A post from /r/BuyFromEU got my blood boiling. I don’t have an account there any longer, so I have to vent here:
Personally, I am not buying into this idea that you should support a certain business just because it is based in your vicinity. I will buy the product that comes at the best price for the quality I desire. If it is Japanese or American or Chinese, so be it.
In my opinion, the BuyFromEU movement will fail unless the governments of EU countries make a serious attempt to understand the reasons why businesses struggle in the EU and address the structural issues preventing them from scaling up.
Essentially, it is the government’s job to fix the reasons why people weren’t buying from EU in the first place. Unless the government cuts down on regulations, unless they makes it easier for people to grow their wealth by working hard and not having to pay 50% of their paycheck in taxes, unless they make electricity and gas cheaper, unless they fix the housing shortages in all major cities of Western Europe - this movement will FAIL. Buying Paturain instead of Philadelphia cream cheese is never going to help your economy grow strong.
My choice to not buy Nike and buy Adidas instead will only help the top bosses at Adidas. I am going to still be taxed at 50% of my income, so I might as well buy the cheapest product. The government should give me a serious incentive to buy European, then I will.
The Reddit OP shows a perfect example of:
- Deflecting towards the government instead of taking personal responsibility
- Complaining about taxes and greedy cooperation, while only looking for a personal financial benefit
We as as Europeans must be willing to be uncomfortable again. We ARE the system. So to change the system, we are the ones that must change. Stop whining, start winning.
One part of the problem, that he’s completely missing is that those are are not fairly competing free market prices. Many of those hegemons like Google gain their positions using what basicly is dumping pricess. They are loosing moment or Gmail, Maps, Drive, Gemini (AI), and many more “free or cheep”. Competitors are buried, bought on, copied, or starved as they need to.compeat with someone who is willing to burn millions. So many services that are leaders in their fields didn’t deliver a single dollar of profit yet. Their literal business plan is “we will take it all back once no one will have a choice anymore”
“Just find a way to compete” is basicly victim blaming at this point.
@Ideonek @guest I don’t think thats the main issue. Europeans (governments, companies and people alike) are prone to make themselves less / smaller than they really are in a #calimerosyndrome We are not ‘show-offy’ enough apparently.
#kSuitePro is cheaper than #MS365 or #Workspace
#magicearth works better than #maps for navigation (less distraction)
#LibreOffice and #Linux just work for 95% of users if they have the will
#nobigtech #unplugtrump #sovereignty
Don’t know much about magicearth,
But workspace have, so much more features than kSuitPro, that this is not even a fiar comparison. Even if you dont count externalities like Gemini, Video, notebookLM…
The convenience of Google Photos is unmatched, buy any corresponding services.
Mistrel AI is a Clippy compared to ChatGPT and Gemini Advenced. Those companies are burning money on every query, but - until they kill everything else - they are generating tremendous value to the users. Idea that Minsterl would be just as popular if only it promote itself without false modesty is hard to defend.
LibraOffice is free, but google sheet is as well, and cloud-ready on top of that.
Linux… sure, but for the same people free chromeOS is just as good if not better becouse more convinient. With google anything is in cloud anyway, right? Sure, Linux is amazing. But it’s not exactly out-of-the-box. And if we count android… And who knows what Fussia will bring?
If you don’t want to pay, Google offer is more convinient. If you do want to pay, it’s broader and more powerful, all things equal.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s a trade of worth making. But pretending it’s easy and that there are no costs is misleading people. I’m doing it. I’m committed. So far I paying twice as much as I did pay for my tech-stack, and there are still gaps that I lost in the process.
But it won’t change, and only be worse if we are not ready to be uncomfortable for a while. It’s a diet. If we oversell how easy it is, people will try and go back to junk food in a minute.
@Ideonek And Mistral (which is also built into #kSuite alongside with sovereign #Llama) isn’t exactly Clippy. Come on…
It sure isn’t perfect / not as good as ChatGPT right now but #LLMs need to LEARN and #Mistral cannot learn if we don’t use it.
Also: a large part of the superiority of #ChatGPT stems from the fact that they scrape copyrighted sources that they actually have no permission to use. Do you want to support that? I sure as heck don’t.
Immortaly gained superiority is exactly my initial point.
@Ideonek Everything you NEED is there, I can assure you. And then some. But if you keep looking for excuses to not make the change, you’ll never do it.
Sure it is uncomfortable. Sure it takes getting used to. I still don’t know everything I probably should about Linux and FOSS. But in the end it brings peace of mind.
Not worrying who looks over your shoulder. Your data is yours. And it works…
I agree on all points, except on you deciding what I need. I would prefer to be the one making that call.
One could argue that pen and paper is all you need. And it would be just as productive.
@Ideonek Either you WANT to support European / private solutions or you don’t. It IS that easy. It’s need vs want
I’ve been a Workspace and MS365 user and Admin for years.
And you are throwing the free and business tiers together like it’s the same. It’s not.
Free? It ain’t free. US companies make you pay with your #data and #privacy. That should be worth SOMETHING to you. It is to them. Millions.
#Linux not out of the box? Is #Windows? How long did it take you to learn that? #nobigtech
I honestly think that approach like this is hurting the movement. You’re dismissive about experience of someone who deleted Microsoft account and canceled most US-based serviced and social media that he was most engaged with. And you’re literally explaining to me how convinient it is to me?
This revolution is way to small, to start eating their own already.