Opinion: Just because you're paranoid about digital sovereignty doesn't mean they're not after you
Opinion I'm an eighth-generation American, and let me tell you, I wouldn't trust my data, secrets, or services to a US company these days for love or money. Under our current government, we're simply not trustworthy.
In the Trump‑redux era of 2026, European enterprises are finally taking data seriously, and that means packing up from Redmond-by-Seattle and moving their most sensitive workloads home. This isn't just compliance theater; it's a straight‑up national economic security play.
Europe's digital sovereignty paranoia, long waved off as regulatory chatter, is now feeding directly into procurement decisions. Gartner told The Reg last year that IT spending in Europe is set to grow by 11 percent in 2026, hitting $1.4 trillion, with a big chunk rolling into "sovereign cloud" options and on‑prem/edge architectures.
The kicker? Fully 61 percent of European CIOs and tech leaders say they want to increase their use of local cloud providers. More than half say geopolitics will prevent them from leaning further on US‑based hyperscalers.
The American hypercloud vendors have figured this out. AWS recently made its European Sovereign Cloud available. This AWS cloud, Amazon claims, is "entirely located within the EU, and physically and logically separate from other AWS Regions." On top of that, EU residents will "independently operate it" and "be backed by strong technical controls, sovereign assurances, and legal protections designed to meet the needs of European governments and enterprises for sensitive data."
Many EU-based companies aren't pleased with this Euro-washing of American hypercloud services. The Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers in Europe (CISPE) trade association accuses the EU Cloud Sovereignty Framework of being set up to favor the incumbent (American) hypercloud providers.
They're not wrong.
You don't need a DEA warrant or a Justice Department subpoena to see the trend: Europe's 90‑plus‑percent dependency on US cloud infrastructure, as former European Commission advisor Cristina Caffarra put it, is a single‑shock‑event security nightmare waiting to rupture the EU's digital stability.
Seriously. What will you do if Washington decides to unplug you? Say Trump gets up on the wrong side of the bed and decides to invade Greenland. There goes NATO, and in all the saber-rattling leading up to the 10th Mountain Division being shipped to Nuuk, he orders American companies to cut their services to all EU countries and the UK.
With the way things are going, they're not going to say no. I mean, CEOs Tim Cook of Apple, Eric Yuan of Zoom, Lisa Su of AMD, and – pay attention – Amazon's Andy Jassy all went obediently to watch a feature-length White House screening of Melania, the universally-loathed, 104‑minute Amazon‑produced documentary about First Lady Melania Trump.
Sure, that's a silly example, but for American companies to do business today, they're kowtowing to Trump. Or, take a far more serious example, when Minnesota company CEOs called for "de-escalation" in the state, there was not one word about ICE or the government's role in the bloodshed. It was the corporate equivalent of the mealy-mouthed "thoughts and prayers" American right-wingers always say after a US school shooting.
Some companies have already figured out which way the wind is blowing. Airbus, the European aerospace titan, has put out a €50 million, decade‑long tender to migrate its mission‑critical applications to a "sovereign European cloud." Airbus wants its whole stack – data at rest, data in transit, logging, IAM, and security‑monitoring infrastructure – all rooted in EU law and overseen by EU operators. As Catherine Jestin, Airbus's executive vice president of digital, told The Register: "We want to ensure this information remains under European control."
Who can blame them? Thanks to the American CLOUD Act and related US surveillance statutes, US‑headquartered providers must hand over European data regardless of where the bytes sit. Exhibit A is that Microsoft has already conceded that it cannot guarantee data independence from US law enforcement. Airbus is betting that "data residency on paper" from AWS‑styled "EU sections" is not enough. Real sovereignty demands EU‑owned and run operations with full contractual and legal firewalls. Sure, your data may live in Frankfurt, but your fate still rests in Seattle, Redmond, or Mountain View if an American company owns your cloud provider.
Besides, do you really want some Trump apparatchik getting their hands on your data? I mean, this is a government where Madhu Gottumukkala, the acting director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, uploaded sensitive data into ChatGPT!
In response, Brussels is pushing an open source‑led exit from hyperscaler lock‑in. Ministries are standardizing on Nextcloud‑style collaboration stacks instead of Microsoft 365 to fund Euro‑native clouds via the European Cloud Alliance. Some countries, like France, are already shoving Zoom, Teams, and other US videoconferencing platforms out the door in favor of a local service.
If you're running an EU‑based firm in 2026, the takeaway isn't that AWS‑in‑Frankfurt is evil; it's that for certain workloads, especially national security, industrial IP, or high‑profile consumer data franchises, EU‑native cloud and services are no longer a nice‑to‑have but a business continuity plan requirement.
It's time to get serious about digital sovereignty. The clock is ticking, and there's no telling when Trump will go off. ®
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Comments
> This isn't just compliance theater; it's a straight‑up national economic security play.
The woes of LLM contrasts…
In all seriousness, the points made ring true not only for European companies and should make everyone consider the implications of the current situation, as dreary as they are.
Yeah, human brain is amazing. After I reading many AI replies, this kind style just stands out, even though I can't precisely describe it.
By MagicMoonlight 2026-02-0114:59 We’re the blade runners of this generation, spotting the replicants in the posts.
To me it is simply good writing, the kind that is found in literature, but feels a bit out of place in discussions on the internet. What makes it stand out is that real English speaker on the internet are way more casual in their writing. I’ve also noticed that non native English speaker are sometimes mistaken for LLMs due to these less casual sentences structure.
By tvshtr 2026-02-0216:27 Yup, exactly. As a non-native speaker, I phrase things a little differently. Also, I’m used to using em dashes (from academia), but now that's considered an AI tell. Shit's dumb.
By DANmode 2026-02-020:33 “This isn’t x,
it’s y.”
Described it pretty well|succinctly the last time I saw it being referenced.
By paradox460 2026-01-3118:062 reply It's not just big, it's large
By eiiot 2026-02-0122:32
By locknitpicker 2026-01-3118:001 reply > Russian and China are already getting rid of Microsoft.
I don't know what you mean by China "getting rid of Microsoft" in the context of cloud providers. I mean, Azure is already present in China's internet, and just like any cloud provider present in China it's presence is a partnership with local cloud providers.
Russia is getting rid of Microsoft not because it has a choice. They are subjected to sanctions due to their invasion of Ukraine, and that essentially cut their access to all tech services. By that measuring stick, Russia is also getting rid of Boeing and Airbus.
By ivan_gammel 2026-01-3119:55 The most interesting part is that they do not rely on Western software solutions (Russia still needs hardware, China may reach full autonomy soon enough). If they could do it relatively quickly, EU can do it too. And EU now has exactly the same incentives.
By UltraSane 2026-02-0217:15 That isn't the same KMS that everyone else uses. It is approved by the CCP so has a backdoor.
By computerthings 2026-01-3116:01 [dead]
While they ditch Microsoft, Amazon and Oracle: we still use Linux, Sel4, ASML and ARM.
There's lots of interesting stuff to watch out for.
What's wrong in using Linux. It is an open source project with origins in Finland and still lead by a Fin.
By amanaplanacanal 2026-01-3120:052 reply Hey, we'd break away if we could.
By tempsaasexample 2026-01-3121:111 reply I spend a month in Oregon every year mushroom hunting and elk hunting.
Once you're away from a few key cities, Oregonians are more conservative and hardcore than even central Californians.
I think you underestimate your state if you think they're anti American.
By amanaplanacanal 2026-02-0117:45 They are a pretty small part of the population though.
By direwolf20 2026-01-3118:552 reply Linus Torvalds is very pro–corporate, pro–tivoization, he thinks GPL3 was a terrible mistake.
Is he pro-tivoization, or is he not against it?
I heard him talk about GPLv3 someday, and what he said was that it was a mistake to call it "GPLv3", as if it was the evolution of GPLv2, because for him it should have been a totally different licence.
Which I find fair: there are different kinds of copyleft (like MPL vs GPL), it makes sense to say that GPLv2 is a different concept than GPLv3. Whereas I don't know if anyone should use GPLv1 because GPLv2 sounds like it fixed GPLv1 without changing its spirit.
By direwolf20 2026-02-029:171 reply GPLv2 was clearly intended to let you change the software on your devices. In some countries, GPLv2 already prohibits tivoization.
However, big tech found an exploit: In some countries, GPLv2 allows tivoization. This was not intended by the authors of the GPLv2. There was another exploit involving patent licenses, and a reverse exploit about license termination that allowed some developers to extort some users. They fixed these and made it the GPLv3. It's a bugfix release, not anything new. You only don't like it if you relied on the bugs.
By palata 2026-02-0213:56 Well, that's not really mutually exclusive with what I said. Those who called it GPLv3 consider it's a bugfix, those who decided to stay on GPLv2 consider it's a new licence.
By imtringued 2026-02-0110:381 reply He is against the "GPLv3 or later clause" because the FSF could change the license terms if it gets hijacked.
By direwolf20 2026-02-0119:49 He is against the GPLv3 itself. He's ideologically opposed to converting the kernel to GPLv3, even if it was possible.
By christophilus 2026-01-3118:03 All of the things OP mentioned are non-US tech. I think the OP was speaking from a US perspective, though it’s not clear.
True but obv. Only lunatics would use a Russian cloud service. The interesting part is whether and what extent China is different. Also, why Europe should start treating us like Russians.
> why Europe should start treating us like Russians.
I don't know, maybe because your president is a dangerous lunatic? I really enjoy these "are we the baddies?" moments.
By spiderfarmer 2026-01-3117:441 reply I’m not sure he’s getting it yet. Maybe he’s just not personally affected yet.
By tempsaasexample 2026-02-0216:48 I usually operate under the opposite world view. If you've been personally affected by something, I no longer really trust you to be fair and honest and logical. I don't want to hear about setting speed limits from someone that lost their child in a car accident.
By throwaway902984 2026-01-3117:471 reply Was that not an imperative statement agreeing with your cathartic comment? A little weird there isn't an explicit "this is why", but asking questions with a poorly conjugated why along with bad punctuation isn't usually a native speakers habit.
By bee_rider 2026-01-3120:28 They said in a follow-up comment that they intentionally wrote something ambiguous, so… I don’t know, I wouldn’t waste too many cycles on comments that are deliberately unclear.
By ericmay 2026-01-3121:11 > The interesting part is whether and what extent China is different
Much worse for the EU, both strategically and economically. You’ll be able to buy Chinese services and give them your data and money, but you won’t be able to operate in their market. Germany is feeling the pain there. [1] Strategically they’re a Russian ally and are actively supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine and further aims against the EU.
Something like Russia -> China -> US as worst to least worst partners.
The EU should invest in technical and military capabilities and divest from reliance on other countries and echos the US American position very closely.
[1] For example https://www.autoblog.com/features/germanys-auto-industry-is-...
By throwaway902984 2026-01-3117:501 reply Are you asking a rhetorical question or making a statement?
By throwaway902984 2026-01-3120:00 I was asking for the other commenters, to clear that up.
By isodev 2026-01-3117:02 > why Europe should start treating us like Russians
Because your CEOs have become power players in your politics and that’s generally a Russian/Oligarch thing.
Like Apple trying to wiggle their way out of the DMA and when their bs arguments fail in court they send peach daddy with tariffs and what not.
By philipallstar 2026-01-3117:175 reply The massive sanctions he's placing on Russian oil make that impossible to believe.
Those can also be explained by favouring usa/venezuela oil while still supporting Russian politics. For example: in the Ukraine war he is constantly seeking ways and arguments to support putins position even though he is one of the few leaders worldwide who do this.
By philipallstar 2026-01-3120:32 They're not favouring - they're even enforcing secondary sanctions on Russian oil on China and India, which is difficult and expensive.
The fact that you can divine pro-Putin things from his speech means nothing compared to him performing massively powerful economic action against Putin.
By varispeed 2026-01-3120:33 These sanctions make no difference, except make people say things like you say.
By throwaway902984 2026-01-3117:45 I think it is fair to separate putin and russia. I mean, I don't think he uses our society as proxy for his own ego. I think he really likes Putin.
By conception 2026-02-010:21 The Trump administrations political positions are effectively a one to one match with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics which Putin aligns strongly with. Knowingly or not, Trump has been a tremendous asset to Russian geopolitics in every sphere.
By spiderfarmer 2026-01-3117:411 reply You must be one of the few who still believes what Trump says to the media after nearly 100k proven lies.
By philipallstar 2026-01-3120:331 reply Is that because there are no primary or secondary sanctions? Or are you just ignoring what I'm saying?
By watwut 2026-01-3122:14 You are ignoring Trump literally adopting Russian proposals and demands in that war as they are. Trump and america flipped sides, seeing Russia as admirable peer and Ukraine as someone who should shut up and put up.
Trump want deals with russia to enrich himself. For that he needs Ukraine to loose. Bad thing is Putin does not have enough, he wants the rest of Europe too.
By prh8 2026-01-3116:44 [flagged]
Just as America would like to reduce its dependence on external production, so to do other countries want to reduce their own. We used to live in a world converging toward maximal international trade, when in fact it was exploiting underdeveloped nations. As we progress globally, and as the development gap shrinks, we have noticed power dynamics which weren't well guarded against in the old way.
So now what? How do we preserve a lot of the efficiencies of the past, while strengthening the resilience and redundancy. How can multiple nations create policy which drives business on partially compatible protocols?
If I allow myself to be optimistic, I'd be hoping for more international lawyers and trade agreements. Protectionism is natural, but taken too far, isolationism is a death sentence.
> we have noticed power dynamics which weren't well guarded against in the old way
The clearest example is a dependency on a single wealthy nation for military and world policing. It's a good thing for individual countries to be able to project their own foreign policy goals like containing Russia without having to rely on the whims of another country's politics. Even here in Canada we should be able to defend their own arctic border reliably and be able to project power to China/India beyond strongly worded letters.
> I'd be hoping for more international lawyers and trade agreements.
Ignoring the US's recent moves there does seem to be more trade deals than ever between 'middle powers'.
> isolationism is a death sentence
The best way to maintain global relationships is to offer tons of value. Similar to how China can get good trade deals and influence simply because they have so much to offer economically. This isn't just issues of diplomacy.
Well said.
One of the USA's greatest exports is intelligence and higher education, and what has been happening with that and the general anti-intellectual atmosphere is to me the most concerning as an american. Ironically, public education in america has been pretty bad for a while. But I'm going to start rambling here... way too many problems, and no damn leadership.
By netfortius 2026-01-3116:18 A country were a lot of its citizens don't have access to basic human or social needs, and equate a demand for that, already available in the rest of developed world, to "far left political activism" - that is really ironic. There is nothing left on the left (pun intended) in today's America.
By jonnybgood 2026-01-3116:45 What is the American spirit to you? It seems to not include political activism. Or at the very least political activism you disagree with.
By gchamonlive 2026-01-3115:451 reply Could you elaborate on what constitutes far-left political activism?
I don’t know if this counts as activism, but I was at my university’s Faculty Club and a faculty member walked over and immediately started bitching about Donald Trump without introducing themselves. Like, you’re supposed to be in the business of developing people. What a gigantic waste of time and money.
By mindslight 2026-01-3117:05 This just sounds like basic social bonding for red blooded Americans these days. Would you have condemned them for similar commiserating in the aftermath of September 11 or Oklahoma City?
By monkey_monkey 2026-01-3116:56 > I don’t know if this counts as activism,
I do. It doesn't.
By tzs 2026-01-3116:49 What about that counts as far left activism?
Nearly every Republican who was in Congress in 2014 would have described at least 3/4 of what Trump has done this term as illegal and totally unacceptable, and would have described at least half of the rest as incompetent.
Unless you can make a case that since 2014 the country has moved so far to the right that even 2014 Republicans are now "far left", about the only thing you can infer from someone bitching about Trump is that they are probably not far right. (Even that one is pretty iffy because he's pissed off a lot of the far right now too).
By UqWBcuFx6NV4r 2026-02-010:32 > I don’t know if this counts as activism …
then you proceed to describe something that in no world would be considered activism.
By jonnybgood 2026-01-3116:37 If they were instead lauding Trump would you also see that as a waste of time and money? If they aren’t doing this in the classroom I don’t see the issue.
By Henchman21 2026-01-3116:43 Sports teams and "after school activitie" are a much much higher priority than teaching. It isn't even close. It seems the only thing we prioritize in education is... entertainment? I'm sure that will be GREAT in a few generations?
By monkey_monkey 2026-01-3116:55 Couching nonsense in faux-politeness just makes you look even more googly-eyed.
>"like containing Russia"
I think at the moment Canada faces way bigger problems from the south.
By locknitpicker 2026-01-3119:191 reply > I think at the moment Canada faces way bigger problems from the south.
Exactly. Not only there's the absurd campaign from the Trump administration on how Canada should be a state but there are also the recent treasonous talks between representatives from the Trump administration and the Alberta separatists.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/eby-alberta-separatism-9.70...
Putin's regime might be a cancer of humanity, but Canadians have far more reasons to feel threatened by the Trump admin than from Putin, even if Trump is a proxy for Putin.
By FpUser 2026-01-3119:50 >"Putin's regime might be a cancer of humanity"
It will go away at some point unless global west will start behaving in the same manner.
By littlestymaar 2026-01-3114:433 reply > like containing Russia without having to rely on the whims of another country's politics
That's true, but at the same time it was probably already the case before invasion of Ukraine, and it is definitely the case now.
The main issue is political fragmentation: would Paris and Berlin risk lives of French and German people (soldiers and civilians due to retaliation) to save Vilnius?
But if the answer is true (as obligated by the Treaty of Maastricht, independently of NATO) then Russia stands no chance with conventional weapons against the whole Western Europe, the balance of military, demographic and industrial power is ridiculously lopsided (involving nuclear weapons would also raise the same political question about the French willingness to nuke Russia in retaliation to Russia nuking Poland but if the answer is yes, Russia cannot win a nuclear war either (which everyone would lose)).
By dvfjsdhgfv 2026-01-3116:102 reply > The main issue is political fragmentation: would Paris and Berlin risk lives of French and German people (soldiers and civilians due to retaliation) to save Vilnius?
This is a wrong question. If one day Russia feels brave enough to attack any NATO country, the right question to ask is, "Do we want to fight this war on someone else's soil or on ours?". This is the reason why Europe is so focused on helping Ukraine BTW.
> Do we want to fight this war on someone else's soil or on ours?
Russia thought so too.
By dvfjsdhgfv 2026-01-3121:262 reply What do you mean? There was never any question of attacking Russia and fighting any war on their soil. Nobody in their right mind would attack a country with the 2nd largest army and nuclear weapons. The war in Ukraine definitely made this army still very weak, but, except Ukraine defending itself, I don't see anyone rushing to attack Russia anytime soon. It makes no sense now and made no sense before they invaded Ukraine. There is nothing to win by attacking Russia and a lot to lose.
The best way to 'attack' Russia is to undermine its economic and political systems then let unrest amongst its citizenry do the dirty work. 1917 showed Russia's proletariat was very effective at achieving regime change.
By dvfjsdhgfv 2026-02-018:421 reply How do you undermine the economic and political system of a country? The economic one can be undermined by sanctions, and they happened only because the war - before that the West was happy to send billions to Russia. The political one seems quite stable, Putin had a few decades to cement it and make sure nobody takes it to the streets, and if someone is brave enough to do it, they will be quickly pacified. He is switching the internet on and off and there is no sign of Russians reacting like Iranians.
By GoblinSlayer 2026-02-0110:361 reply I thought Iran situation is more about sharia than youtube cat videos.
By littlestymaar 2026-02-0112:22 It's not, the current protests are mainly about economic harshness.
By dvfjsdhgfv 2026-02-018:37 Global Firepower maintains a database and is a popular reference: https://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-de...
But I saw several people criticizing their relatively high position on this chart given high incompetence and losses.
EDIT: Apparently this website doesn't follow any rigorous methodology. So basically the only thing their army is 2nd in the world is the nominal number of nukes (hopefully most of them don't work).
By littlestymaar 2026-02-0112:18 > This is the reason why Europe is so focused on helping Ukraine BTW.
We aren't that focused actually. France produced close to zero 155mm shells in 2023 because the producer (les forges de Tarbes) couldn't pay its suppliers due to liquidity issues. That could have been solved by a phone call to the national investment bank (BPI) but lasted 9 months because we don't take things too seriously.
Another example is how negligible was the war in Ukraine in the debate about the government budget for the past two years. If we were serious about helping Ukraine we should be spending so much money it would become a priority topic in budget debates, but it's not the case at all.
I'm deeply disappointed about how complacent we have been for the past 4 years.
The answer is always going to be "maybe", but hopefully enough of a maybe to deter hostile actions. That puts everything in an uncomfortable state of uncertainty.
By bornfreddy 2026-01-3116:081 reply Better uncomfortable state of uncertainty than comfortable state of war. Nuclear or conventional.
By hilbert42 2026-02-017:08 "…comfortable state of war."
No war is "comfortable", it's a distaster for all involved participants—even the victors.
>would Paris and Berlin risk lives of French and German people (soldiers and civilians due to retaliation) to save Vilnius?
Yes very much.
By generic92034 2026-01-3118:23 By littlestymaar 2026-02-0112:10 I wouldn't be so categorical about France. Pro-russian/ “anti-war” political parties earned the majority of votes (but not seats) in the last elections, and the personality of Macron is so divisive (he has had record low approval for most of his tenure) it really impairs support for war.
Right. Aggression can only be tolerated up to a point before it triggers a response. Remember, on 1 September 1939 the Nazis invaded Poland and two days later both the UK and France declared war on Germany.
By littlestymaar 2026-02-0112:13 “and two days later both the UK and France decided not to intervene and just set up defensive position in Belgium and eastern France” is what actually happened. With the terrible results we known for France (the defensive position being hammered on its weakest point, leading to the complete collapse of the French army in less than a month.
> Just as America would like to reduce its dependence on external production, so to do other countries want to reduce their own.
If anything, I'd say for other countries it's more urgent.
If China embargoes deliveries of light bulbs to Europe, all the light bulbs already in place keep working. The pain would grow over time - giving a grace period, to ramp up local production.
If America embargoes AWS, Google, Apple and Microsoft? The pain would be instant and severe.
That would be as close to a declaration of war as you can get without firing a bullet.
The immediate and obvious response would be for the foreign branches of those companies to be declared "of national interest", nationalized and forced to keep operating.
>"nationalized and forced to keep operating."
Assuming there is no some kill switch which would render a whole infra including hardware inoperable.
By gopher_space 2026-01-3121:11 I'd imagine the government would be in talks with the highest ranking local Amazon employees long before, but I can't imagine a country trusting the hardware or wanting to manage the jank.
By martijnvds 2026-01-3117:291 reply It's called us-east-1?
By solatic 2026-01-3119:44 AWS China is a completely separate partition under separate Chinese management, with no dependencies on us-east-1. It also greatly lags in feature deployments as a result.
By hdgvhicv 2026-01-3121:01 We saw the damage crowdstrike caused in a few hours
I'm absolutely not an expert, but critical things for power and food production not to mention medical supplies and emergency equipment are also tied up pretty deeply in international trade.
The world would break pretty quickly if we all just stopped trading with each other.
Sure, but many products can be sourced from a load of countries.
If you can't get natural gas from Russia you can get it shipped from America or Australia or Qatar - it's expensive as hell, and you might need to quickly build new regasification plants, but your economy keeps running. And there's no remote kill switch that disables the gas you already have in-country.
That's not the case for the services provided by AWS, Google, Apple and Microsoft though - the 'competition' is one US provider vs another.
By GoblinSlayer 2026-02-0110:28 Self hosted ms installations have no instant kill switch, only a slow one.
By hilbert42 2026-02-017:51 In case of war AWS, Google, Apple and Microsoft and others would be immediately directed by government to adopt its war strategy—like it or not—just as US manufacturing was forced to retool for war production during WWII.
It is risky to believe that the development gap alone makes for higher economic efficiency when manufacturing things in China. There are very real structural differences in how various industries are organized. Not least in terms of geography.
This is an aspect the west seems to have missed entirely as there are no attempts to learn from it or emulate it.
Everyone knows about Shenzhen. Not everyone knows that this is how every major manufacturing industry is clustered in China in various cities and regions.
My point was that the development gap is what lead to the current situation, not that it's just cheap labor that makes Chinese stuff cheap.
My point about maintaining higher economic efficiency is actually the same point you're making. How can the globe (not just the west vs the east) learn from the past and build for the future. We live in a magical world with translation services available to billions of people, how can we empower them to organize around the right ideas. How can we preserve culture and art while flooding ourselves with technologies developed globally? Who pays for security and research? Intellectual property law in general?
So many big issues and questions still need a lot of work.
I think Congress is actually the biggest obstacle to efficient manufacturing in the US. It is a body where the primary motivation of representatives centers around what they can get for their constituents, not what makes sense nationally. So any government spending (eg procurement) will actually tend to drive fragmentation as representatives fight for their states.
Take for instance the space sector. It is fragmented by design. By Congress. Not only is it spread all over the country, making collaboration expensive, time-consuming and clumsy: there are essentially six different federal space agencies of which NASA is just one. This is terribly inefficient.
I remember when reading about the Apollo missions it was astonishing just how much time they lost by different parts being built all over the US and then shipped across the country to be integrated. Utter engineering madness that was only made to work because one could pour immense amount of cash on it.
This is why companies like SpaceX was able to run more efficiently: they do a lot more in vastly fewer locations. Ditto for Lockheed during their golden years: Skunk Works was famous for having "everyone under one roof and within walking distance of each other". (That Skunk Works neither exists anymore, nor can it exist, but that's a longer story which is also about extreme inefficiency).
It is reasonable to assume that Europe wouldn't do any better. Or any setup where politicians are inclined to optimize for regional gain. You'd probably end up with the same political fights over who gets what if the EU were to push towards more of the kinds of manufacturing that you find in China.
We know we're inefficient and we have some idea of why. We like to blame factors that are easy to politicise or evoke emotion (environment, exploitation of the poor etc), but I don't think they are as important as people tend to think.
We just don't want to change. And there are legitimate reasons for that. Chief among them that we're uncomfortable with strong central control. (Well, we used to be. It only took a majority of republicans about a decade to turn 180 degrees on that question and prefer an all-controlling federal government dominated by the executive branch)
I think Susan Collins is a great example of this. Her support of Kristi Noem is based on deals she finds acceptable for Maine residents. The fact that other states suffer at the hands of ICE doesn't effect her decision's. Collins feels she only is responsible for Maine and not humans that live outside of Maine.
I find this sort of compartmentalization offensive to the common good.
That's representative democracy for you. Heck, even China faces the same issue, but they get to make it a competition between provinces, on who can win the favor of the emperor. Helps for them that the emperor has supreme authority though.
By patmorgan23 2026-01-3123:271 reply No, that's the incentive this specific system creates. There are democratic systems which do not suffer from such hyper localism. Such as the German mixed member proportional system.
By detourdog 2026-02-010:12 Can you describe how the German system works around this issue?
By detourdog 2026-01-3123:02 Sounds like a narrow interpretation for representative democracy:) Maybe I'm stretching/mangling the golden rule but "do unto others as one would like others to do onto Mainers."
By hilbert42 2026-02-018:08 "It is fragmented by design. By Congress.…"
That's only in peacetime. During WWII the Government directed US industry to gear up for war production and the transformation was not only remarkably swift but also the largest retooling effort in history.
In these fraught times it's worth revisiting that history to remind ourselves of what's actually possible. By today's standards, the US's industrial response to war was truly remarkable.
By SoftTalker 2026-01-3117:361 reply The US did this with automobile and steel industries concentrated around the Great Lakes. It's not some kind of profound insight on the part of the Chinese.
The downside is that it decimates entire regions if/when the demand for what they produce drops.
By bborud 2026-01-3121:19 Yes, it has its risk, but that isn’t why the US or Europe don’t cluster industry to create higher efficiency. The risk can be mitigated. The political willingness and ability to do it deliberately just isn’t there.
By pyrale 2026-01-3115:14 > How do we preserve a lot of the efficiencies of the past, while strengthening the resilience and redundancy.
Open source with clear international governance and maintainer/contributor base, in such a way that a geopolitical rift leaves both sides with working software.
That works for tech and the infrastructure, of course, but not for the corporations built upon them.
> more international lawyers
I don't see that as a significant source of safety in our current world.
> isolationism is a death sentence.
The current US admin isn't isolationist, it's merely reverting back to 19th century imperialism.
By s3p 2026-02-0412:30 >Just as America would like to reduce its dependence on external production, so to do other countries want to reduce their own.
Conflating the president's desire and projecting it onto ordinary people. Most people don't care about this issue, it's the current president who is hellbent on destroying free trade.
By RobotToaster 2026-01-3115:232 reply > If I allow myself to be optimistic, I'd be hoping for more international lawyers and trade agreements.
One of the issues with the current system is that the WTO appellate body, which is effectively the court of world trade, requires USA approval for any appointments, which both Trump and Biden have refused to give. This effectively makes the WTO completely impotent.
By direwolf20 2026-01-3119:001 reply Didn't the rest of the world form their own WTO without the USA in it?
By RobotToaster 2026-01-3122:32 Which seems completely pointless if they don't also revoke the USA's "Most favoured nation" status.
By hilbert42 2026-02-0111:32 Trade agreements, the WTO, its rules and appellant system, only work if nations are at peace and that peace is sustainable. We've just lived through a remarkably stable period of 80 years (since WWII) without which WHO, free trade and trade agreements could not have existed as we've known them. That era is seemingly now over, and the WTO is falling into irrelevancy.
Unfortunately, in the decades since the 1970s laissez faire economics/capitalism with its immediate need for quick profits, short-termism, a penchant for deregulation and ignoring traditional business ethics has meant that governments have ignored their long-term strategic interests. Despite the dangers of these policies being blatantly obvious dangers from the outset many Western governments encouraged such practices. Now it's payback time, and it'll be expensive—likely more than if the old order had been retained.
Anyone with a sense of history could see the headlong rush to deregulatate markets, indiscriminate reductions in tariffs and free (and indiscriminate) trade, would ultimately result in leaving many countries strategically vulnerable and open to exploitation by others.
We're now witnessing the true cost of these policies and what it means to have lost critical industrial infrastructure, loss of production know-how along with the loss of skilled workers, and an ongoing deskilling of the workforce all of which took decades if not centuries to build up.
With more nuanced policies much of the pain could have been avoided.
Rebuilding a strategic manufacturing infrastructure to insure resilience and independence in an increasingly uncertain and divided world will be costly and difficult.
By isk517 2026-02-0221:05 Even without national protectionism we are still experiencing isolationism, expect instead of it being done by nations in the interest of their citizens it is being done by corporations in the interest of their shareholders and it's leading to a dangerous amount of centralization as well.
Compatibility protocols are probably the best answer, allow individual countries to develop software they trust to interact with internationally accepted protocols and formats. As you said, good luck getting anyone to agree to anything. If email didn't already exist I don't think it would even be possible to implement today.
By FpUser 2026-01-3117:17 >"but taken too far, isolationism is a death sentence"
I would argue that few large countries have everything to be self sufficient. For the rest - they would have to band together to avoid being at the mercy of their bigger overlords.
As for efficiencies of the past: I think they lead to a complete monopoly / near monopoly in few critical areas. The result - the monopoly power becoming a political weapon and or critical vulnerability.
By computerthings 2026-01-3116:12 [dead]
By charmchi 2026-02-0120:52 Same with:
> The kicker? Fully 61 percent of European CIOs and tech leaders say...
By 202508042147 2026-01-3112:246 reply Last week I migrated our db away from AWS RDS to a European cloud provider. Everything runs fine and we also have it cheaper!
One of our domains is due for renewal in a couple of months. I'm setting up the transfer to a EU registrar for it next week.
This all takes time and it's not the most important thing for the bottom line, but on the long run I'm sure I'll look back and say it was a great investment.
> Last week I migrated our db away from AWS RDS to a European cloud provider. Everything runs fine and we also have it cheaper!
If I may ask, why didn't you choose the cheaper option before? What do you think you're trading off, if anything?
By 202508042147 2026-01-3114:111 reply Going with the default, we were already using other services from them.
By np_tedious 2026-01-3116:432 reply So you still have other stuff with AWS?
By _fizz_buzz_ 2026-01-3117:15 I think they meant it the other way around. They mostly used AWS and had already some stuff on Hetzner, which made switching over to Hetzner easier.
By embedding-shape 2026-01-3112:535 reply > to a EU registrar
Which one? I've been using DNSimple for so long, been trying to find something equally developer friendly who is based in Europe but haven't had much success. Used to use Gandi before DNSimple but it's obviously down the drain today.
By nozzlegear 2026-01-3116:292 reply I've been using DNSimple for ages and I'm looking to switch; not because of geopolitical reasons (I'm American), but they're just damn expensive for the simple dns and domain management stuff I use them for.
By aeden 2026-02-0722:16 Sorry to hear that you're considering leaving. Is there a specific part of our pricing that you consider expensive? From the DNS side we've aligned pricing with what AWS, Google, and MSFT are charging, and for domains we've tried to stay competitive as well without completing removing our margins. Do you use specific features that are not available on our base plan?
By nozzlegear 2026-01-3120:24 Good question! Ironically I want to use their API to migrate somewhere else, but it'd need to have a good API to complete the migration :P
By lillecarl 2026-01-3114:06 I use Scaleway as my registrar, I don't know if i can automate domain registration but I don't have to. They have APIs for managing records if you choose to host DNS there too.
By new23d 2026-01-3112:56 netim.com has been reliable over the years for me
By procaryote 2026-01-3116:231 reply OVH is awful. The UI is slow and buggy, operations often fail and you need slow contact with support.
Worse, closing an OVH account is very hard. Every domain you host there they sign you up to several services, and you need to manually disable each one before they let you close the account. This then often gets stuck, because of the broken UI, and you end up needing to badger support over and over until they'll fix it
Never again
By matteocontrini 2026-02-019:07 They're working on a new manager UI that should solve most pain points:
By rendaw 2026-01-3116:24 They have Fido 2FA too!
But their web UI looks and feels like it was pieced together by hamsters. It doesn't leave me feeling confident in their technical abilities in any way.
By 202508042147 2026-01-3113:031 reply Best would be to research a local one where you live. Support your community while you're at it!
By embedding-shape 2026-01-3113:14 I live in a town with 10K other folks, I feel like I'd know if there was a local DNS registrar here :)
But maybe I should be the change I wanna see!
By fdgfikgfv 2026-01-3118:02 This is happening in the US firms too. Yesterday, our CTO asked us to look into multi-cloud solutions. We know it is politically motivated decision with no cost savings or benefit.
By 202508042147 2026-01-3113:113 reply We went with Hetzner as we already had good experiences with their VPSes. For this particular db migration, a resonably sized VPS with volumes does the job for us. We don't have planet scale operations so the lowish IOPS is not an issue atm. Also, with this experience at hand, I am confident that we'll manage another migration if need be.
By esskay 2026-01-3113:30 Did the exact same thing for a client who's ops we managed on AWS. I was pretty against ditching RDS and a load balanced setup for hetzners load balancer and 3 instances (2 web, 1 db) but honestly, it's been pretty smooth sailing. The sites faster, and costs dropped massively, saving the client approx €900/mo for a better service.
Afaik Hetzner has a couple of server locations in the USA. Is it correct to say that Hetzner has to comply to US CLOUD Act and therefore give away any data requested?
By MonkeyClub 2026-01-3113:431 reply Depends on which data center you're hosted.
The one under US jurisdiction operated by Hetzner US LLC must comply, while the German ones are operating under the GDPR, which has extraterritorial clauses can can deny or challenge the request.
It's not that guaranteed.
The reality is that if you have any interest, company or employees in the US you can be coerced to do anything the US government wants.
Either legally through courts, or through business influence, or through harassment (e.g. hardcore checks from the IRS).
Sorry, Stripe rejects you now because you are high-risk (you have to explain why you refuse to help in criminal cases, though there is a court requesting you).
You don't like to comply to US requests and protect terrorists ?
https://support.stripe.com/questions/how-to-resolve-blocks-o...
Still don't comply ?
You are added to sanctions list, end of the game.
https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0185
Even Microsoft acknowledges that these cross-border requests cannot be avoided.
https://www.convotis.com/es/en/news/microsoft-access-eu-data
The same way that EU can force fetching data from the US entity.
Now on the EU side:
GDPR fine of 4% of your worldwide income. Well, too bad, your US entity refused, we will have to punish your EU entity very strongly.
If small provider, oh right you refuse ? Well, we will notify your bank that you do not respect the court orders, etc.
The law is one of the way of enforcement, but there are multiple stages of pressure.
Still refuse ? Well, let's come to you at 6am then.
https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2020/07/10/57...
Any company opting for building digital sovereign systems should build a redundant and decentralized organization so that in worst case the company can split up its operations geographically to avoid being in the crosshairs of any host countries government.
By rvnx 2026-01-3118:26 Absolutely, but imagine, Zuckerberg creates a new company:
Now, an US court, requests data from that project to protect an imminent attack where people are going to die."Storm" -> "the European end to end encrypted privacy-conscious messenger app"He refuses, his company refuses, everybody refuses.
Do you think he can evade US justice even if the company is incorporated in the EU ?
Collaborating is the path of least resistance, and as long as you can claim somewhat "we didn't have any choice, we were coerced" then you are fine. This is also why Apple, Google, Meta, NordVPN, etc, are all collaborating with the infamous FBI DITU group.
There are EU alternatives to Stripe.
I know what you meant, but I think that there are alternatives, even if they are maybe not as good as the ones made in US.
Also, if the goal is to go all in on data sovereignty, so be it - put the companies in the sanctions list. It will only grow.
By hulitu 2026-02-0210:23 > Also, if the goal is to go all in on data sovereignty,
maybe start with DE-CIX ? (or other internet nodes)
By mvelbaum 2026-01-3118:41 do you use FDE on your hetzner instances? I couldn't find a guarantee that they properly dispose of block storage so I ended up developing a utility for this https://github.com/mvelbaum/hetzner-fde-toolkit
By dopidopHN2 2026-01-3113:21 OVH in my case
By 202508042147 2026-01-3112:187 reply As a European, I am glad that this is finally discussed in the open! I have made multiple comments in the last weeks that one of the most important things, for me, is an alternative to the Visa/Mastercard duopoly. And yes, I can use an app to pay, but whenever I rent a car or purchase something online, I still use one of these two American companies. Why isn't the European Commission mandating these app payments in different EU countries to connect with each other? Wouldn't that go faster than the digital euro, that is set to come no earlier than 2029?
By buckwheatmilk 2026-01-3113:341 reply It just plainly makes sense for central bank to offer a digital payments solution. Right now if I want to pay for something without 3rd party taking a cut is to mail the money in an envelope as if EU Central Bank denies existence of digital economy.
By dariosalvi78 2026-01-3114:10 they're working on it, but it'll take time: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.ht...
>>As a European, I am glad that this is finally discussed in the open! I have made multiple comments in the last weeks that one of the most important things, for me, is an alternative to the Visa/Mastercard duopoly.
The main reason we don't have an alternative to Visa/Mastercard duopoly is protectionism of EU countries. There are local alternatives that do pretty well (BLIK in Poland, Revolut Pay in countries where it's popular) but entering more markets is like pulling teeth because EU throws regulatory obstacles at every step.
>> Why isn't the European Commission mandating these app payments in different EU countries to connect with each other? Wouldn't that go faster than the digital euro, that is set to come no earlier than 2029?
It would but then their non-local alternative could win which they really don't want to happen.
> because EU throws regulatory obstacles at every step.
No, the gatekeeping is done by local banks and governments to protect their oligopolies/cartels.
There are many instant-pay apps across Europe and they are intentionally not interoperable outside of local markets. Each local banking oligopoly is trying to fence off competition. The main fear is from smaller neo-banks.
>>No, the gatekeeping is done by local banks and governments to protect their oligopolies/cartels.
If you are pointing the distinction between gatekeeping at the EU level and country level I am not contesting that. It's clear though that the gatekeeping is the problem here (and in many other industries in EU).
By scantron4 2026-02-0115:48 How dare you point that out on a discussion about gatekeeping being treated like a good thing.
> The main reason we don't have an alternative to Visa/Mastercard duopoly is protectionism of EU countries. There are local alternatives that do pretty well (BLIK in Poland, Revolut Pay in countries where it's popular) but entering more markets is like pulling teeth because EU throws regulatory obstacles at every step.
That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense? How did Visa & Mastercard manage to go through the "protectionism of EU countries" then?
> How did Visa & Mastercard manage...
I'd bet a combination of:
- Got through before the red tape ramparts were nearly as thick as today
- Ungentle arm-twisting by the US Gov't... at Visa & Mastercard's behest
- Amply greased palms... which can't be traced to Visa or Mastercard. At least not in any jurisdiction which would do anything about it.
By imtringued 2026-02-0110:551 reply You forgot the part where there is a bootstrap problem for any fintech.
You need the appropriate license to make money, but you can only get that license if you already have enough money.
On top of that is a requirement that basically demands that you have employees in charge that have worked and gained job experience at the established businesses.
This is good for stability, but it also means that innovation gets nibbed in the bud.
By bell-cot 2026-02-020:44 ???
Neither my comment, nor the prior one, had anything to do with fintech.
Concerning "innovation" in financial systems, done by relative outsiders, with little experience or incentive to keep the system stable: Given the track record, I'd argue that such innovations should either be outright banned, or limited to some tiny percentage of the relevant financial market. The world does not need more FTX's.
Take a look here: https://wero-wallet.eu/
By 202508042147 2026-01-3116:371 reply Looking forward having this in the country where I live and in the countries I mostly travel to! Well, actually all over EU.
What is unclear to me atm, is it possible to rent a car using wero? Also, can I pay online with it?
By the-unknown-dev 2026-02-0210:53 It's on the roadmap. There are online shops that accept Wero already https://wero-wallet.eu/e-m-commerce
By deanc 2026-01-3112:51 Well, there is good news on that front [1]. It seems it's being planned.
[1] https://thepaypers.com/payments/news/eu-considers-developing...
By Imustaskforhelp 2026-01-3113:102 reply We have UPI in India and it's pretty Robust.
My brother actually was part of deal in talks to have UPI pilots as a project within London as a project within his college and I remember him talking about how UPI (India) is in talks with other European countries too.
With the mother of all deals recently signed between EU and India. I sincerely hope that UPI can have access within EU markets too.
If you ever come to India, you can witness the astronomical rise of UPI. From street vendors to literally everybody now has UPI and it has 0 fees and is really great/one of the best.
As for our brazillian friends, I have heard that pix is great too and I have respect to pix as well plus its open source as well. Both Pix and UPI are really great.
By 202508042147 2026-01-3114:14 Yes, there are local alternatives like Pix here as well, but they only work in the same country. I need something that works across EU countries, like wero. I also need something that works on every site when I buy online and I can also use it when renting a car. So a real Visa/Mastercard alternative.
By simianwords 2026-02-0113:37 Using card is much much easier and better UX.
By yeahwhatever10 2026-01-3117:04 Europe almost had in once ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirecard
> yes, I can use an app to pay
So you move the power from two American companies (Visa and Mastercard) to two American companies (Apple and Google)? What's that supposed to solve?
Also, fuck apps. I had to set up an app for my mother to recharge her new hybrid car and I am not joking: at one point I had to create a log in for her and was greeted by a screen with two options: Log In (blue button, white text), and Log In (white button, blue text). I would rather use cash than an app (and I'm in Belgium, carrying around cash is like herding sheep through coyote territory).
By 202508042147 2026-01-3114:091 reply > So you move the power from two American companies (Visa and Mastercard) to two American companies (Apple and Google)? What's that supposed to solve?
Unsure what you mean, but for context I use an app developed by a consortium of local banks and it works by scanning a QR code. Indeed, I use an Android phone but my next one will be a de-googled one like a Fairphone with /e/OS. Hopefully the same app will work there...
> Hopefully the same app will work there...
That's the problem: currently many of those banking apps in the EU require having a phone with Google Play services and other "security" stuff that makes you reliant on American companies, like the post you're replying to claims.
By 202508042147 2026-01-3117:14 Now that the cat is out of the bag, I am confident that those banking apps will (eventually) work without the likes of Google Play Services. Additionally, what i really want is an alternative to Visa/Mastercard, meaning I can use it for renting a car or paying online.
