Comment by scotty79
12 days ago
> Sanctions?
Go ahead. In every blackmail there's a point where the only way forward is through.
> What does the target country do if Microsoft and Apple stop sales and support with immediate effect?
Apple makes luxury toy electronics. Hardly anyone is going to miss those in the world. And Microsoft support does nothing. It's way easier to fix your Microsoft products by cracking them than it is to go through MS "support". And it's often fixed this way in smaller companies and for private users. Freeing large companies to fix their MS stuff would actually improved the support.
What really locks everything in is the cloud. First step to sovereignty must be escaping US cloud services. Huh, I guess that's why everybody is trying to do what they can to move their stuff off American servers. Everybody is already preparing for post-American internet.
> Apple makes luxury toy electronics. Hardly anyone is going to miss those in the world.
I agree with your point, the world needs to start looking at alternatives to American big tech, especially for sovereign needs. However, this is the one thing that I think will keep countries bowing down to the US and it's increasing international relations insanity: people want their shiny toys. We're OK on the gaming front, now Xbox is basically dead, and PlayStation/Nintendo are Japanese companies. There's already alternatives to Steam on the PC front.
I think the whole take-back-digital-sovereignty will be a much harder sell for the people who love their iPhones. Until we get some open operating system with cloned apple hardware. I don't see that happening anytime soon though because it will take tens or hundreds of billions in investment (not even R&D investment, but pure capital) to pull off. China looks like they might have done it for their native market. They've certainly done it for EVs.
> And Microsoft support does nothing.
By "support" I did not mean "user calls with a problem", I mean, "allowing those windows and office installations to talk to any Microsoft cloud".
It means that Windows bricks itself after not talking to the mothership for a few days/weeks/months.
It means that no new updates are rolled out.
It means that any licensed computer that talks to MS gets a response of "you are not licensed!"