Canada's telcos are a "narrow waist" for a lot of software licensing.

A lot of business customers bundle their business/productivity software with their phone and Internet services. Did you know you can buy Google Workspace and/or Microsoft Office through your telco? I was shocked to find out how many do this when I worked for one of the telcos.

Just like how consumers bundle their streaming services with their home Internet plans.

One bill for all the things is convenient.

I would bet it's the same in EU (but can't say for sure, I only have first-hand info about Canada).

If there was a real push to move companies away from these platforms, it would probably start there, mostly because the telcos are typically very government-aligned due to regulatory and spectrum concerns, and would get in line with government efforts to promote non-US alternatives, if they decided to.

Getting the majority of consumers to ditch their US-based streaming and entertainment is another thing though, I can't see that happening ever, no matter how at-odds the US and Canada become.

The British and the Russians also had a COVID vaccine (and much cheaper), and the French cancelled theirs because they realized it would come too late to be competitive.

So if they were restricted to some reason to use their own only, they would be fine.

The decades long level of trust in the US and its institutions was unprecedented and built off of the tremendous goodwill and momentum post WW2.

It was an unusually high degree of trust, and now it's unusually low. Even if the US reverses its policies it will take a very long time to rebuild trust, and even then the historical warning marker of the Trump admin will be studied as a reason to never return to the prior level of trust.

Without total trust software products are a natural target for any country that's thinking more about how to defend its own sovereignty. Policies and subsidies for locally built software that previously would have seemed frivolous or wasteful now seem prudent and badly needed.

> Note that I'm not saying everyone should give the US a pass or maintain as much economic and defense dependency on the US. But I think it's hyperbolic to make all your long-term plans assuming something as stupid and self-defeating as his worst anti-ally policies are a new normal, because they harm the US at least as much as they harm everyone else, and everyone but those two knows this.

It is debatable if everyone but John Bolton and Donald Trump knows this. After all, according to the last NYT poll the current POTUS commands an approval rating of 41 % in the USA. The number of people I meet who do not understand how tariffs work, for example, is staggering.

Anyway, it is smart policy to expect the worst and plan for it instead of being surprised by another insane president voted in by the people of the USA. Call it risk management if you like. It would be negligent of the leaders of the EU and its member nations to not account for that. The EU has to reduce dependence on unrealiable trade partners, this is true whether we are talking about warmongering Russia, dictatorial China (probably the most reliable of the three!), or unpredictable USA.

So, let's hope for the best and prepare for the worst. The EU can't change it if preparation harms US economic interests in the long run. That's on Trump.

MAGA will likely not die with Trump, and the Democrats have done their fair share to shaft Canada too. (If Jimmy Carter were still alive you could ask him about his family tree farm and what he thinks of softwood lumber tariffs.) As our PM recently said in Davos, the U.S.-led rules-based world order was a bit of a sham from the get-go. Certain countries were more equal than others. The rules were always flexible and they bent in favour of the U.S. most of all. Canada and other middle powers got an okay deal nonetheless, so we went along with it. That's over now, and "Nostalgia is not a strategy.".

Now that we're always going to be four years or less from the next potential bout of American insanity, it's time to build a new order that is less vulnerable to big powers and more equitable for everyone else. An order in which the rules are applied more consistently and have teeth. That doesn't necessarily mean breaking out the feather quills and having a big shin-dig at Versailles though. It's doing lots of little things that shift our dependence to like-minded middle powers whenever and wherever possible.

e.g. The white house has threatened other countries (including Canada) with tariffs in order to deter regulation or taxation of american software giants in non-U.S. jurisdictions. That makes dependence on these companies an exploitable (and already exploited) weakness. This is why governments, like France, want alternatives.

Americans elected trump not just one time. They did it twice.

They all knew who he was by the end of the first mandate yet they still elected him again.

Why wouldn’t they find another « trump like » when trump goes away ? Vance or someone else, the list is long.

I see no reason for things to change and that’s if the USA doesn’t become an autocracy in the meantime. Trump already did so much in a year, that’s fascinating. He just need to boil the frog a bit longer but everything is in place.

Trump has done/is doing generational harm to the perception of the US worldwide, to say nothing of US soft-power influence. It's going to take decades to rebuild that trust after he's gone, and we still have a couple of years of his term to run yet.

It seems optimistic to me at this point that he could be replaced by a Republican not largely crafted in his image. It's possible, but I certainly wouldn't take it for granted.

I think that your outlook on US politics and future leadership is naively optimistic (though I very much hope to be wrong).

First and most importantly, I don't think it should be considered a given at this point that there will be a democraticly elected successor to Trump. It's clear from past attempts and current declarations and actions that the Trump regime will try to maintain power instead of ceding it at future elections - whether they will succeed or not will depend a lot on American institutions and the power of the people.

Secondly, your assertion that only Trump and Jon Bolton agree with the current policies seems deeply wrong. First of all, the VP (with a real chance to be President, given Trump's age and apparent health), seems very much on board. Secondly, much of Trump's policies are based on the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 document, including at least some of the foreign policy decisions. Thirdly, a desire to re-orient US foreign policy away from Europe (and thus NATO) and towards China exists in a large part of the traditional foreign policy establishment. Fourth, the leaders of the Democratic Party seem to have learned entirely the wrong lessons from the last election, looking more at which of Trump's policies they should adopt rather than what alternative solutions they can promise to the American people.

trump disappearing isnt going to restore trust now the world has seen how broken american politics is.

I think every American needs to understand this quote:

> "We will never fucking trust you again."[0]

It doesn't matter that Trump will eventually no longer be President, and it doesn't matter that there are still members of the American political establishment that support the old way of doing things. Trump does not act alone, and there is rapid attrition of those older bureaucrats who valued the USA's allies. Trump's allies in the GOP will continue to be in power, and perhaps worse, the partisan appointees that have inundated the public service will remain.

The USA has burned its bridges. There is no more trust to be found.

0: https://www.readtheline.ca/p/matt-gurney-we-will-never-fucki...

Trump already left the stage once. This is something deeply wrong with the US that can't be explained away as a phase.

The damage Trump has done to international relations will last much longer than the three years that he has left in office.

It was an open secret that the USA was a transactional unreliable ally, now it's just common knowledge.

Even the most ardent "look West" politicians have stopped talking about avoiding China.

[dead]

The real thing that's changed here is that the US gets no benefit from defending Ukraine or Europe

European politicians need to wake up NATO was really an exercise in helping the US with its proxy wars their support will not be reciprocated

Not with trump and not with his successor

Canada's software market was $73B in 2024.

https://www.grandviewresearch.com/horizon/outlook/software-m...

The EU doesn't make any software? Really now..

Canada just announced a huge deal with China last week. You're wrong on all counts.

Duplicating things is underrated. It's good for there to be multiple operators doing basically the same thing. Innovation can happen at the margins. It will be easier, not harder, for EU companies to innovate in meaningful ways after they've built their own systems and are no longer just following in the wake of big US companies. (Not to mention that half of what passes for innovation these days is actually bad.)

> It’s great yes, but if we in the US weren’t proving so untrustworthy, EU startups and tech giants could focus on building things that actually might out innovate us and everyone else. Which would be a win-win. Instead they will spend a lot time duplicating tools where only US companies are providing options, and maybe not innovating much if anything in those areas. Or not enough to matter much.

You could apply this to Slack vs Teams as well. Slack was already good, Microsoft just duplicated their work, came out with an inferior product and won. So, was it worth it?

Sometimes rebuilding a tool makes it better. You hopefully learn from the past.

100%

The reason there is no unringing this bell is not just that we have a capricious, vainglorious president, it's that all of checks and balances that are supposed to restrain the executive have proven worthless so far. Republicans in Congress have completely declared their impotence, having fully relinquished their duties that the Constitution specifically delegates to the legislative branch, like tariff power, war powers, etc.

A terrible potential is that US products may find themselves unable to get footing internationally, due to broken trust and increased competition, so instead they'll try to rely on every-expanding protectionism and corruption to stay dominant in the US market.

Just as we've seen in the car industry we'll wind up less innovative, less productive, and less economical.

European pension funds are also slowly getting rid of US bonds. They don't talk about it because they don't want to attract the ire of Trump and they don't want to create panic in the markets as long as they are still invested. But e.g. the Dutch fund ABP sold 1/3rd of their US bonds in 6 months (10 out of 30 billion in US bonds that they have). They reinvested the money in Dutch and German bonds.

Current admin has been on record for years saying the same thing. Warning EU about russia, warning EU about China, warning them about not innovating.

I don't know if this was planned internally but it seems the way they figured out how to get EU to actually do something is to make it seem like big bad trump is going to hurt them.

Current admin has gotten more out of EU than 20years of asking nicely.

Before: US: "please increase military spending" EU: "no"

US: "please do not support our advesaries" EU: "builds nordstream"

US: "stop killing innovation" EU: " more regulation"

Now:

US: "We will invade greenland" EU: "omg we need to invest in greenland and increase its military support, we will send more troops immediately!"

US: "we will pull out of nato" EU: "omg we hate US we need to massively increase military spending and industry"

US: "our tech companies will not listen to you" EU: "omg big bad america, we should try to make out own"

I don't like it but at the same time, it works? Let EU rally against US who cares as long as they actually do something.

Simply put absolute best thing for US is a strong EU. China is an advesary that will take the entire US system to challenge if EU can handle the rest then it's a win.

My bad. I meant Guangdong Province

Good thing we're not in the US to terrorize us with the ICE.

lol hahaha Europe will "say" and maybe in a few decades they might get around to starting some of that. Europe still buys gas from Russia; can't even ween itself off it during a war.

>"I agree though that a strong EU is needed, in part to defend against the US, as well as Russia (until the Russian economy reaches failure)."

So after Russia fails "a strong EU" is no longer needed? Also waiting for Russian economy to fail may prove to be forever and not even desirable. Changing the system of government to one that treats people like it should is much better goal

I think they should (in practice there could be something in the middle). Yes, they may have more bickering with the US, but that's just part of the messy diplomatic process. At the end of the day, we want to see strong allies that share a compatible value system with us. I'm actually more optimistic too: a stronger Europe will earn more respect because of their strength. And that respect will lead to more negotiation instead of more bickering.

Is it really though? We have strong labour laws, consumer laws, antitrust laws, personal information laws and so on because the majority of us want it. We understand that this do not maximize growth, and consider that worth it. In fact, the most of us sees the current US administration as a very big joke.

I'm American and sell my software to all 50 states (plus the rest of the world). I don't have a single special market rule for any state, not even my own. My payment providers take care of tax collection for me and my accountant tells me how much to pay the government each tax season.

He did not like the Canadian prime minister's speech about "great powers" weaponizing economic integration, so he decided to prove him right.

Because Canada has been in trade talks with China and may potentially lower its tariffs on China which gives them a back door into the US. There are some specifics and it's all conditional. It depends on the kinds of deals it settles on.

I do feel as why demands reason and I am not sure if you can reason with the unreasonable which is what the Canadian speech was about in Davos and then POTUS threatened 100% tariffs again.

Kind of proved the point of America being an un-reliable partner which is what I inferred from Canadian PM's speech & his call for middle economies to connect with each other and strengthen together to have more leverage overall.

Because after the US threatened to destroy our economy and/or annex us by force and/or cancel nu-NAFTA and/or impose tariffs on us regardless, we realized that Americans don't actually want us as friends so we started diversifying our trade partnerships and negotiated a mutual tariff relaxation deal with China.

The previous Canada-US relationship is gone. Months ago I wrote on HN that purely by virtue of having to weather this storm, the nature of Canada-US relations will be irrevocably and fundamentally altered. Even if Trump and his cronies were jailed tomorrow, it's too late. The rest of the world understands that Trump is just a symptom of the disease affecting America and it's going to get worse, not better.

Delusion? Dementia? Being surrounded by yes-men?

I don't know what's the ETA on VLC 4 but it's been entirely usable for me for the past year, and it's pretty cutting edge (internally). Hopefully it's not too long before we'll see beta releases.

That'd be the same osi model which only is used by academics and nobody in the real world.

Then why aren't Europeans using them?

Good call out, India is likely the most viable option.

I can't wait to see how many indians we are going to be forced to import due to that "free trade deal". They must have looked at how well it went in canada and said among themselves "now that's how you destroy a country we gotta get some of that". [EDIT] Hopefully national politicians get balls, more balls, and tell their MEPs to vote against it like the mercosur deal.

Europe has good software companies. It's just that the US has bigger VC funding which makes European companies unable to compete when US/EU companies are "fighting".

There's a reason Linus lives in Oregon.

What is the reason Linus lives in Oregon? By his own admission, 90% of his workday is reading and answering email. We have email in Europe, so that can’t be it.

AI is great at translating, doing a task in seconds which would take days. For almost no cost.

That is quite significant on a continent like Europe, with dozens of different languages.

The US capital markets are truly a wonder to behold. There's no way to replace that. For good and ill, you'd only get weird looks in Europe if you asked for €10 billion for an unproven business model in what's somehow also a competitive market.

To be fair this example does look a lot like insanity.

This is part of the answer.

I have a theory about the second part; European consumers have an even more suspicious view of "corporate overlords" if they are domestic/European than if they are American. Not because Americans are more trustworthy, but because they see Europeans as "anonymous masses" and are therefore more "neutral" to the internal struggles in Europe.

Signing up to a service owned by a European "dynastic" family, possibly in a neighbouring country, feels like more of a surrender of autonomy.

You don't have to love risk to build something you need.

Uhhh... 800m active users?

It's also pervasive. The weirdest thing in the world is watching someone I know who works for a big tech company and moved to the States suddenly wanting to get a New Zealand citizenship "just in case".

My point is that you don't achieve that by having the state start developing internal tools (unless it's highly sensitive stuff like for the intelligence services or military) for standard office applications. The French state is already massively oversized...

And that will change in 3 years or even at the end of this year... A lot is blown out of proportion by the EU itself because it serves its own agenda to expand reach and power.

Realistically there is zero alternative to US tech/online dominance in sight in Europe and the credible competitors are more likely to be Chinese (tiktok, temu, shein, etc.) What is happening is EU politics.

What's is your argument? That tech companies don't need them? Sounds like such a brutally myopic american take.

Sure.

Canada has a GDP of:

Kansas, Arkansas, Nebraska, Mississippi, New Mexico, Idaho, New Hampshire, Hawaii, West Virginia, Delaware, Maine, Rhode Island, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Alaska, Wyoming and Vermont

put together.

That's the equivalent of 18 states.

Throw in Aus and NZ too and you add another 7 states -- Louisiana, Alabama, Utah, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Nevada and Iowa.

Ontario alone has a larger GDP than 45 of the 50 US states, and a bigger GDP than New Hampshire, Hawaii, West Virginia, Delaware, Maine, Rhode Island, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Alaska, Wyoming and Vermont put together.

i wouldnt be surprised if theyre talking about it internally, and avoiding saying it out loud until they've secured alternative options

And in France alone 7.5 million home have lead pipes [1].

[1] https://www.zerowaterfilter.com/blogs/zerowater-knowledge-ce...

Regulations are neutral. They can be positive, or negative. And should be pruned occasionally probably.

And yea, we have lots of old lead pipes here in certain places. But let's not pretend we can't find fault with the immigrant ghettos in Europe or myriad other issues y'all have over there.

There's problems everywhere there's sufficient numbers and complexity.

Lead pipes in Chicago were due to union regulatory capture and not lack of regulations

The issue was the sheer number of various regulations/standards/(taxes?) changing by country.

It was good enough for the US.