It’s not either or!

I agree with all of you, but…

We need institutions that can both challenge and rival Big Tech. EU has been doing okay, great in comparison, regulating Big Tech. Small to medium companies have big part of the market, but are constantly eaten up big bigger ones, and have hard time combating many mono/duopolies (like mail or social media, which technically are easy to keep diversified).

I don’t know what is the answer. Federation that do not collaborate with Big Tech - thank you, Fedi - are a great way forward. Consumer movements (e.g., Buy European) and smaller companies getting their niches working with Big Tech and only slowly diverging from it (see, e.g., Ecosia) can also have an impact.

The article poses a wrong question. But a related question is interesting: How do we challenge Big Tech at scale? In this sense, Europe not having any tech giants might be lucky for the world at large, as we still have enough power, talent, and influence to pose the challenge. How do we do that?

I’ve lived in Poland and Sweden.

In Poland, Allegro dominates, it’s much more convenient than Amazon.

In Sweden, I used Amazon once. There is no other general website like that I know of for first-hand stuff, buy you can get half-price new stuff from sites like Tradera or Blocket, or Vinted (very European), or Sellpy. I would try to pass by a charity store first, but for example for shoes it is very hard to find what I am looking for and in size 47 there.

For first-hand stuff, in Sweden, I just search (or know websites for the kind of product I am looking for), and rarely would Amazon be even competitive. For example, to buy books I often use Adlibris, and while it is not as nice as the local bookstore, they do sometimes have things I would have trouble finding otherwise (including a broad selection of books in English).

American AF. It’s just their Dutch daughter company doing the official purchase for legal reasons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyndryl?wprov=sfla1

How is this anti-trans?

Thanks, that’s exactly what I was looking for. Understanding how memes are used for, sniff, ideological reasons, is what I’m interested here. I appreciate the antimeme nevertheless.

What was the original?

Lol, this is the dumbest thing I’ve heard in the long time (The story about sitting making the workers lazy, your comment explains it great, thanks!).

Wait, what? Do cashier’s stands in other shops in US?

That’s a very interesting take! Rather psychological, but individual psychology of those with excess power unfortunately plays a huge role. I didn’t know about Vlad Vexler, great link!

The linked Wiki page starts:

Use of coal is expected to peak in 2025.[1]

I guess the details are more complex. And I have seen the Ember report that showed that now USA out of fuck knows what reason increases coal even at the cost of gas.

The benefits of such a target are enormous. If done correctly, it could, among others,
● save over €850 billion in fossil fuel imports between 2025 and 2040,
● increase competitiveness and create more than 2 million new jobs in clean industries,
● cut household energy bills by up to two-thirds, and
● reduce Europe’s dependency on autocratic countries, strengthening independence and resilience.

Shut down and stop is a different thing…

Also, Volkswagen EV sales increased nearly 50% in the first half of 2025 (see link below).

https://cleantechnica.com/2025/07/10/volkswagen-ev-sales-surge-47-percent-in-2025/

It is not good. Infrastructure is lacking in big parts of Europe. As a citizen, I would focus on that, rather than Chinese EVs (if they scare the industry, it is good though).

And busses, trains, bikes. Too much cars in this comm.

Was the whole shitshow just not to give Tomahawks?

Yeah, I also basically forgot about ads on the web :D

Not feeling that every step you make online can trigger an offload of content from a random internet bubble is great. Like when, e.g., that one day you clicked on a video about migration, and oh boy, algorithms go crazy. I totally don’t miss it.

Hope they bounce back soon. As usual, the Chinese can thank the “Nation Builder”, aka DJ Trump.

Yeah. The Swedish government should have just bought the company (the current one would never do it, though) ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Since when is skin plant-based?

(And yes, I get it is a joke)

If your Finnish… Do you know how it compares to SailfishOS (I guess the latter is more popular in Finland than elsewhere).

Lol internet a predominantly American innovation. World Wide Web is, by definition, well, world-wide (and while the earliest networks started in the US, WWW originates from CERN, a European, international organization).