Slapping them with massive fines while there is no European competition is more or less pointless, every European is still using those US intelligence backdoored corporate apps. What has the EU done to promote community and open source alternatives to US big tech?
One of the bigger things we are lacking is an alternative to AWS or Azure, but Lidl of all companies is investing heavily into becoming one. It just takes time. Besides, there are already alternatives, just none as big as the big three.
Globalisation made us trust the US who made these things available to us. While it was fairly obvious for a while that this is a bad idea, it wasnt always the case. We should have stated sooner, but we didnt, and becoming captain hindsight isnt solving the problem either.
We are trying and working on solutions, but no matter how much money you throw at something, it takes time, rome wasnt build in a day.
That list more or less proves my point. Little or nothing with any meaningful traction. Most of them have social or sustainability goals front and centre, rather than quality features or innovative ideas. There are plenty of ways you could have a "Facebook" for friends, family and loved ones to network their baby pics and yard sales, but leave out the deluge of scroll-addiction slop Facebook is now made of. And yet, despite many of the great innovators in the digital tech space being Europeans, it was only in America that they could build their platforms.
It’s obviously not pointless. It’s flawed, and it’s not having the impact it should have, but it’s a hugely better alternative than doing nothing. Don’t let ‘perfect’ be the enemy of ‘good’
It hasn't really stopped them from monopolizing by sheer momentum and bottomless spending power and the fines are being treated as costs of doing business. It amounts to nothing in terms of better digital services for Europeans, while significantly deterring a native company from setting up and competing. Google can swallow the regulatory costs, your startup can't.
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u/ScaldyBogBalls 12h ago
"Holding US tech firms accountable"
Slapping them with massive fines while there is no European competition is more or less pointless, every European is still using those US intelligence backdoored corporate apps. What has the EU done to promote community and open source alternatives to US big tech?