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.
Ugh. So bored reading all these words without any mention of raping the populace for profits.
- US policy makers, probably
Trump doesn’t get Taxes doesn’t he
Why would he? He doesn’t pay them.
Trump knows he has complete power and control.
Far from it, but he has a surprisingly large number of ass kissers. Good luck maintaining orange baby’s favor though.
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.
you mean musk
Wonder what the correct answer is… should everybody in the world put even higher taxes on big tech now, or better taxes + tariffs?
Maybe using Regulation (EU) 654/2014.
This comment explains it a bit: https://feddit.nl/comment/15162357
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.
He has said it is his favorite word.
Would someone explain the etymology of it to him, he might change his mind.
It won’t.
The seminar name Tariff-ic.
I am so sick of all this shit. It’s only been like a month.
Dude I’m with you. I want off this fucking ride.
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.
Answer: it can’t!
I mean, technically, we have a federal republic.
While there is supposed to be a division of powers, because it was combined with the first past the post system, it becomes a split political mess, because the combinatorics virtually guaranteed this outcome at some point.
Additionally, instead of a parliamentary republic, just like Brazil, we have the presidential system, which leads to the same problems you guys got with Bolsanaro. Quite literally everything you hear in the media and by our government regarding democracy is and has been propaganda. States have some democratic processes, but for the large part that’s not even true.
The founding fathers were of course aware of all this. They just figured it was useful while separating from Britain and establishing the country, and over time it would better itself because enlightened individuals would remain in power dedicated towards “the more perfect Republic.”
Obviously that didn’t happen and here we are.
where laws work more strictly
That’s never been the case. If anything we’ve been a major source of corruption on the world and particularly for South America for the last 150-200 years. Shit you could easily frame the Cuban revolution and the reaction to American corrupt interests and draw a straight line from drug cartels and bribing coups as well.
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.
Much of the software, especially stuff that the likes of Microsoft provide, already exists, and is already in use. In fact plenty of local administrations have been railing against the EU commission and their insistence on .docx and stuff.
OTOH it’s not trivial to implement, not in the software sense but the institutional one: It doesn’t matter that software that can map complex administrative workflows already exists, you still have to take that stuff and build whatever workflow some agency uses into it.
You also don’t need your own servers, there’s public law hosting providers around. E.g. northern German states founded dataport, if you’re a municipality there it’s a no-brainer to get your software and your cloud, consulting, everything, from them. It’s going to be better than anything you could come up with because you’re not the first municipality to contract with them.
lol what is this pic in the preview?
“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
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.
“failed foreign economies”
Lol. Lmao, even.
Absolute clown.
From the article:
Trump’s opposition to DSTs is not new: the Biden administration felt they disproportionately targeted US businesses and threatened 25 percent tariffs if they were not removed.
And I kind of agree. My understanding is that DSTs are taxes on gross revenues, not profits, and are therefore problematic. It should be net of expenses and apply only to activity in that region.
“disproportionately targeted US businesses”
You want to have a monopoly, well guess what…
Who knew that Trump was so into Hawaiian solidarity. Gonna make the whole nation into an expensive island.
And this is how trump will stop immigration. Take away everything that makes people want to immigrate here like good jobs, a good economy, high standards of living… etc.
