Europe will absolutely build alternatives. They'll bicker for some time, but in the end, they build. To Americans it looks like they don't but they do. Quality of life, life expectancy, and many factors have outpaced US in the last few years. The tech industry in the US is still important, but the importance will start waning soon.
You mean Iran supplying Russia with drones.
Assistance has been mutual, though lately the flow has been more from Russia to Iran. Drone improvements, targeting intelligence and missile tactics to avoid Patriot interception.
He put American lives in direct risk in Kyiv, at the bidding of a foreign enemy, while having control of massive amount of crucial infrastructure.
I'm not sure how you can see that as anything except treason. Any plebe employee doing it would be up for treason, especially an employee that had been in direct contact with Putin or other foreign agents, like Musk has been.
That said, I'm not saying what position the law supports. I never studied law, let alone American law.
Not a lawyer, but wouldn't an illegal immigrant owe no allegiance to breach and therefore couldn't commit treason?
Same for Melania, but doing it to Musk would be much funnier.
Apparently Ukraine does use already use Eutelsat in addition to Starlink, but it's utility is limited due to number of satellites and bandwidth, as well as the current weight of terminals (presumably an issue for weapons-borne receivers).
I wish Eutelsat success, but the scale of funding is completely different.
What's the total funding needed to get a Falcon 9 equivalent, given it's demonstrably possible? Likely about the same as SpaceX actually spent in time and money?
There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile lit Casey's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey at the bat.
The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate,
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate;
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.
Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout...> What is Starshield?
> Starshield is SpaceX’s more secure satellite service for governments. It has two variants: a custom-built satellite network SpaceX launched for the Pentagon; and a lower-tier, military-grade service that connects to commercial Starlink satellites. The more basic service offers encryption features, and allows the equipment to travel at faster speeds than those on a commercial Starlink account.
> What service does Ukraine use?
> Ukraine is using the more basic Starshield service, which uses Starlink’s equipment. Ukraine’s weapons—attack drones, interceptors and uncrewed boats—need to travel at high speeds to intercept Russian Shahed-type drones, bomb the Russian army’s logistics and stall Russia’s invasion force. Many of those drone missions are now failing because of the speed limit imposed by SpaceX, according to the Ukrainian military.
https://www.wsj.com/world/ukraine-starlink-elon-musk-trump-d...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/10/16/musk-appro...
Journalism 101, c'mon.
https://www.wsj.com/world/trump-called-musk-and-asked-him-to...
Of course from Europe/Ukraine's POV, it doesn't make much difference whether it was Musk or Trump/US military that did it. What matters is that a former ally and NATO partner can not be trusted, and eliminating American technological and defense dependence is therefore critical for regional security.
It's going to be the same outcome. When the military wants something done, in the name of an "ongoing conflict" aka war, private corporations obey, because the military is writing the checks.
WSJ gins everyone up and makes it all sound like its some kind of scandal.
Theres probably 1,000 videos on youtube about companies helping government in times of war.
WSJ has subscriptions to sell.
They told us to wear masks for COVID too. :|
"Hey Elon, can you jiggle the telco line quality to make 'em nervous, we're having meetings soon."
"No problem Donald. I got you."
Thats my theory, based on words in articles n stuff.
Unfortunately, there are some pretty big sociopaths at the top (Musk, Hegseth, Vance, Trump) that have it out for Ukraine and want to do business with Russia.
And he's been managing media psyops his entire career.
Some people see the used car salesman's tactics. Some don't.
Either way, the back office most likely did the math.
No car salesman is an island.
"Flood the zone. Create confusion in all parties."
"See who breaks and what matters."
"Negotiate."
Thats what seems to make sense here.
Sometimes its random, sometimes its not.
we are to accept that nepotism is what makes america great again
Especially under Trump (but even before) Europe has contributed more to Ukraine
The war is about Putin's desire for Russian Empire and has nothing to do with NATO, that's just what they say when they speak in English. Listen to what they say in Russian. Listen to the revisionist history.
Listen to Timothy Miller.
If Russia is scared or insecure, that's on them, not a valid reason to murder others, NATO is a defensive pact
Listen to what Putin says in Russian, the war is about Making Russia Great Again, a conquest of empire. He miscalculated and Russia is in the worst place it has been since the fall of the USSR. Their future does not look bright either.
Let's be clear what's really going on here. Russia has a GDP about the same as Italy. The EU and NATO countries could contribute far more to Ukraine but they choose not to. Instead it's business as usual. The welfare states continue uninterrupted and they haven't asked their citizens to sacrifice anything. They continue buying Russian fuel instead of asking people to put on a sweater.
This does not change that the EU has contributed more to Ukraine than the US overall, which is separate from the fossil fuels which the EU has made good progress on, and separate from the high end systems Ukraine needs most right now. The US overcommitted to global security, Trump took us into another forever war, and the world is reorganizing. I generally agree the the US could do a lot more, but that's not happening and other countries need to take care of themselves instead of the America will protect everyone. That is not the reality we live in any more.
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/where-does-t...
If you are a software engineer doing a relatively good job, it really doesn't matter which country you live in Europe - you will have a comfortable life. That said, of course if you take a Romanian sweng salary and try and live in Switzerland off that - you might live a little less comfortably. Similarly if you take a Swiss sweng salary and live in Romania - you will live extremely comfortably.
Its just that West has been a unified block and no other reason.
Put harsh sanctions on US products and services, few difficult years later there would be a copy of everything US but made in Europe.
But that's a stupid thing to do. West as unified block is the best outcome for everyone but fascist won't understand that.
Sure, there's poverty in Europe, and sure the GDP per capita is lower. But poverty and absolute precarity like it exists in every major US city is unheard of here.
Ironically, part of the culprit for creating these absolutely destitute inhumane conditions is said "growth agenda".
The Empire is falling apart, whether you acknowledge it or not.
Have you seen what crap cars even german manufacturers produce lately?
You'd be foolish to think it correlates to any sense of innovation or entrepreneurialism.
At which point do we realise politicians are not on our side?
> By whom? The people with > $100M net worth in Congress and their friends?
That is how taxes have historically worked, so why object this time?
> At which point do we realise politicians are not on our side?
That's the argument for democracy. I would like democracy to be better than it is, but fundamentally, this is what it's for: getting the politicians on our side.
By the relatively small group of armed leftist activists ready to use violence until their goal would be achieved.
Pension funds: - U.S. has over 5,000 independent municipal, state, and corporate pension systems that invest aggressively. - EU pension capital is in national funds.
University Endowments: - U.S. has over 800 active endowments (with 130+ exceeding $1 billion) - EU universities are state funded, with little or no endowment funds
Corporate Financing: - U.S. businesses get > 70% of funding from VC, PE, mutual funds - EU companies favor banks
Family Offices: - U.S. system has created over 10,000 single-family offices that invest aggressively - EU has ~2,000
State investment: - U.S. moves .16% of GDP into small business with no equity ownership -- free market VC takes equity - EU moves < .08% of GDP into small business with full equity ownership.
Isar is working hard on commercial launch capabilities: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/sep/06/german-star...
And Ariane used to be the dominant commercial launch vehicle, beating the US alternatives by a mile.
Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS. Starlink is a commercial service owned and controlled by SpaceX. Usage of Starlink is limited to civilian or defensive activities and cannot be used for offensive military action, as doing so would be inappropriate for a commercial company.
1. Ukraine is in an offensive position
2. Ukraine is in a defensive position and thus it was indeed Musk
To me these are both very dumb stances. Lose lose statement
Of course, Starlink/Starshield is already unavailable for long-range strike due to geofencing, and the speed limit was clobbering interceptors right when they needed that speed to cope with the new jet-powered Gerans, so it's still a daft stance overall.
Nothing grey about destroying invading army on your own territory.
>speed limit was clobbering interceptors
That version never passed the smell test, interceptors dont use Starlink.
https://www.wsj.com/world/ukraine-starlink-elon-musk-trump-d...
Not sure why so many people here are defending him as though his word is authoritative. The guy's as big a liar as Donald Trump.
Political pressure seems to have worked.
Don't forget that US can always strong arm Canada and make it bend to its will. We are too dependent on them. It's nearly impossible to disassociate with United States due to our proximity.
The timeline has changed before, like the ASIC issues pushed full service into 2028. Also scale and capability obviously differ, but it could be a good starting point.
Regardless, I think Europe is better served focusing on its own tech like IRIS and Eutelsat.
"Going forward a U.S. founder selling into European defense or government now needs an answer to “who holds the switch” before the first meeting; and European founders just got sovereignty as a sellable feature.
What was done in a fit of pique will cost the U.S. both leadership and jobs."
Do you agree or disagree with that?
And Canada is a lot more stable than the US lately.
We'll see the details when this becomes a bit more concrete but I imagine it's mostly going to be an economic partnership via trade agreements, maybe aligning some regulations to facilitate trade, etc.
Yes, hyperbole, but funny/sad.
Also, have you heard Mark Carney speak, and contrasted it with how Trump speaks. It's like The Freeze versus randomly chosen baseball fan (https://youtu.be/WxXypNqiS5A).
I wouldn't trust any country where the citizens somehow think they are bigger, better and stronger than anyone else.
Ukraine does not use Starshield, only Starlink. Take this article with a grain of salt.
The rumor [0][1] is that both Ukraine and Russia install GPS spoofers as a workaround for geofencing. Another rumor is that Starlink recently updated their software to detect and block such attempts that is based on rapid satellite switch detection by the Starlink terminal that happened if the terminal was moving faster than 160km/h.
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/10/12/starlink-rus...
A Starlink terminal has a detail that reports its location. There is a restriction on location, so if a terminal reports a restricted location, it gets blocked. A terminal may get blocked either because it actually got off the territory or if it the GPS signal was somehow distorted. So all terminals that go into Ukraine are hacked: they get a chip that reports a fixed location. This allows both to fight the distortions and to ignore the restrictions. (For some time this hack allowed use of Starlink on either side; then a white list of terminals came into effect.)
Ukraine never used (maybe didn't have access to) neither the military subsystem, nor the high-speed tariffs (which are way more expensive). The tariffs they use limit the moving speed of a terminal to 100 mph (160 kmph). For some time the limit was not enforced so drones just flew at any speed.
Around the end of 2025 the limit started to get enforced. But initially the technology relied on the data of a GPS chip. Since the terminal was hacked, the GPS chip reported the same data and thus appeared static. The enforcement thus did not work for these terminals. So although the limit was always there and has been technically enforced for a good part of a year everything was quiet as things simply continued to work as they always did.
But it is possible to detect the hack if one checks how frequently a terminal changes the satellite it connects to. This improvement was made recently and rendered the hack unusable on high-speed targets. This is the point we are at.
2. They don't have to replace a lot of US tech before the economic impact compounds to effect the US.
https://www.heartaerospace.com/newsroom/heart-aerospace-relo...
These are political and societal issues that are very difficult to solve. Not to mention that energy insecurity and cost makes Europe non-competitive from the outset.
If this was a US vs EU thing, I would love to hear a US tech giant that isn't in Silicon Valley or Seattle.
Fact is, even in US, no other city was able to replicate that success. For example, there would be no point to move your startup from EU to New York for example.
The US wasn’t happy with it and tried to put pressure not to proceed. In hindsight , It’s good that it did got into orbit.
ESA tends to favour French, Italian and German big state owned corporations rather than small start ups. So it will always be a political thing and slow.
There just isn’t a company in the EU that can operate like Elon Musk. Even if there was imagine a European company ceo holding that power. How would they use it, can they be coerced by EU countries? Should such a capability be in private hands at all?
Is Ukraine an "American partner" ???
Do you think you would stand even the tiniest chance of hiring European tech workers into a company run the way they are in the US?
- Amazon LEO (US)
- Qianfan (China)
The European (IRIS) and Canadian (Telesat) satellite systems are relatively small and more specialized.
The next president will get elected, and then we'll go back to being best buddies with the US, including using their tech.
Europe would first have to invest "tens if not hundreds of billions" themselves in order to develop any viable replacements and that is very unlikely to ever happen.
They are politically and societally paralyzed from building even basic things like datacenters which are essentially just industrial compute factories and the foundation for anything pertaining to data sovereignty and technology sovereignty.
It's already happening.
> They are politically and societally paralyzed from building even basic things like datacenters which are essentially just industrial compute factories and the foundation for anything pertaining to data sovereignty and technology sovereignty.
No, they are not entirely blind to the consequences of this buildout and are trying to find a balance between environmental concerns and technological progress.
I agree that we should probably do more but to use words like 'societally paralyzed' is rather uninformed about what actual democracies look like.
edit: never mind, I just checked your comment history, this seems to be some thing that you are repeating over and over and getting the same kind of answers but you just keep doing it.
Even though they could use SpaceX launch capacity to deploy such a constellation, Europe has no such plans.
Your comment seems to reinforce the parent's opinion about societal paralyzation.
Europe can claim to be cleaner or more democratic, but it doesn't change that they get nothing done.
Your claim makes as much sense as saying that the US can't even build airliners. Sure they can't build good ones. That was a decision to replace the technically capable management at Boeing with an army of MBAs. Sure Airbus are a decade ahead but the US can still build them.
The thing which many people forget was that, up until the current POTUS decided to reverse course, we were best buddies. We've invested a huge amount of money in US-based companies and generally worked together to increase the size of the pie for everyone.
Our current global share of AI compute is estimated at 5%, US at 78%, China 11%.
We're projected to briefly rise to 8% around 2028, and back to 5% for 2031.
That does not look like sovereignty and independence from the US.
I've noticed this with people in tech who spend too much time on Twitter. They have a very weird view of Europe. It used to be the Fox New boomers but it has spread to people who you'd assume were pretty smart.
To be honest it's part of the reason I left Twitter and only visit this site rarely. Sucks as I've had some awesome discussions here in the past.
My suspicion is that it's related to the drop in standards in tech since the big ramp up in the 2010s and the way Meta and the crypto folks don't want regulation so a lot of their employees have a vested interested in bashing the organisation capable of actually introducing some good regulation.
So what? People have a point of view. You certainly do.
Wow.
"grown rigid or unresponsive especially with age"
As opposed to what?
What's next, a 'greed is good' sermon?
> As opposed to what?
As opposed to the famously agile and youthful atmosphere of American legislation in technology.
/s
Everytime something about EU tech sovereignty is posted, comments with sentiments like OP are posted within the first several minutes. Because they're outrageous (anger-inducing) they get a lot of comments telling them off, an resultingly will be presented prominently on the page.
How much effort and resources does it really cost to have some bots doing this kind of stuff on a couple of well-visited platforms? As techies we should understand that it's basically costs no resources, time and effort. Therefore we should expect these kinds of influence operations on public forums like these.
As for Europe, this [1] is a graph of the EU's share of the global GDP, PPP adjusted. It's been in steady decline for decades. And so discussing the decline of Europe, at least relative to the rest of the world, is hardly outrageous.
[1] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/253512/share-of-the-eu-i...
Of course this little graph fails to account for the fact that the EU took on the burden of paying for 50 years of back maintenance in former USSR countries. And on balance the change has been very positive. It will take at least another 30 years to reach parity.
They are often unfounded and obviously incorrect when made towards old accounts with established history of posting.
It's _been_ happening. Why do you think something that delivers jobs, boosts the economy, and is an easier and easier political and popular sell everyday, is unlikely?
> They are politically and societally paralyzed from building even basic things like datacenters
That's also happening. It's just that we're not as gung-ho about doing things at any cost.
From what I saw Europe has no plan to launch a large constellation that could become an alternative to Starlink. The ambition apparently does not exist.
Trump may accidentally be the best thing that happened to Europe. (I think a lot of the Chinese give him credit, due to his behavior in his first term.)
The only reason the US is not paralyzed is because the government is completely disregarding the views of voters on the topic. I struggle to see that as better.
(before someone says it: yes, I think the anti-data center sentiment is overblown. But the answer is convincing voters of why it’s good, not ignoring them)
It's really strange to see that for so many people "tech" means just a handful of US megacorporations, none of which produce critical products like medical equipment or marine engines or industrial robots or railway signaling systems.
While the overarching opinion of AI might be more negative, there's plenty of people pushing for exactly what you're describing, despite hurdles in regulation and also a fragmented market.
What's pretty clear from talking to companies of every size is that most leaders now understand how important it is.
Countries like China, Russia have largely blocked western tech and as a result domestic technology companies developed to suck up demand. Some things like having a unified capital market would help Europe. This is something they could work to solving, it's more a political question.
Last I checked they were everywhere in Europe.
How did they get there in the first place if they're so allergic to them?
It seems you've been living under a rock. Europe is already started investing those billions on non-US providers, and the US is already complaining it's not fair.
https://www.euronews.com/2026/09/30/us-ambassador-slams-eus-...
> They are politically and societally paralyzed from building even basic things like (...)
You're spending too much time in your alt-right pipeline. Europe already mobilized to cover around 80% of Ukraine's external aid, and is providing Ukraine with long range missiles and even drone technology, which the US conspicuously lacks.
Even this week there were news reports that Ukraine was now looking at Eutelsat to replace StarLink.
Trump,remaining true to his Russian asset fame, has been undermining the US in multiple fronts including diplomacy and defence treaties, and is literally pressuring Ukraine to capitulate to Russia. The sole reason why this plan hasn't succeeded is the fact that, unlike your claim, Europe stepped up and silently filled the role and responsibilities that the US held previously in NATO and Europe's security infrastructure. Therefore, Trump's threats to withhold support now lack any weight, rendering these threats completely ineffective. Thanks to Europe.
Europe's work was so successful to the point where Trump himself is throwing desperate lifelines at Putin's regime with actions such as lifting self-imposed blockaded to buy diesel straight from Putin, and demanding Zelensky resigned for Ukraine's success in attacking Russia's critical infrastructure. That tells you all there is to know on how far Europe stepped up.
https://www.eunews.it/en/2026/08/12/data-centres-nearly-2800...
Meaningful local computer power could only survive realistically if exceptionally high demand (multiples of that of AI data centers) could be generated within weeks/months to get the semiconductor companies to pivot and sell the components mainly though other channels.
64GB laptops are no longer in stores. 32 GB is probably going to get squeezed out soon. For prebuilt desktops it's the same. That's no basis for meaningful local, decentralized compute.
Your enemy is always your best teacher. Pay attention when they demonstrate a new skill.
Lmao. Says the country that is to politically paralyzed to even maintain roads and sewers.
For the cynical but factually curious look up the history of the ARC project, and NJ governor Chris Christie who canned it - this was to upgrade the tunnel that hosts the biggest train lines in the country (Northeast Corridor). Guess what - it has to happen, just at a much higher costs.
The United States fails at infrastructure because it's too decentralized. You don't build with anything four year terms and corrupt politicians. It's too short-term.
German here, to be fair, we have our difficulties with that too, thanks to 40 years of neoliberalism and tax-cutting orgies eroding the financial base making that possible.
I'm not talking about replacement. I'm talking about basic maintenance, because turns out when you don't go and, say, regularly paint over steel parts to save money, eventually rust will creep in and force an expensive replacement of the entire structure that would not have been needed with regular maintenance.
Belgium has been independent for almost 200 years, and is one of the founding members of the the UN. In what possible way is it not a nation state?
That said, a lot of people use nation state as a synonym for sovereign state, and Belgium is as much a sovereign state as the US is.
There are many other countries in Europe (and outside of it) that are multi-lingual and for the most part having a single language is not a core requirement for being a nation state.
Nonetheless, even today, the vast majority of countries are not self-sufficient on defense infrastructure, and this has been true for most of the modern era. The most obvious deficiency is in naval terms: the number of countries who have enough of a navy that they can do something about "my shipping is being attacked by pirates" without help from other people is plausibly at most five (US, UK, France, Russia, China), and I have my doubts about half of those.
Powerful people got together and decided the world would be a nice place if everyone worked together. Their solution for ensuring that happened whilst taking human behaviours into account was global capitalism.
Despite its downsides (some of which we're only starting to see the consequences of) you have to admit that it was doing its job. Countries were cooperating because it was in their best interest. It was always a delicate thing though, and the orangutang broke the trust it relied on.
It might seem naive now, but "bro, of _course_ you can rely on us for service X, why are you even asking?" was an believable response before the orange.
The UK signed an agreement with the US to supply research for the Manhattan Project, in the naive belief the results would be shared.
The US said "Nuh uh - that's classified" and the UK had to develop its own program from scratch.
Then the US lobbied to have that thrown away so the UK would be locked into Polaris and then Trident.
And so on. NATO has very much been a showroom for US arms sales, and competition has been discouraged - not always effectively, but the implied pressure has always been there.
I hope Europe all the best but there is a reason why only US companies dominating those space.
US companies can operate in lost for many years, because they have deep pocket, and also because they have many way to earn profit.
After sanctions for the ICC members, Europe should be getting off services that allow the US to perform the sanctions. It's very difficult though, with any organizations that continue to offer services to sanctioned individuals risking cutting themselves off from the lucrative US market.
Ironically, Europe might need to learn a few things from Russia.
Either way, everyone loses from this kind of behavior. International cooperation is generally the most efficient way of operating. Looks like that's done for until the new world order is settled, and the US is going to flail wildly for a good decade or two to prevent that from happening (despite the current administration accelerating it, under the impression they can win everything, which is now demonstrably categorically false).
https://sota.io/blog/icc-microsoft-opendesk-migration-cloud-...
Many EU agencies, member governments, NGOs, etc. moving to open source alternatives since then.
> In the years ahead, this may cost American companies tens if not hundreds of billions of lost revenue.
The question is, if European governments and businesses conclude they cannot trust non-European software and hardware, what can they do about it?
On the software side, it seems to me the only realistic alternative they have is to build upon existing open-source projects.
On the hardware side, their options seem more limited to me, but I'm not an expert on the subject.
What a great point you’re making here!
Make sure you guys also make your own European-only version of the internet, too, so the rest of us (us as in the rest of the world) can stop seeing European-centric virtue signalling spam that none of us cares about. And make sure you pass bloc-wide legislation limiting all Europeans to using only that European version of the internet (this part is important).
Sincerely,
-a non-American
1) Rubio saying that the Iran war was basically won.
2) Thiel saying that the US should not have started the Iran war!
3) Musk being tough on Ukraine yet again.
4) Trump saying that Ukraine won't get Patriots (of which there is actually a shortage anyway).
This is all election rhetoric so MAGA goes to the voting booths. It is literally the same theater as before the 2024 presidential elections. Watch what happens after the elections.
Arianespace has been for decades an extension of the French government, which needed at max several launches per year and didn't give a damn about its market share. As a result, it is seriously behind in reusable rocket development. The space port in Kourou may be the most underused space port in the world, even though its location is unbeatable.
I am not sure if this gap can be closed. Maybe some of the smaller startups like Isar Aerospace can do it, but the giants are ossified Molochs. Not that Boeing is any better, ever since absorbing MacDonnell Douglas and its pathological management structure.
That is the reason why europe is falling behind. System. Not people.
Elon Musk personally ordered the restrictions, and the effect was to tilt Russia’s war against Ukraine in favor of the Russians.
The same is true of Chinese technology, and if anyone thinks China isn't already embedding those kinds of capabilities in consumer goods & infrastructure hardware as well as mil hardware, I'd like to talk to you about some oceanfront property in Kansas I might have for sale.
And to all those who would immediately comment "that's a nonsense accusation, they would never do that" or "that's a biased/racist/nationalist accusation": NO, just look at the reality of what has already been found, I'm not accusing only China - everyone does it, and mostly, you are EXACTLY the same people who didn't understand the threat from US tech companies until Elon actually pulled the switch.
As in the cryptocoin "Not your keys, not your coins", this is:
"Not your tech stack, not your sovereignty"
The EU REALLY needs to step up and build their own tech stack.
Looks like it is starting to happen, and Elon just gave them the most solid reason. This will cost US tech and mil giants $$trillions. Or, they will have to go back to building systems that verifiably have no external control.
When did Doctorow coin enshittification?
When did Zuck call his users stupid fucks?
When did Amazon start comingling counterfeits with originals?
When did Google buy DoubleClick?
When did Google start reading your Gmail?
When did Boeing start skimping on safety?
This is a decades long trend. Don't be giving Trump credit he doesn't deserve, otherwise the lessons of history will not be learned. Blaming Trump is yet another easy answer that allows for all of the other things to be swept under the rug.
Should be "Elon Musk Just Gave Europe yet another Reason to Replace American Technology"
Fixed that for you
https://www.techradar.com/phones/network-providers/europes-m...
And Europe can get things done if it wants to. Ariane had reached 50% of commercial GTO launches in 2010.
...the Arianespace consortium "all but invented the commercial launch business in the 1980s" principally "by ignoring U.S. government assurances that the reusable U.S. space shuttle would make expendable launch vehicles like Ariane obsolete.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_launch_market_competitio...
SpaceX has disrupted that, but once the innovation is out there it can be replicated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutelsat_OneWeb
And Iris2, with launches to commence in 2029:
https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-space/iris2-s...
The way the EU and some other countries approach issues like this is to consider Apple and Google regulated monopolies. They must allow alternative app stores and follow other rules that normal non-monopoly businesses don’t have to follow.
There’s nothing about device attestation that is any more or less challenging than their status quo predicament.
Somewhat related, on the HN home page today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50217495
Remote attestation as a broadly used technology will in itself protect the duopoly. Without it, smaller competitors could just offer an alternative that is automatically compatible with the app or service ecosystem, implement compatibility layers or client software compatible to that services.
Now they can't, because even if they offered their own remote attestation service, they would need to convince every app supplier individually to explicitly support their system.
The only way to enable any kind of growing competition would be to outright abolish hostile technologies like remote attestation, bootloader lockdown and so on.
Total fiction.
> Do I need a Google or Apple account?
> The national [EU Digital Identity] Wallet does not need an account/login. Users can use the wallet without creating any account/login. Independently of this, the App Store and Google Play Store require an account for the user to install any application.
My original comment has proven extremely controversial, pingponging +-5 votes. I understand the truth is upsetting. However, perhaps our friendly irritated Europeans might rather direct that ire at the people selling out their countries and not the messenger who points out reality?
> DO I HAVE TO USE THE STATE EUDI WALLET?
> No, use is voluntary and free of charge.
Your comment is controversial because you’re willfully misrepresenting fact.
Not everything is a slippery slope. What you are doing is editorializing and making assumptions about the future. Show me a piece of proposed legislation that wants to ban physical ID cards and mandate digital ones then we’ll talk.
I interpret this as the government offering a convenience feature.
"Wait until it's too late and then I'll acknowledge reality"
They don't even need legislation to accomplish this. It is literally already happening that some government services are not accessible without those phones. You are being presented with a fait accompli and closing your eyes to it because you think words on paper mean anything.
Sure, yeah, I need the App Store to access the Tolls NY EZ Pass app. But I don’t need the EZ Pass app to manage my account or pay a toll, and I don’t even need EZ Pass itself to pay a toll. This government service is an optional convenience.
Again with slippery slope doomer mentality we can list out any future hypothetical and apply this “wake up” messaging.
The state makes me get a drivers license to drive a car, wake up sheeple, pretty soon they’re going to make you get a license to walk down the sidewalk. Just because it hasn’t happened yet and there’s no pending legislation or political appetite for that idea doesn’t mean we are safe, we have to fight this now before it’s too late!
> Which services are inaccessible?
I'm aware of a handful of French services based on France's already existing, Google/Apple required national identity service. Strictly speaking EUDI isn't live until 2027, but there is not a single reason to believe it will end in any other result. Even if you've drank from the spring of eternal naivety, surely there must be a limit to how much good faith you can have in how much your government values your privacy? Maybe you could point me to the source of this blissful ability to close your eyes and ignore everything happening around you?
You have not listed a specific French service. I suspect if you did I’d then be able to look it up and find out that there’s a non-digital alternative available, and that putting stuff on the App Store and Google Play is just the government meeting their constituents where they are.
Despite your accusations, I’m not naive about governments that want to clamp down on their citizens’ privacy and freedoms, but at the same time I don’t really think the more mundane government services tend to work this way. I think they’re choosing the technology available to them out of pragmatism. They need to put their services on something that is widely adopted and meets their technical needs. E.g., if the government wants to take payments for vehicle registrations with a credit card, there is no real way around going through Visa/Mastercard. It’s not like they’re doing that as some kind of conspiracy theory anti-privacy scheme.
Sure. The government services are available to you if you get your nice little American phone and give them your data and aren't sanctioned.
https://www.moncompteformation.gouv.fr/espace-public/je-ne-r...
Yeah, yeah, there's a non-digital alternative available. Just wait an additional four weeks like a second-class citizen. That's totally a reasonable thing to make anyone do and not de facto requiring a duopoly device.
> I think they’re choosing the technology available to them out of pragmatism.
Does this distinction matter? I didn't make any kind of accusations of conspiracy theories. Convenience is enough. Depending on the US duopoly is more convenient than either digital sovereignty or privacy, so you get neither of those things.
The EUDI already compromised its idealistic words on paper. It was meant to be platform agnostic. That died the moment it came time to implement it, because it was more convenient to only support Apple/Google phones. And when the majority of citizens are using it, it becomes more convenient to support only it rather than offering multiple alternatives. Thus, without any malice aforethought, your entire union becomes dependent on and subservient to the US, and the legislation mandating businesses support EUDI is, even if unintentionally, a killing blow to any attempt to escape the status quo. The purpose of a system is what it does[1].
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...
First off, waiting up to 4 weeks for these services is not some form of second class citizenry. If my passport application process took 4 weeks in the USA I would be ecstatic.
Second, FranceConnect+ requires higher identity verification, and this higher level of verification is only used for a small subset of specific government services in France, such as the vocational training program, where French citizens can have training paid for by the government. It's very understandable that you'd need higher level identity verification for that to reduce fraud.
Unlike your assertion, there is actually a PC-based identity verification alternative for at least some of the underlying services where you use a webcam, identity number, and ID documents, and then there's also the physical mail option. FranceConnect+ is akin to a single sign on style service to access some of those underlying services with more convenience. Being unable to access FranceConnect+ is not inability to access those services.
FranceConnect+ is only used for 9 services compared to the total 1,800 services offered in FranceConnect:
- Vocational training (CPF)
- Company creation and filings (INPI)
- Applying for energy renovation grant (ANAH)
- Hospital patient data (AP-HP portal)
- Online passport renewal (again, we do this in the US by mail and it takes 4+ weeks)
- Qualified registered letters (AR24)
- National pharmaceutical records (eIDAS)
- Signature/trust service (eIDAS)
- eIDAS interoperability service
To you, for sure.
Your quote fails to corroborate your claim.
> The national EUDI Wallet does not need an account/login.
This is a straight lie.
> Users can use the wallet without creating any account/login. Independently of this, the App Store and Google Play Store require an account for the user to install any application.
This is not "independent". Their security architecture depends on this.
> We are aware that some users prefer alternative distribution methods. These are being looked into. Any such approach must meet the required security standards and must not compromise the integrity of the EUDI Wallet.
Their whole botched security architecture relies on remote attestation using Google Play Integrity and the Apple equivalent. And they lie straight in our face.
Of course the whole regulation was at least in Germany supported and influenced by people in a pseudo public research institute who then immediately founded the spin-off for-profit startup which got awarded the app development. It is unclear to me how deep that appearance of corruption goes, what part of the EU is in on it, and what part is just too naive.
But it will be costly.
https://www.wsj.com/world/ukraine-starlink-elon-musk-trump-d...
Money they probably don't have.
With us 1.5B Indians, we can concur money is a big factor if not the biggest.
Population wise, 7%, 5%, and 16%
Another statistic, the EU accounts for almost 50% of global social spending.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMjDmYqykNI (Stephen Kotkin - World on Fire?) (There are more than 100 armed conflicts going on right now, the most since the 1940s)
Reminds me of this article. Everyone knows that Europeans could compete, and the world stage would welcome it, but they have put themselves into a bind where taking back any social service or loosening regulation and allowing markets to operate would take their air of superiority over stupid Americans and they would rather kill off any chance at becoming world technology players than that. Also it is just political and cultural suicide, ask Paris right now.
Europe is full of immigrants too, are they all rushing to live in a stagnant society on the verge of collapse, knowing their families abroad are just laughing in astonishment at their decisions?
I'm not sure it comes down to where you were raised. I was in a car with a Texan and a Californian at the weekend, driving up to Amsterdam, and they were laughing all the way about how safe the roads were, how friendly the police were and how considerate the other drivers were. Like, "they actually tell you where the speed traps are!? The cops aren't out to get me!?"
It's not impossible to overcome, but it is an added commitment for any new company. Founding is not very attractive and that's why we don't get that many crazy wild bets here (Tesla was one initially too).
I will accept your argument that there are additional onerous regulations on top of that. But that seems like the same "core premise".
Yes, like for example you have to actually pay your employees for the time they work, and give them a certain amount of paid annual leave
This is something anathemic to USian companies, who see skilled workers as essentially disposable single-use devices.
European companies can still build software in different countries. Nothing stops them from building their software in an US subsidiary they fully control. A lot of good software developers are currently looking for a job.
Yep, so saying Europe can build software is pretty much like Western factories trying to compete with slave or child labor in some developing part of the world.
I mean most Americans probably don't want to open their own sweatshop garment factories. But it does mean that if we start ww3 that shirts may be harder to come by. I think it's probably a good thing that the entire world is too interdependent to want to start shooting at each other? (G10 at least)
This isn't new. The US has been doing this for decades.
The only thing they can do these days is imposing new regulations of bottle caps. They turned themselves into the laughing stock of the all world: willingly.
https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index
https://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/2025_HDR/HDR25_Stat...
Oh we absolutely are building replacement stuff for a lot of American things. IRIS2 for example is our Starlink alternative. OVH, Hetzner and a bunch of other smaller players can provide hosting. Mistral is our AI model. Cars, trucks and farm equipment can be/are made in Europe. We have our own nuclear weapons, warplanes, navy, tanks, satellite based surveillance, and sooner rather than later (via Ukraine) viable replacements even for missile defense. That is the last thing we truly are depending on the US, but eh, after Trump wasted the entire US stockpile on the Iran clustercuck they again left us no choice, and the Ukrainians are busy by necessity developing something useful.
A lot of the major players in software are Europe-based too. SuSE, GnuPG, KDE, LibreOffice and I think also Samba are German. VLC is French. MariaDB is at least partially based in Finland. Spotify is Swedish.
The only thing we do lack is a fully integrated hardware and software manufacturer similar to Apple, but I think we could set up something based off of the open source parts of Framework and Raspberry Pi should the need arise.
> The only thing they can do these days is imposing new regulations of bottle caps.
Have you walked alongside the Isar river at least once in your life? I personally am happy to no longer see plastic bottle caps littered around, and the magnetic ones can be picked up easy enough with a magnet. I don't see the problem.
> They turned themselves into the laughing stock of the all world: willingly.
The laughing stock of the world is the US President who regularly shits himself in his diapers.