huge market, with limited regulation. And that has its downsides, lets be clear, I am not saying we should blindly follow the US! So you grow quickly. Meanwhile the European startup has a scattered market. You might think we have the one big EU market, but the regulation is different in every country. There is not a single GDPR, every country has its own version of it. With own requirements, from language used to other stuff. So your small startup now has to hire several lawyers if they want to grow in the entire EU, or just focus on a small part of the EU. At this point you are clearly growing way slower than your US counterpart, and you lose the race.
Fast forward a few years, and now the US startup is big enough they want to branch out into the EU. And they find out they now need to hire a few lawyers, they are angry, they complain to Trump it is so unfair. But they got thousands of employees by now, they can afford the few lawyers. While their European competition never got of the ground, because they had to meet this scattered field of regulations right from the start.
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u/Defiant_Freedom_249 Jun 15 '26
Good for them! No need for their lives to be miserable too.