News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Go European: Discover European products and services. Parent comment

Re:Go European: Discover European products and services by Yeul on Monday March 10, 2025 @07:20AM (#43319244)
If you walk into a European supermarket, fashion store or MediaMarkt there is very little coming from the US. The giant container ships are coming from the East not the West.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Go European: Discover European products and services by zppln on Monday March 10, 2025 @07:31AM (#43319354)
Sure. My microwave from 1988 is about the only thing made in the US in my home (interstingly an Electrolux). However, every purchase I make is with a Visa card. Most services I use are American. And as I'm typing this... anyone know a European alternative to SwiftKey? :P
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Go European: Discover European products and services by simongray on Monday March 10, 2025 @07:46AM (#43319480)
> anyone know a European alternative to SwiftKey? :P

Sadly, SwiftKey is/was actually a UK company that was acquired by Microsoft. Most successful European tech start-ups seem to end up being acquired by one of the American tech giants. Perhaps this is will be ending now.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Go European: Discover European products and services by lentil_soup on Monday March 10, 2025 @11:37AM (#43321735)
Electrolux is Swedish though. Or you mean it was actually built in the US but sold by Electrolux?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Go European: Discover European products and services by zppln on Tuesday March 11, 2025 @02:12AM (#43329647)
Built in the US and sold by Electrolux, yes.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Go European: Discover European products and services by FirmwareBurner on Monday March 10, 2025 @07:23AM (#43319276)
The chips and software in a lot of those products are coming from the US, even if the final products are manufactured in the East.

The US makes the biggest margins from valuable IP and software services, not from mass produced widgets coming in shipping containers.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Go European: Discover European products and services by BlackFly on Monday March 10, 2025 @09:06AM (#43320180)
Chips made with Dutch chip fabrication technology to English chip designs...

The software situation is grim but maybe open source somewhat ameliorates that...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Go European: Discover European products and services by FirmwareBurner on Monday March 10, 2025 @09:19AM (#43320291)
>Chips made with Dutch chip fabrication technology

Using american EUV light sources....this train of who makes what in the supply chain can go on forever, the point is who's making the highest margins from the end product and it's not ASML nor ARM but Nvidia, AMD, Qualcomm, Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc.

Hence my point that while EU has some IP, its value is dwarfed by the IP the US makes. Just look at market cap of US vs European tech sector. It's not even a competition. ASML can't offset that. I think Apple has enough cash in the bank to buy ASML if they wanted to.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Go European: Discover European products and services by BlackFly on Wednesday March 12, 2025 @09:16AM (#43342924)
The profits aren't the point. The questions that Europeans are asking themselves as shown in the featured article is how far away they are from independence from an untrustworthy trading partner.
[ Parent | on HN ]