Saw this post on Reddit and thought it was interesting to see someone’s experience.
I’ve been trying for a few months to get rid of any stuff made out of EU (even before it was mainstream lol), and here are my conclusions at the moment:
Groceries: It’s pretty easy. I try to go to local stores, but if I need to go to a supermarket, I go to Carrefour, Mercadona or Froiz, all european, and I’ve reached to the point that EVERYTHING I buy is european (mostly spanish, portuguese, french or italian).
Clothes: This has been tricky. To buy sneakers has been more dificult than I thought it would be. There are a lot of european brands that actually make it’s products in China, Bangladesh, etc., so I had to look very close. Finally, I buyed Victoria sneakers and I’m very happy with them. For shoes and boots, Pikolinos is a very good brand also. Miguel Bellido shirts are very good as well.
Furniture: Well, Ikea is the obvious choice, but I do preffer to buy on spanish and portuguese stores that also have prety good quality for a good price, like Lufe.
Sports: Only sport that I play is climbing, and my last pair of climbing shoes are Tenaya Ra, and I couldn’t be happier with them. La Sportiva has amazing products also, being italian and as far as I know, still manufacture in Italy.
Technology: Oh man, this is a pain… I don’t want to throw away my iPhone 13 mini until it’s done, but when the time comes, I don’t know if there are going to be any alternatives. Fairphone, probably, but the components are also from China, right? And anyway, I will struggle with a big phone, which I hate. In PC I can move from Windows to Linux, but the mayority of the PC parts would be made in USA.
Good news is that the only USA page that I actually visit is Reddit, as I don’t have Instagram, facebook or any other social media. Bad news is that it will be virtually impossible to leave Whatsapp.
Well, this is it, I guess that all of you are struggling with the same, being the technology the real issue, cause the rest is pretty easy to find alternatives even better.
My faith in Europe has risen since few months back, and I hope it’s not too late for us to being able to compete in this new world that is emerging, where if you depend on any way on USA or China, you’re lost.
A hug from Spain to all of you, european brothers. And sorry for my poor english.
I stopped using WhatsApp years ago. Yeah, it was slightly inconvenient because of course friends and family were using it (which was why I started using it in the first place) but I told everyone I would move to Telegram so they could contact me on there or they could keep in touch through text/email/calls. Plenty of options.
I installed Signal on my phone years ago but no one I knew used it. So I couldn’t use it even though I did have it installed.
Now I’m in a similar situation with Telegram as I was with WhatsApp, except more and more of my contacts are joining Signal thanks to everything that’s going down at the moment. There are, unfortunately, still a few people that seem to be out of the loop and still continue to use Telegram so it’s still installed on my phone but I mainly use Signal now.
So I’m glad more and more people are discovering Signal and are now switching! Now I get to actually use it.
Just wanted to address the point about Fairphone -I’m not affiliated with them, just proud to purchase from them.
The company’s ethos is to be fair to consumers and their suppliers, to avoid conflict minerals, fair wages & working conditions, etc.
It’s this that I look for. Not the nation that mined the metal, aasembled it, wrote the OS, etc.
It’s a Dutch company with a - fair - global supply chain
I’m on a similar journey. Tech is indeed very difficult. As for whatsapp, I did leave it some weeks ago. I managed to migrate family and close friends to signal. For people who don’t want to install a second messaging app, I use SMS. Fortunately they are from the same country and SMS are free. You can do it!
Signal is better than WPP, I’d say, but it is still an American company.
I’ve been trying out XMPP recently, and I think that might be the way to go. Decentralized, safe, universal… There’s plenty of apps too. I think it might be the way to go.
Signal is honestly the best solution for a lot of people. It’s a non-profit and is Open Source. It perfectly resembles whatsapp, already has a large userbase, and is easy to use.
I get XMPP might be more perfect since it’s decentralised (though it comes with drawbacks too like Encryption not being there by default), but I urge anyone reading this, do not let perfect be the enemy of good.
Switching from whatsapp to signal is already amazing for your privacy and ethics. Remember that switching messengers not only means you have to switch yourself, but also convince your friends and family to switch. It’ll be an uphill battle, so don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
XMPP Rocks
I don’t want to discourage people from using XMPP, the goal of my comment is more for people who might get trapped in a sort of situation like: thinking of switching to signal and then giving up because “it’s not good enough I need to switch to XMPP” and then realising “no one I know uses XMPP” or “XMPP is too complicated”, and then ultimately just staying with Whatsapp.
Why not Matrix?
I know you weren’t asking me, but Matrix kinda sucks, from my experience as a user. IDK what it is about it, but it’s just so weirdly clunky? IDK if that makes sense. Also, I believe there’s no video calls?
From what I’ve read, hosting Matrix is hard and resource intensive too?
I host mine, do server update few times a year, running 1-2 commands depending on whether postgres upgraded or not. This is also main communication method in my company. We do video calls sometimes, but what good are they if you can’t drink together?
What’s the best way to self host it?
I just bought discount auctioned server from Hetzner, but it was a massive overkill, just happened to be that way; their cheap VMs are totally enough.
I host mine
That’s awesome :D
We do video calls sometimes
Oh, I thought there were no video calls, but you’re right! That does make it better… I don’t know how I got that impression, sorry about that! o.0
but what good are they if you can’t drink together?
I’m not sure how a choice of messaging protocol or app affects one’s ability to have drinks… Sorry, I don’t understand what you mean…
Sorry, the last thing was a joke. I just don’t like remote calls, no matter what app or protocol.
Oh, OK!
Well, yeah I don’t like them either, to be honest, but it’s nice to be able to see my parents even if we can’t be together. It’s something I value.
Best of both worlds: https://www.beeper.com/
Very much American, that is.
Self hosted & matrix, fortunately.
Majority of computer parts are made in China and Taiwan, I guess. On behalf of US companies. And there we’re real in bad place to go local. EU would have to invest an insane amount of resources to get self sustained to a certain degree. Interestingly, the other way round is also present through ASML, a Dutch manufacturer that is the only one in the world creating tools for producing bleeding edge chips. 🤷♂️
Yeah, it’ll take a long time and lots of investment. I think it’s possible though, and, as you said, ASML is a proof of concept for EU-based manufacturing of high-level tech.
Sorry, but ASML is actually proof of the opposite and here’s why:
The EU has been a place for a long time where tech is expensive to produce. The high wages and cost of living is mainly why.
Cutting edge tech can flourish here. IMEC, ASML, medical device companies, robotics and industrial equipment (abb, Schneider, etc…) Because these industries have waaay more margin and are B2B sales, not B2C.
Consumer electronics have much more competition and are competing with the wages and working conditions of workers in China and India, along with the sheer local tech supply chains, proximity to Taiwan, and manufacturing scale.
ASML is a titan specifically because they are an almost complete monopoly and closely guards their trade secrets. Their margins are absolutely massive because they can be. The price of labor isn’t a dealbreaker for them because each machine sells for multiple millions of euros.
If phones and smart watches were actually produced in the EU, they would be double the cost and absolutely nobody would buy them as there is no technical benefit besides being made in the EU.
Just look at fairphone. It costs about 50% more than its spec competitors because it uses European engineering and software development and a little better material sourcing while still being produced in China.
Ugh, that sounds like sensible analysis… I wonder if this isn’t the sort of thing that can’t be subsidized.
In Portugal, every (not every, but most, at least) children received a free laptop in middle school for personal and academic use. This didn’t last long for a variety of reasons, as we were (and still are…) a very corrupt country, but I wonder if some sort of national/EU-level policy surrounding tech literacy, for example, couldn’t do something about this.
Give people EU tech from the start as part of social programs, strengthen EU manufacturing through subsidies/PPP… IDK just spitballing. Well, I guess there’s the other option…
We have the means to do it, but I think we lack the market and the necessary demand. There are already 2 initiatives from the EU under the EPI, for 2 chips. One is a general data-center CPU based on the ARM arch, called RHEA 1: https://www.european-processor-initiative.eu/general-purpose-processor and the other, EPAC, based on the RISC-V arch, is a fusion of accelerators which can be used for specialized tasks like AI training etc: https://www.european-processor-initiative.eu/european-processor-initiative-announces-the-successful-bring-up-of-the-epac1-5-acceleration-chip Despite the initial funding and the goodwill, not a single unit has been produced from the RHEA1, while they have already a design for RHEA2. The EPAC has had sample shipped which can boot Linux. Overall on the consumer side we have nothing to compete. The EU ceded any kind of consumer silicone tech to the US, which now can use it as a bargaining chip to their benefit.
bargaining chip
heh
Also check out Zeta Shoes! Designed in Bordeaux, made in Portugal! :)
Regarding furniture second hand seems like the way to go in my opinion. Assuming of course one has the ability to transport things.
Often one can find much better quality for lower prices, simply because people want to get rid of it for one reason or the other. And furniture is also one of the products where it seem easier to asses the condition of compared to other things, compared to others that might have hidden issues.
Second-hand is the way to go for a lot of things, IMO. Even tech and clothing, IMO, should be second-hand first.
Refurbished phones and laptops are great, and you can find lots of very well maintained clothing for relatively cheap on second-hand online platforms such as Vinted (which is European).
Most things in general should be second-hand first, IMHO.
True, I just find it particularly interesting for furniture. Tech in my experience is more mixed.
Refurbished with warranty is a good choice, particularly for something like a used business laptop. But in the person to person second-hand market I find that people usually have unrealistic price expectations for older tech and you also run a higher risk of hidden flaws that you can’t see before purchase.
As for second hand clothing I admittedly have little experience, but that is partially down to the fact that I tend to wear my pieces for a very long time. And then often want to purchase a few identical things at the same time. Which i assume is harder to find second-hand.
Which i assume is harder to find second-hand.
Yup, very much so. You can find similar or even the same models for sale, but it’s hard to find them all at the same time. Sizing can also be an issue, for example. It’s definitely less convenient. However, if you ever want to buy some clothes, I really do recommend at least checking it out.
True, I just find it particularly interesting for furniture.
Admittedly, I’ve never had to buy furniture, so I can’t comment on that particular aspect of it. I have seen those videos of people flipping old furniture though, so I assume there’s a market for that kind of thing, at least.
You can also buy technology second hand. That’s a way to avoid giving money outside your country.
And clothes! I buy my socks and underwear new, usually from Ukraine, and all of my other clothes in the past 20 years have always been second hand. Has worked very well.
I have a similar experience with groceries, shoes and clothes were pretty easy for me because you can find a lot of good Czech brands.
Other things like tools, car and appliances can easily be traced back to the EU, but tech is hard, we have in CZ a phone brand called Aligator but that’s a last resort thing and anyway it’s probably made in China.
As for apps, I can’t ditch WhatsApp, that would cut me off from most of my family (convince grandma to move to Signal… Yeah… Though so…).
(convince grandma to move to Signal… Yeah… Though so…)
My grandma can barely type a message…
Doesn’t Ikea manufacture in the usual other countries too?
Partially, yeah. They do also manufacture in Poland and Romania, though, for example.
Depends on the product, I know that they make so furniture in Romania, glass in Bulgaria and Italy but I’ve seen quite a lot of IKEA things made in Mexico. Overall I consider them “EU safe”, but you need to check the label.
They do shady stuff with Romania‘s forests for their lumber. I am boycotting them since a few years ago when I say a documentary on DW.
