Microsoft to shut down 50 cloud services for Russian businesses | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft to shut down 50 cloud services for Russian businesses

bleepingcomputer.com

9 pointsjdmark12 comments

All these sanctions are a splinter in the foot of Russia for a few years before they switch to Chinese or homegrown tech and we will never get this market back. It's like we're making sure to burn every bridges... I wonder how much of the western (especially US) dominance it will erode in the long run, especially with the whole "Use frozen Russian assets to finance the Ukrainian war effort" shenanigans, this will make a lot of foreigners from shady countries think twice before investing/moving/buying here. It's far too complex to grasp so I guess we'll have to wait for history books of the 2100s

I’m not at all in favor of the assert confiscation I witnessed - but - why should we care about investors from shady countries of all places?

Because they'll go somewhere else, and probably use some other currency, which will weaken the dollar in the long run and god knows what will happens once the US loses its de facto world bank status. This is not the straw that will break the camel's back yet, we're probably far from that, but it's one more event that goes in this direction.

The point of controlling the world's financial plumbing would seem to be that you can use it as a weapon, but paradoxically if you ever actually do use it as a weapon, it stops being one. Seems like maybe the sword was made of butter the whole time?

But what about the poor Russian/Saudi/Chinese investors? /s

It's more about the dollar losing its status of default global currency in the long run, with more and more emerging countries growing increasingly defiant and worried about these questions and with the sanctions pushing Russia away from US/EU banks/tech/services it's natural that they'll start thinking more seriously about building alternatives on their side.

I don't care about foreign investors, I don't care much about the US either, but if the dollar continues to lose relevance (albeit very slowly, but increasingly faster) you have to wonder what will the far future bring.

It's more of a though experiment than anything for me, I'm just curious about how all of this will end in 50-100 years

Which of these emergent countries' investors are switching away from the dollar? Governments and transactions, sure, but as long as God's greenbacks are the dominant transactional currency for investments, I don't see any adverse issues with it. Chinese, Arab, Indian and Russian investors all prefer the dollar for external investments, or the Swiss franc in niche cases. The investor classes don't really give a damn about what their respective governments vacillate about jingoistically.

Maybe it's for the best I don't have to compete with investors from shady countries to buy myself an apartment in London. Competing on the market with people who make their money off shady practices is unrealistic. We somehow accept that everybody needs to abide by our local laws but it's fine to accept their money, or as Russians say "money doesn't smell".

> Maybe it's for the best I don't have to compete with investors from shady countries to buy myself an apartment in London

Oh yeah for sure, I'm more thinking about the global economy than real estate. imho foreigners shouldn't be able to buy real estate unless they actually live in the country in the first place

But look at gas for example, EU used to buy it straight from Russia, now Russia sells it to India, which sells it to EU and take a cut on top: Russia didn't lose anything, India gains from it, the EU gets the same good at a higher price.

so i guess nothing should be done about russian agression .. whats freedom and global stability when a few pennies of licensing fees are at stake

You can do plenty but if what you do:

- doesn't work because we're still buying and selling to them through third parties

- impact yourself more than the enemy

- is detrimental to your long term goals

You can start asking questions...

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/fuels-russian-oil-ge...

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd....

Switching from AWS/Azure to Alibaba Cloud by the end of the month ???. Good luck with that one.

Sanctions works if you don't have the money, technical or the knowledge to replicate the technology with your own.

China is willing to spend huge sums to subsidize their way out of technology dependence on the West but who is going to buy subpar products unless you sell it on the dirt cheap???.

Huawei used to be a leading Android cellphone brand worldwide - it tanked to nothing giving up market share to the likes of Xiaomi/Oppo/Vivo when the US cut them off from using the latest mobile chips from Qualcomm or getting their own ones made by TCSM and the latest Android/Google Play.

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