Comment by simonask
4 hours ago
> In the event of some schism …
In the views of most Europeans, that schism already happened.
Europe was perfectly happy to rely on US software and services for decades. None of the large US tech companies would be nearly as profitable if they hadn’t had a whole continent of wealthy customers, and no competition.
I don’t think Americans are realizing yet how much has changed for us the past two years.
Early this year I was thinking "will I still have access to this service if they invade Greenland?"
Never had to do it before. That's how much it has changed.
That's your fantasy. Reality is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49607443
It doesn't happen overnight, but the adversarial behaviour of the current administration and the tariffs really changed the perspective about America on many Europeans.
The discussion about building European alternatives had never been so mainstream. If and once they emerge, I think the shift will happen. But let's see
The reality seems to be that for decades Europe gave only lip service to decoupling from American tech infrastructure, but in the last couple of years America has gone from being seen as a strong ally to being a major risk.
It will take time to move. Frankly as an American I hope it takes a long time and we get our shit together and rebuild our alliance with Europe. But it’s possible that the damage is not reversible in the next couple of decades and Europe will accelerate their decoupling. It’s also possible we continue to slide into imperialist authoritarianism (and Europe definitely accelerates their decoupling).
It's a slow shift, but it's coming. For instance, Airbus already picked a French AWS replacement (Scaleway). It won't be all, it won't be tomorrow, but "what happens if we get tariffed / they invade Greenland" is already part of everyone's disaster planning.
None of the European automotive company would be as profitable were it not the US market. I don't think Europeans are realizing that.
I think it is perfectly understood. But we don't feel we are the ones that deteriorated the relationship, we are just reacting to it