I very much hope this survives the first significant failure.
But now I think more and more people see it as a problem of sovereignty. Everybody does protectionism. People in the US most definitely wouldn't want to be in the situation of Europe and largely support protectionism (see Huawei, TikTok, DJI).
Europe is behind, but maybe people start to realise that it's not so great to have that level of dependence on [here the US], and maybe they will be more tolerant.
We can't test if they would "demand action" given that the US solutions are already built, but I think we can see that they definitely do regulate whenever something starts competing heavily against US companies. See Huawei, TikTok, DJI.
People who call for fewer regulations systematically mean "fewer regulations for me, but regulations for the others when they compete against me". Not just in the US of course.
Sadly it's even more likely to be corporate ad-filled, data-mining, AI-ridden, bloated junkware than the American stuff, with presumably lots of shovelling money at chosen companies rather than leaning into FOSS. On the other hand, it at least mostly looks like it's stealing your data, rather than a sober-looking American system that looks trustworthy but is still stealing the data.
But, today, as the article notes, "European alternatives do exist...Yet for many organizations, distinguishing real alternatives from false promises has become increasingly difficult."
jjgreen•2h ago