Hacker News Reader

Comment by zppln | Hacker News Reader

While I do find it an interesting exercise to reflect over my own choices of products and services and consider how I could divest myself from relying on ones provided by US companies (and I do agree Europe is too reliant on the US in some regards), it is a bit sad to see how quickly things are spiraling here. People really love to have a clear enemy...

View on HN

I don't think anyone loves this but it's the most rational response to the threats made by the US government against its former allies.

The US is threatening to take my home country by force and subjugate us. Maybe that context helps understand?

I'd always rather, if possible, give my money to a company that pays their tax where I do. That's simple self interest.

Self interest is not something to be proud of.

It is when its the most ethical choice.

When the actions you would take if you were acting entirely out of self interest and the actions that are the most ethical align with each other, then it's okay to take those actions, which is the case here and that's fine. I just mean that the primary reason shouldn't be self interest.

If you walk into a European supermarket, fashion store or MediaMarkt there is very little coming from the US. The giant container ships are coming from the East not the West.

The chips and software in a lot of those products are coming from the US, even if the final products are manufactured in the East.

The US makes the biggest margins from valuable IP and software services, not from mass produced widgets coming in shipping containers.

Chips made with Dutch chip fabrication technology to English chip designs...

The software situation is grim but maybe open source somewhat ameliorates that...

>Chips made with Dutch chip fabrication technology

Using american EUV light sources....this train of who makes what in the supply chain can go on forever, the point is who's making the highest margins from the end product and it's not ASML nor ARM but Nvidia, AMD, Qualcomm, Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc.

Hence my point that while EU has some IP, its value is dwarfed by the IP the US makes. Just look at market cap of US vs European tech sector. It's not even a competition. ASML can't offset that. I think Apple has enough cash in the bank to buy ASML if they wanted to.

The profits aren't the point. The questions that Europeans are asking themselves as shown in the featured article is how far away they are from independence from an untrustworthy trading partner.

Sure. My microwave from 1988 is about the only thing made in the US in my home (interstingly an Electrolux). However, every purchase I make is with a Visa card. Most services I use are American. And as I'm typing this... anyone know a European alternative to SwiftKey? :P

> anyone know a European alternative to SwiftKey? :P

Sadly, SwiftKey is/was actually a UK company that was acquired by Microsoft. Most successful European tech start-ups seem to end up being acquired by one of the American tech giants. Perhaps this is will be ending now.

Electrolux is Swedish though. Or you mean it was actually built in the US but sold by Electrolux?

Built in the US and sold by Electrolux, yes.

Well, it's not really to have a clear enemy. It's an effort to avoid having one.

The day the US drops the Cloud Act would be the death of all European CSPs. Until then, cloud offerings not subject to it will thrive, and the US will be seen as hostile.

And for all other subjects, it's a simple matter of not putting all of your eggs in the same basket. Having privileged trade partners is a good thing, but it becomes a bad one when it's a partner (singular). Today, the US has full power on Europe's tech landscape, which is concerning, even if it's a friend country.

Oh, and I say a "friend country", but given the latest announcements where the US Govt. clearly targets Europe and wants to sanction it (e.g. tariffs on French exports), the friend is turning around.

TL;DR today Europe does not see the US as an enemy. But it does everything for it to never happen, and this include reducing the dependency on the US.

You don't need an enemy for this sort of campaign to make sense. It should be common sense to prefer local products, and even more so to avoid extreme dependencies like the one most of the West has on American tech companies.

In my view, we (Europe) have long been acting foolishly by passively sitting in the back seat and allowing the US to drive for us, thereby creating a radical dependency. This wouldn't be healthy even if the US were the most loyal ally. What Trump's antics are doing is trigger a return to what should have always been the norm.

Trump isn't really giving anyone the choice with talking about annexing its allies. You seem to be blaming the victim here.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com