Yeah, I think it is naive of the grandparent to believe that iPhones, Android phones with Google Play Services, a lot of cloud services can be replaced overnight. That said, it might not happen overnight, but it will surely happen.

I feel like we are close to a tipping point where governments and companies will move off US services en masse as fast as they reasonably can. I think this movement already started. E.g. our local university has forbidden use of US (well, any non-EU) LLMs for work and are trialing Mistral. Two years ago they would have gone Gemini without thinking (since they are already using Google Workspace). They are also extending support for their Linux workspace, which has primarily been maintained for CS'y groups, but they want to be ready to roll it out when needed.

A lot of organizations (especially non-profits, universities, etc.) have woken up when Microsoft relinquished Microsoft 365 access of the ICC chief prosecutor overnight.

I guess one side effect of the US going rogue is open source getting a lot more traction.

I hope that the EU (and UK) will also invest heavily in iOS and Google Android alternatives, because that will be the hardest bits to replace, but as long as AOSP still exists it will be possible to bootstrap reasonably quickly.

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graemep 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Its going to be a very long time before it changes enough to do without US tech. How many European governments are encouraging the use of apps that only run on iOS and Android? How many critically important businesses like banks require customers run unrooted Android or IOS? HSBC's app will not even work if you install apps from F-Droid!

A few governments are trying to do something about reliance on the US, but they are also doing things that create greater reliance.

Its good your university is trying, but that sounds like a limited response. Do they use Windows? MS Teams? Google Drive?

I know of no government making serious attempts to get the private sector of US dependence. Just check how many things you use regularly run on AWS. Desktop Linux is great but is any governmentactually making consistent attempts to persuade businesses to switch to it?

	▲	microtonal 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Its going to be a very long time before it changes enough to do without US tech. How many European governments are encouraging the use of apps that only run on iOS and Android? How many critically important businesses like banks require customers run unrooted Android or IOS? HSBC's app will not even work if you install apps from F-Droid! Step by step. For example, most Dutch banking apps work fine on GrapheneOS. Yes, still with Google Play Services, but at least they are sandboxed. It shows that there is a path to removing dependence incrementally. There are also a bunch of European phone brands (yes, most manufactured in China), like Nothing, Fairphone, Gigaset, HMD, etc. and at least one of them already supports alternative Android versions. Yes, I know they have issues, but you need to start somewhere. Its good your university is trying, but that sounds like a limited response. Do they use Windows? MS Teams? Google Drive? Yes, but they also have an official Linux workplace, last time I was there, you could choose to re-image a machine to run Linux on every machine. They are also trialing ownCloud. The migration won't happen overnight, but it's good that they are setting up the alternatives, trialing them with small user groups, etc. It's the best way to prepare yourself. I know of no government making serious attempts to get the private sector of US dependence. Just check how many things you use regularly run on AWS. Desktop Linux is great but is any government actually making consistent attempts to persuade businesses to switch to it? I agree, not enough persuasion is done. But being gloomy is not going to help. Best is to trust in our own strength (we can do it), accept that the solutions are going to be worse (at least initially), make people aware of the risks and alternatives. The whole situation sucks, but big changes also give rise to big opportunities and it is an opportunity to change to a more open, more privacy-friendly, more user-oriented, etc. ecosystem.