I desperately desperately desperately want to read a headline that says “Ukraine signs rare mineral agreement with the European Union. Ukraine becomes a member of the EU and the EU gets large resources of rare minerals to supercharge their own homegrown tech industry and divest it from the United States of Trump”
Why would you expect that? Wasn’t the whole deal first offered by Zelensky anyways? He was offering this along with using Ukrainian people as combat slaves. Points 4 and 5 here https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/plan-peremogi-skladayetsya-z-pyati-punktiv-i-troh-tayemnih-d-93857
I don’t expect it. I just hope for it because it would be the most big-dick-energy move Zelensky can pull on Trusk.
Switch to open source everywhere, especially in government systems
Drop Microsoft, block meta, Google, and just get rid of Amazon
It would probably take decades to unplug older systems but with a gradual approach we could probably get rid of most of it quite fast.
I wonder how much public money is wasted in Microsoft crapware, but if any of it would be redirected to open source fundings (which is actual common good) it may be a huge deal.
Thanks Mr Trump - this really helps us sell our non-US technology to the Europeans. Keep on making stuff great again 🤘
I think the world would be a better place if we collectively perma-banned all American digital services (while helping NGOs/open source projects relocate their infrastructure and legal organisations out of the US).
There would be a lot more competition, a wider variety of product offerings, more regional customisation, a bigger focus on long tail services.
It would be messy at first, but that’s the nature of a transition from an oligarch model to a competitive model.
While what I am saying may sound like a pipe dream or pettyness, but from my perspective everything starts from a small step.
And if you don’t live in the US (but are unfortunately impacted by their internal politics), you do have to take a more sober attitude towards their claimed commitment to democracy, free markets and rule of law.
Yes, in the new “might is right” world Trump is pushing for, it’s better to start pushing back or get pushed over. In his “make a deal” world view, better to say to ban everything outright in two weeks. In his typical fashion, some compromises might appears the next day. Losing a few hundred million customers and large amounts of influence will sting him and his supporters.
I would argue the goal should be actually permanently getting rid of American technology services as opposed to getting a deal.
By this point American business leaders (not only in tech) have decisively proven that they are not any better than say russian oligarchs; a group of corrupt criminals who will happily support authoritarianism as long as they get to keep their businesses interests.
Plus allowing another countries tech to be embedded into government and services, military, and any other critical operations is an omnipresent national security risk. Doesn’t matter if they’re an ally.
Democracies should be run on 100% open source. The developed world could collectively employ less engineers than big tech and I am certain they could produce a better ecosystem of services, both through contributions to existing projects as well as greenfield, that would also provide wide reaching benefits to every other economy… and they could do it cheaper than big tech. It’s easy to beat private companies that must enshittify to achieve constant profit growth.
you mean musk
I am so sick of all this shit. It’s only been like a month.
That’s exactly how I felt when Bolsonaro was in power in Brazil. He at least became ineligible for being responsible for our equivalent of the capitol invasion in Brasília, and is possibly going to jail.
It still baffles me that the US is supposed to be a country where laws work more strictly, and yet everything Trump did in his previous term—from obstruction of justice to inciting the January 6th Capitol riot—seems to have been met with limited accountability. How can a nation uphold its democratic principles if the mechanisms designed to check power are perceived as being selectively applied?
The main difference is that the Brazilian Supreme Court judges have a spine, while American SC judges have an RV.
It’s almost like Trump when to a seminar on the incredible healing power of tariffs, and believed every word he heard.
Baby learned a new word and it’s eager to show it off.
“failed foreign economies”
Lol. Lmao, even.
Absolute clown.
I’m in Australia and I would like to say something about that. Come at us you stupid fascist cunt.
American here.
They’re like any other bully.
Break their nose.
Part of the reason why I’ve recommended US based services to my Canadian clients was because of its speed due to proximity. Now that net neutrality has been gutted and ISPs are free to artificially slow down their services a la carte, the speed advantage is questionable. Now I recommend services in Canada where I find them and European alternatives when no closer ones are available.
I don’t pick based on country of origin, I pick based on privacy and other features. Unfortunately, that seems to knock out most US based services, which is sad because I’m American.
Looks like it’s time for some alternatives. I look forward to watching this.
Us Europe trade war in 5…
The EU established an ACI (Anti-cooersion instrument) in 2023 that would be devastating to US interests.
Included in their response would be the suspension of all US intellectual property rights in Europe.
Lol, Trump is a clown. If netflix or other big tech is charging me for using their service in my country, and they have legal presence and activity in my country, they should be charged taxes in my country because they are generating econimic activity.
“It’s time to be tough on Big Tech! And by tough, I mean I’m going to give Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg and all the rest the most vigorous blowjobs they have ever felt!” -Dumpy Trumpy
Strange, Big Tech has no inherit right to operate in foreign markets. If they want to be in those markets, they need to pay their fair share. I would be glad to see them pull out of those markets, but that won’t easily happen.
Think of it on the flipside. If I make a website, I don’t control who accesses it, and if I run ads or something, figuring out where that revenue is coming from is quite difficult. It can be done, but if I have to pay taxes to a hundred different countries, that’s quite the burden.
I don’t know how DSTs work in practice, but ideally we’d just discourage ads in general. Paying taxes on actual transactions (sub fees and whatnot) is easy, and ads suck.
figuring out where that revenue is coming from is quite difficult.
Since all countries have long traditions in requiring that from a business, it doesn’t matter if it’s difficult or not.
