Comment by noir_lord
4 hours ago
Since it appears to have gotten hugged to death - https://web.archive.org/web/20260908084626/https://ciphercue...
Not really unexpected, US domination of "tech" is near total, even if the sustained political will exists (and I'm not sure it will for long enough) unwinding that is the expensive work of years/decades not months.
Doing it in a way that won't invite retaliation from the US Gov (which seems more and more like the PR arm of US big tech) is even trickier.
Personally I think we absolutely should, I just don't think we will.
Barring them doing something so egregiously awful we don't have the choice, Governments can move fast when they want to but efficient government scares the shit out of me because it rarely happens outside of a genuinely serious crisis.
>> US domination of "tech" is near total.
Not quite when considering China having the tech freedom they wanted. Also switching internet services is far easier than switching physical supply chains. The only thing that might be hard to switch is the part of the interent backbone infra that is controlled by USA.
You are not living in Europe, right? Because while I agree that China is a problem, the USA is a much, much bigger problem for Europeans than China is right now. It's mostly the USA that wants to depict China as the main problem when in reality the USA behaves in a hugely aggressive colonial manner. Trump just makes this more obvious, but that has been the case way before Trump already.
Please speak for yourself. Not everyone in Europe thinks US is bigger problem than China. For many China is far bigger geopolitical threat since they openly support Russia in its current war.
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This is all in your head. We just expect people in Europe to begin picking up more of the tab for things like NATO, and don't want our enemies (your enemies if in western/central Europe too, BTW) to get control of future energy/minerals. You call it "aggressive colonial control", Americans call it "time for Europe to accept more financial and personal responsibility.
What? Go ask almost anyone in Asia outside Mainland China.
They all consider China to be the aggressor because they are. E.g., Tibet or India.
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This is such a hilariously delusional comment. Who do you think is financially backing the Russians who bomb your cities?
When Trump talks about doing the anti colonial thing and withdrawing troops from European soil, the response is outrage.
But I've learnt that iPhones and social media is American imperialism, but thousands of troops in dozens of military bases on European soil is not, somehow.
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Ironic that an article about a CDN was hugged to death. The free plan with a couple of caching rules could have sorted that.
> Doing it in a way that won't invite retaliation from the US Gov (which seems more and more like the PR arm of US big tech) is even trickier.
You mean the US government working towards the interests of its people and economy? Which government wouldn't? It's kinda what we want it to do.
I don’t want my government to be a corporate controlled army for the big corps in my country.
I think if you think it's in the interest of the people of the USA for the country to be a cynical, overt, quixotic, childish bully on a global basis, including acting as goons on behalf of tech companies, that's an opinion you are certainly entitled to.
Didn’t you read the memo? Only European govts or China can act in the interests of their people and companies but if the US does that it is immoral.
I agree with what you’re inferring. But that said, there’s a valid argument to be had that—for some things—your own government is a unique threat that other people’s governments are not, or less so.
I’m Australian, and if I was worried about the practical legal risk of being tracked online by a government, it’s mostly concern about my own. A foreign friendly government is mid tier: it’s unlikely that five eyes is an intel firehouse, so it’s unlikely for your petty domestic matter to be communicated. A foreign hostile government is probably safer if you’re committing domestic crimes.
One difference is, EU or China don't act as global hegemon and claim to promote freedom, democracy and free markets for everyone.
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Yeah, I think only in crypto the non-us providers have a leg up, because running a node just needs an instance.
> Doing it in a way that won't invite retaliation from the US Gov (which seems more and more like the PR arm of US big tech) is even trickier.
It's not the so-called retaliation of the US government that leads to European inefficiencies like paying notaries thousands of euros to read out a contract to you (several discussions going around about this in Germany recently).
This is ultimately just a boogeyman. European governments love to blame someone else for their inefficient and bureaucratic processes that stifle innovation and are slowly becoming the laughing stock of the tech world.
If they really want a thriving tech industry, EU should:
- Normalize laws and regulations relating to commerce and online activities throughout the EU. Get rid of the notary crap. While you are at it, get rid of the impressum (why the fuck should I need to post my home address on my website?).
- Ensure that these normalized regulations are available in the tens of languages across the EU
- Invest heavily in telecom and data center infrastructure and software on a European-wide basis. The current AI bubble will see a downturn but data centers and connectivity infrastructure can be reused for EU-based cloud services.
- Invite the UK back in once they are an actual economic powerhouse that can speak with one voice.
Of course none of this will ever get done because EU bureaucrats would rather be in a perpetual hand-wringing mode while blaming the Big Bad US Boogeyman for all their problems.
Upstream of all of those things is whether it's an actual priority for the ruling classes, or not. The politicians and bureaucrats are downstream of that, and physically incapable of wagging the dog.
lots of efficient government happens outside of a serious crisis, but then you don't notice it.
> Doing it in a way that won't invite retaliation from the US Gov (which seems more and more like the PR arm of US big tech) is even trickier.
I'm thinking the opposite might be the way to go here.
We already know that "retaliation" comes from the US government regardless if you did something or not, so most of us (Europeans) have stopped pretending there is a way of preventing it.
Even more, if we piss off Trump enough, he might be dumb enough to try to block European access to CloudFlare, or something similar and maybe even dumber.
So with this, maybe the goal should actually be to try to piss off Trump and the US administration as much as possible, in order for them to start reacting and cutting off some stuff, so we (again, Europeans) basically gets forced off CloudFlare et al.
Lots of companies already finished moving away from storing their primary data in the US, lots of companies is in process of doing so (albeit some look like they'll take forever) but also lots of companies still aren't prepared for the future, would be nice if US government could make the decision a bit easier for them to make :)
While I theoretically agree, the issue is that Trump will connect economical issues to blowing up NATO Article 5, leaving NATO completely, or retracting intelligence or Starlink for Ukraine.
So for the most part, the EU has to work slowly and under the radar.
That said, my worry is that we'll be back to business as usual if the midterms look favorable. Even the urgency present during January's Greenland threats was gone after a few months. I fear that we don't have the long-term focus and planning to make sovereignty really happen. But I'd love to be surprised.
> So for the most part, the EU has to work slowly and under the radar.
How convenient. If it wasn't for the US, the EU would work really fast and in the open! That is totally believable.
I asked the Swedish Prime Minister this question almost verbatim on Reddit two days ago and he responded. The answer was ... understated.
https://www.reddit.com/r/sweden/comments/1w8p0z4/comment/p84...
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I don't think the EU has the capability to work fast and just is opting not to.
> Even the urgency present during January's Greenland threats was gone after a few months.
There are troops deployed on Greenland right now ready to defend the island. The threat is not gone from the minds of the people there or in the rest of Europe just because you stopped reading about it on CNN or whatever.
Edit: I got curious if this part is even possible:
> leaving NATO completely
Apparently not. Congress enacted a specific prohibition in 2023, now codified at 22 U.S.C. §1928f. It says that the president may not "suspend, terminate, denounce, or withdraw" the US from the North Atlantic Treaty unless either two-thirds of senators present consent, or Congress passes an Act authorizing it. It also prohibits federal funds from being used to carry out an unauthorized withdrawal.
Seems some parts of the US has indeed managed to setup defenses against such idiocracy.
Trump doesn't need to block European access to Cloudflare when Europe already blocks European access to Cloudflare on weekends. In Spain and Italy. And yet, this hasn't deterred European businesses from using Cloudflare and blocking their own customers.
Great, more misinformation. "Europe" doesn't block access to Cloudflare on weekends in either Spain nor Italy. Source: I live in Spain, and I'm affected by the blocks you're referring to, that happen because of shitty Spanish judges forcing Spanish ISPs to block access to specific Cloudflare properties.
Why not take even two seconds to check if what you're guessing about, might actually be correct or not? Or the goal is just FUD here?
> And yet, this hasn't deterred European businesses from using Cloudflare and blocking their own customers.
Maybe because the impact of these blocks aren't as large as you allude to? Things change, these blocklists get updated. What was blocked 6 months ago no longer is, when these anti-piracy blocks happen.
Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with these blocks at all, and AFAIK, they break both national laws and wider "rights", but lets not pretend it's bigger than what it is in reality.
> Personally I think we absolutely should, I just don't think we will.
I think many millions in the EU want to. The problem is that the current EU "politicians" are just US lobbyists. You can see it when Leyen signed the surrender treaty with her Overlord-buddy Trump. You can not fix the EU with such lobbiysts in place - and it's not just Leyen alone. Look at Merz - the guy basically is a tool used by US companies. He is not the brightest but very loyal to the USA. More than to the people who voted for him (and now curse themselves for having made such a big mistake).
Compared to the Spanish empire, Napoleon and Hitler the Americans are but whiny children. It would be one last hurrah for my country to break away.