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Comment by rukshn | Hacker News Reader

I find the Europe's relationship with tech to be wired, there is one section that is hardcore-opensource fanatics, they want to host everything by themselves, and want to go through the trouble of keeping things updated, and would not want to use a close source tools even though they are developed by European counterparts.

On the other side there are people who are techy but happy to use US products, and when you pitch something European they would cite some tool that's better and bigger in US.

It's hard to find people who are in the middle who would like to pay and use a EU made tool.

Also processes take forever, and everything has to go through lot of meetings, and bureaucracy and red-tape and no one is willing to take a chance on a small startup.

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I think the reason for this is that if you're targeting folks for whom Europe-sovereignty resonates as an important factor, those will also care about sovereignty and self-sufficiency in general, and thus just skip your SaaS and go right for (semi) self-hosting.

While for the other side where the sovereignty is not an important factor, it's product quality that matters.

You can absolutely make a European startup that sells B2B SaaS, successfully, it just has to be better than the competition, and being European will not be enough.

Why would i want an inferior option just because it's made in the EU? I'm not an EU nationalist, i don't care if "EU Tech Companies" are a thing. If anything "EU Tech Sovereignty" is a net negative for me.

> If anything "EU Tech Sovereignty" is a net negative for me.

Is it? If you live in the EU, the fact that pretty much all companies completely depend on US tech to work means that the US can not only spy on them (if Airbus uses Microsoft Teams, then the US government can ask Microsoft to give them access to the data and use that to help Boeing win contracts for instance), but also put pressure on those companies by blocking their access to that tech (it has happened).

The "sovereignty" part here is a net positive for anyone living in the EU. Net negative for anyone living in the US of course, because being in a dominant position does favour the US.

The default stance should be that nothing you do is private on the internet. If we're talking spying then no service in any country will be secure unless fully encrypted with audits. Any country with an intelligence agency can force companies in their jurisdiction to give them access to data otherwise.

Not sure what you are trying to say, except that it confirms my point: if a company in say, Germany, uses Microsoft and Google services for all their communications, then the US (!) can just get access to all their data.

Now if that company was using services based in Germany, then only Germany could access that data, which is obviously much less of a sovereignty problem (Germany interfering with Germany's affair is just a normal government).

Sure for a German company in Germany that's perfectly reasonable, but we're not talking about each country in Europe having their own copy of AWS/Stripe/Search.

In reality all the data will be in France/Germany/Netherlands because that is where the infrastructure is. They also happen to be countries with world class intelligence agencies.

We need better services and protocols developed with privacy in mind from the beginning, no matter where it's hosted.

> but we're not talking about each country in Europe having their own copy of AWS/Stripe/Search.

We're not talking about having hyperscalers in each country, but I could totally imagine each country having infrastructure.

> In reality all the data will be in France/Germany/Netherlands

Having the choice between 3 European countries is already a lot better than giving all the data to the US. The US has been a lot more hostile to European countries than "the intersection of hostility from France/Germany/Netherlands".

> We need better services and protocols developed with privacy in mind from the beginning, no matter where it's hosted.

Sure, I agree with that. But one doesn't prevent the other. Typically it's not practical to run LLMs in a privacy-preserving manner, so it's a lot better (in terms of sovereignty) to run a server in a place you trust than in a hostile country.

> Having the choice between 3 European countries is already a lot better than giving all the data to the US. The US has been a lot more hostile to European countries than "the intersection of hostility from France/Germany/Netherlands".

History shows conflict seems to be inevitable. You can't assume all European nations will be friendly forever. I'm American, but my hope is that this knee-jerk reaction to just move everything possible to EU has more thought behind it. Improving upon what we currently have especially with respect to privacy so that everyone in the world may benefit rather than just clone American tech and calling it a day.

Not sure you understood my point.

- IF you can choose to rely on one of [France, Germany, Netherland], then you would need to be in conflict with all three to be screwed.

- IF you can choose to rely on a service in your country, it's better for sovereignty.

Overall, it's all better for competition. The best would be competing services sharing an open core (or even everything).

> this knee-jerk reaction to just move everything possible to EU

The thought is that if you are in the EU, in terms of sovereignty you are better off giving your data to EU services. US companies give their data to US services, so of course it is much less of an issue there. And Americans are not the last to complain when US companies give their data to non-US companies...

Well, where do you live?

I live in an EU country and care deeply for the right to erasure and our consumer rights. The EU legislature does some good things on that front. I "care" for EU tech companies as much as I can care for any company currently. I think technological sovereignty is and will be important moving forward, for our economic resilience, infrastructure stability, among other things.

BTW "EU nationalist" just sounds like an oxymoron to me.

Which is why we’re putting our entire digital identification infrastructure in the hands of Google and Apple. EU technological sovereignty is a kafkaesque affair, and that’s putting it mildly.

I concur, except about the "putting it mildly" part. The digital ID stuff feels kafkaesque, sure, but not more. It's good lobbying at play, and I'm sure we'll find a way moving forward.

Assuming that most Europeans would be loyal to the EU is like assuming that most US Americans are loyal to Donald Trump (or Biden). But in reality a big enough proportion of Europeans see the EU as a hostile foreign influencing force.

Or, to put it another way, do you think any Americans use Microsoft or Apple products out of patriotism or fear of being dependent on technology from other nations?

> But in reality a big enough proportion of Europeans see the EU as a hostile foreign influencing force.

Yeah, I have to doubt your perceived reality here. Can you name some of these "hostile foreign influences"?

The big competitor to Apple is Google, whereas the big competitor to Microsoft is Linux/FOSS IMHO. I'm sorry to be blunt, but in the current political climate I couldn't care less what any Americans are using and for whatever reason. EU citizens on the other hand sure got a few reasons during the last decade due to foreign American politics.

> Can you name some of these "hostile foreign influences"?

The name is the European Union. It is the foreign entity to Europeans. If you doubt that there is a big portion of Europeans who aren't pro-EU, then I guess you doubt that there are Americans who aren't pro-Trump?

Anyway, there were referendums in many countries on the subject of joining the EU, and you can look at those and see that not 100% of the population voted yes.

So it is a false assumption that Europeans would by default have any loyalty or goodwill towards the EU, although I'm sure that a big portion of them do. Especially in some countries.

> not 100% of the population voted yes.

Well, call me surprised! Which democratic election ever achieves a one-sided 100%?

Still, the majority of the EU population seems to in favor of the EU, whereas the majority of the US citizens are pro-Trump, or they were during the last election at least. So I don't really understand what you're arguing for here.

If the location of something is a part of what you use to decide what to use, then if it's in the EU which is your preferred location, it no longer is "an inferior option", it might end up your only option.

But clearly you don't care, so understandably that choice doesn't make sense for you, that's all fine and good. But still you have to understand other people/organizations than you might have different requirements? Or is that a very foreign concept?

You switch from talking about Europe to talking about the EU half way through. The article was about Europe (excluding Russia and a few others).

> there is one section that is hardcore-opensource fanatics, they want to host everything by themselves, and want to go through the trouble of keeping things updated

Using Cloudflare, AWS etc. does not mean you do not have to keep things updated. Using an SaaS does. The numbers in the article count both.

There are plenty of people who use FOSS only and non-US hosting, and still use Cloudflare.

> On the other side there are people who are techy but happy to use US products, and when you pitch something European they would cite some tool that's better and bigger in US.

A preference for what they already know (maybe reinforced by marketing). Its not that they prefer American products, but American dominance means it is what everyone already knows.

Computer software is so incredibly cheap in a business setting (that includes public sector) compared to all other tools and expenses, that it always makes sense to pay for and use the most feature complete software you can get.

There are not many big vendors that are EU first apart from SAP, SuSE and a handful more. Nothing similar to what MS, IBM, Google, Intel, AMD , Nvidia or Meta provide.

> Nothing similar to what MS, IBM, Google, Intel, AMD , Nvidia or Meta provide.

That's a bit of a feature, I don't think the EU should want TooBigTech monopolies. Doesn't mean that there cannot be successful services in Europe.

> I find the Europe's relationship with tech to be wired

I don't think it's weird: almost nobody cares, they just use whatever they know/is free. It turns out it is US tech. It's the exact same situation in the US, except that for them it is not a sovereignty issue.

Now maybe there is a bigger open source community in Europe, but I don't see a problem with that.

Well it's because few people have "European-ness" as a strong personal value. Some people have strong values around open-source, or even around the specific country, but the sense of being European and valuing European things is just not very widespread, so in absence of a specific personal value, they pick the cheapest/biggest/most-known option which is usually American.

This is quickly changing though: my subjective take is that the US antagonism is pushing people away from American product AND making the European identity stronger.

> It's hard to find people who are in the middle who would like to pay and use a EU made tool.

I think that’s because people who aren’t part of the open source FOSS camp don’t care where the services they use are based. And the people who don’t care tend to choose whatever is the easiest and most popular option. Hold on, did I just restate your whole point? Maybe I did.

Its. You know. Look around. What our elites and noble families concot. Wirecard. etc.

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