| ▲ | nine_zeros 15 days ago |
| What's remarkable is that the cost of software companies will rise dramatically simply because cost of laptops, office chairs, tables, electric cables will rise. At that point, it might just be worthwhile to develop 100% abroad and then sell in the US with a one-time tariff rather than pay for itemized tariffs/US greedflation. |
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| ▲ | sumanthvepa 15 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| The cost of laptops etc. is not even a rounding error in the cost of making Microsoft Office. The biggest two costs are labor and nowadays, compute for AI. |
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| ▲ | nine_zeros 15 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Yes my example was smallish. Laptop itself doesn't matter as much as the general cost of doing anything in America due to tariffs. And yes, that includes higher health insurance costs, higher server costs due to cloud providers raising prices, and higher cost of literally holding office space. All of these would be cheaper in any other country. The choices are endless. | |
| ▲ | strale 14 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | However compute power will get significantly more expensive due to tariffs on components. So your argument is somewhat contradictory. | | |
| ▲ | sumanthvepa 14 days ago | parent [-] | | True. I'm not so sure about this. But the pure imported hardware cost is probably just a few 10s of millions, maybe 100 million or so. For office alone. It's the cost of setting up and running the data centre that costs money. This is once again has a significant labor component. |
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| ▲ | aaron695 15 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > The cost of laptops etc. is not even a rounding error In general it's not treated that way. Getting a $10 cable at work even though your salary is $80,000 can be hard One of the biggest costs is bureaucracy. Given other countries will have reciprocal tariffs and/or higher taxes I'm not sure why they will be cheaper it's a complex change going on. |
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| ▲ | dummydummy1234 15 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| So my question is when other countries start counter tariffs on services. Office 365 is now 25 % more expensive. |
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| ▲ | nine_zeros 15 days ago | parent [-] | | If other countries are sensible, they'd tax (er tariff) American software companies - because a large amount of software is less useful than goods. A 20% tax on Facebook and Google isn't going to do anything. A 20% on Office 365 is meaningful but only until they find software alternatives from anywhere else in the globe. As for the US, O365 will not be more expensive but the cost of producing O365 will be. It will be up to execs to determine if they want to pass the costs to the shrinking number of businesses or if they want to eat the cost of production at the expense of shareholders. Either way, American society is going to eat the cost, either in loss of customers or in loss of 401k. | | |
| ▲ | Teever 15 days ago | parent | next [-] | | If other countries are sensible they'll create funds to contribute to the domestic development of AGPL licensed alternatives as well funds for the development of domestic data centers with the eventual goal of banning the use of American based cloud software altogether. But that isn't the only option that's available to these other countries: > Dubbed a “bazooka” by some EU officials when it came into force in 2023, the ACI allows the bloc to select from a wide range of retaliatory measures, such as revoking the protection of intellectual property rights or their commercial exploitation, for example, software downloads and streaming services.[0] Maybe it's time for other countries to respond by taking the copyright off of American media and setting up their own affordable streaming sites to a global market. [0] https://archive.ph/PNXt6#selection-2171.0-2175.232 | | |
| ▲ | MiiMe19 15 days ago | parent [-] | | If other countries took the copyright off of American media I would completely support making it illegal to export to them. That would just be theft. Hell, for some people that would probably be enough to justify war. | | |
| ▲ | Teever 15 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Would you recommend similar actions from countries that have more stringent intellectual property laws than the United States? Why or why not? The harmonization of EU IP laws with American ones was a quid pro quo done in exchange for the adoption of free trade agreements. If America doesn't want to hold up their end of the bargain why should Europe? | | |
| ▲ | antifa 14 days ago | parent [-] | | I would hope they at least reverse copy right duration back to something sane like 20 years. |
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| ▲ | maeil 15 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | This is certainly a take when China has effectively been doing this for decades. Good luck winning and enforcing a copyright case as a US company in a Chinese court. |
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| ▲ | ViktorRay 14 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | The other countries might not place tariffs on tech company products but they can damage these companies in other ways. I believe the European Union actually has a specific type of anti-tariff policy that they could implement that would eliminate intellectual property protections of software or entertainment companies from countries engaging in trade wars. It’s an option of last resort and I don’t think the EU would actually implement it in response to the Trump stuff but if they did it could be devastating for Silicon Valley and also for Hollywood. |
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| ▲ | ta20240528 14 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I'd say your money is best spent on lobbying. I've never seen a corporate or government policy that doesn't allow for exemptions if the correct rings are kissed. In fact, its often the point of a policy. |
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| ▲ | robertlagrant 14 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > What's remarkable is that the cost of software companies will rise dramatically simply because cost of laptops, office chairs, tables, electric cables will rise. I think this is incredibly unremarkable. These are all fixed costs. It's variable costs, like wages and fuel, that drive everything up. If a table costs twice as much you might buy a slightly lower quality table, or you might be fine. |
