Isn't massive tech conglomerates locking people into their ecosystems how we got here in the first place? The quest to replace US with EU products is really just treating symptoms of the problems that tech has created in the past 2-3 decades.
Yes, but the cost-to-switch is more important right now than the details, the bigger fear I have is that if such an EU alternative is successful that the US incumbents will swoop in and buy it and then you're back to square 1. That has happened quite a few times already.
> the bigger fear I have is that if such an EU alternative is successful that the US incumbents will swoop in and buy it
That's usually what happens indeed. There is a lot of great tech coming from [the rest of the world] and being bought by the US.
> the cost-to-switch is more important right now than the details
I kinda disagree there. The lack of competition is the problem today. If, instead of AWS, there were 50 services all over the world and companies were distributed amongst them, then it would be much less of a problem. The problem right now is that the US can bully entire countries because those countries 100% rely on US services.
Instead of building a European replacement for AWS, I would like to see open standards allowing companies to easily switch, and different providers competing behing those standards. Or even better: companies could even mix the services: say "I want my backups replicated between this French company and this Croatian one".
And the EU governments will be advertising it.. already happened in Greece… few companies with strong core tech were bought by Microsoft and the gov was “so happy” for the “success story”.
The task of governments is to stop this. Just like how Musk is prohibited from buying EasyJet.
Do you think China wouldn't have bought ASML if Europe would let them? They would've done so a decade ago. The exact same reasoning now needs to be applied to the likes of OVHCloud.
jacquesm|1 month ago
palata|1 month ago
That's usually what happens indeed. There is a lot of great tech coming from [the rest of the world] and being bought by the US.
> the cost-to-switch is more important right now than the details
I kinda disagree there. The lack of competition is the problem today. If, instead of AWS, there were 50 services all over the world and companies were distributed amongst them, then it would be much less of a problem. The problem right now is that the US can bully entire countries because those countries 100% rely on US services.
Instead of building a European replacement for AWS, I would like to see open standards allowing companies to easily switch, and different providers competing behing those standards. Or even better: companies could even mix the services: say "I want my backups replicated between this French company and this Croatian one".
toomuchtodo|1 month ago
atmosx|1 month ago
Everybody and their mother is using Gmail anyway
deaux|1 month ago
Do you think China wouldn't have bought ASML if Europe would let them? They would've done so a decade ago. The exact same reasoning now needs to be applied to the likes of OVHCloud.