[Ecosia] joined the #oneclickaway campaign, alongside other independent European tech companies. This campaign is a wake-up call to politicians across the EU: it’s time to invest in Europe’s own digital infrastructure. Because right now, we’re dangerously dependent on just a few Big Tech players — and most of them are headquartered far, far away. Let’s break it down.

[…]

The #oneclickaway campaign is a cross-European effort to encourage policymakers to make different choices. Instead of defaulting to the usual Big Tech vendors, we’re asking them to consider European alternatives for search, cloud, email, and more. The name says it all: most alternatives are just one click away.

It doesn’t take a revolution, just the political will to support homegrown, ethical tech. This isn’t about tech nationalism or shutting out global collaboration. It’s about balance, plurality and resilience. The same way a biodiverse forest is more robust than a monoculture plantation, a diverse digital ecosystem is more resistant to shocks — whether political, economic, or technological.

Totally agree, as a consumer you’re left guessing in a lot of cases. Often there is no black and white set of options.

In their defense a headline with brexit ghosts will get you a lot more clicks than Switzerlands EU access could get you without them.

I know that’s what they are saying, but that independence has seriously diminished and only continues to decrease.

In a case like this I think it is fair to look at how much of the money ends up outside of Europe (roughly). So a Volvo designed in Sweden and built in Slovakia is leaving more money in the EU than a BYD designed and built in China. But not as much as a Volkswagen or Fiat. Though with complex products it can be hard to know what comes from where and with big companies it can be hard to know where profits are spend (perhaps Volkswagen uses their profit to expand their production in China for example).

But I think aside from money earned it is also fair to look at what kind of things might result from that income. For example a product with a chip imported from China might be equal European as a product with a chip imported from Taiwan but since Taiwan is not committing genocide I much rather have them receive that money.

Some media outlets abuse things that are happening as an reason to push a shitload of content hoping to make money from ads. This adds to words becoming buzzwords, like crypto and AI. I don’t disagree that happens, but there is something real happening too. Whether you personally use and/or like crypto and ai does not change on this having major effects on certain industries. Same goes for a lot of other buzzwords, although the metaverse could well be an example of a buzzword without having anything real beneath it, so far at least. Some might end up not being a big thing (remember the hyperloop), some are world changing (there was a time smartphone was a buzzword).

In the Netherlands there is also a class-action lawsuit coming up, guess there is roughly the same amount of android users here. Maybe a bit more. Will be interesting to see how much lower that amount will be.

my lacking English

Your English wasn’t incorrect, it’s that disagreed with what you wrote. You used it has become which is the tense you use for something completed (as in, it has finished), while I believe it is not completed and for that reason wrote is becoming which is the same verb but in a different tense (as in, it is happening). I’m no native speaker, so might not be the best explanation. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong.

I think in your last comment all forms are all correct, and the tense in which you the verb to vote has different nuance but i wouldn’t think something of it in this particular case. If you use ‘are voting for’ you basically mean how people would vote if they would have to vote today (or this week) and you would use ‘voted for’ mainly if it is relevant that it is different then how people would vote today. (Will) vote for, is voting for, will be voting are basically interchangeable, unless I am missing the nuance myself. You explain it correctly yourself so I think you understand it but I made you doubt yourself. Sorry for that.

Are you sure about that?

There are many politicians who consider the EU as not fully formed. The changes don’t happen very fast, but it is in my view still an ongoing proces. For example, which countries are part of it continues to change (England left and others joined, more will likely join later), the euro itself hasn’t changed but the countries it is used in still changes (Bulgaria is expected to switch over to the Euro next year) and also what is and isn’t in the Schengen area changes, even this year with Gibraltar joining.

Another example of how, according to some, the EU would be more finished is with a ‘multi-tier membership options’, in which some countries have a tighter bond to the EU and others have a looser (think of how Norway and Switzerland aren’t in the EU, but they are not entirely outside of it either).

There is lot has already been decided, so maybe it is already 90% finished, but there still is an ongoing debate on what the EU should end up looking like.

Since brexit leaving the EU hasn’t looked like a very attractive option but still there is a lot of discussion on whether the EU should be smaller (e.g. having borders controlled by each individual member-state) or bigger (e.g. having a single combined army). In other words, there is still room to decide on what topics the EU should be big and on which it should be small. That makes the EU as it is right now very different than the US for example, where most of the expansion and integration happened two to three centuries ago (around the civil war mainly I think, but I’m no expert on US history either).

Sorry to hear that, hope you recover soon. Wish you the best!

The EU won’t push for adoption of the euro when it would hurt the economy though. Yes Canada would lose autonomy over their fiscal policy but only once they agree it would be a win-win in the economic sense. I know there are a lot of situations in which not having that fiscal autonomy sucks (for example when inflation in your country is very different from the overall eu avarage) so I can’t say if it would be worth it or not, I am no economist but it’d never be implemented at all costs or rushed because of some agenda.

It’s stupid now but isreal wasn’t always like this

And it seems rather happy about what it has become

There are people happy about what it is becoming*

The EU is not a finished project :)

There are a lot of in demand jobs, from nurse to developer if you don’t mind working in those specific fields you can skip a lot of those steps.

I agree, we need a new name

Yikes, i’d rather have north-korea join us then the current isreal state. But when Netanyahu is in jail and Palestinians and Israeli can see eye to eye again it would culturally fit in the union of western nation states. But probably US wants to join and it becomes a group of countries trying to take over the world and we already had enough of that in Europe.

100%. We should persuade Canada to join Eurovision. They have some great artists and both English and French are easier to get votes with lol.

Well they wanted to leave, and maybe the rest of the commonwealth and the EU want something different.

@[email protected], i think something went wrong autofilling or copy/pasting the title.

If Canada joins EU that would make it the union less a European union, not saying I would mind that but we’re gonna need a better name. Maybe invite Australia & New Zealand as well. Need to be quick though, before UK snatches them up.

Hear me out, wild plan: why not free the russians & add that as well.

Interestingly enough, the EU reports (as late as 2023) that desktop use to access the internet has gone down over the years, but so has tablet use. Laptop, phones, and smart devices (i.e. smart TVs) went up.

Interesting for sure, desktop going down doesnt surprise me much but hadn’t expected tablet use to go down as well.