Here you can find reviewed, impressive and comprehensive European alternatives for digital products and apps if you wanna break from American (big) tech companies.
Have a look, you’ll be impressed…
Here you can find reviewed, impressive and comprehensive European alternatives for digital products and apps if you wanna break from American (big) tech companies.
Have a look, you’ll be impressed…
Call me cynical, but I don’t expect these to be better alternatives for long. The main issue lies with the fact that these services are both centralized and profit-motivated, and I don’t anticipate that the EU’s privacy laws, though they are better than those in the US, will be much protection once even one of these competitors gets big enough to have a say in politics. Self-hosted, open-source apps are a far better solution than relying on yet another company that has full control of the software, especially with the barrier to entry for those apps getting smaller with each passing day.
There are multiple projects available that will let you turn even a mediocre extra PC into a platform for self-hosted apps with not a lot of effort. Yunohost and CasaOS are two that come to mind, but other options exist. Hell, even just running Nextcloud is probably enough to cover most people’s SaaS needs, though it can require a bit more work than the other two that I mentioned.
You’re too cynical. Yes, EU is not immune to lobbying but it’s way better at regulating companies than US is. Those alternatives are clearly better now so not switching because “they may not be as good in the future” is not a valid reason to keep using US tech.
Moving to something that’s still at significant risk of being enshittified is an objectively worse move than going to something that’s not, though. I’m not saying to keep US tech, I’m saying to build your own now so you don’t have to move again in a couple years.
If someone is able to self host then of course it’s a better solution but self hosting requires knowledge, time and money and is not for everyone. EU tech is better than US tech so if someone is not able to self host moving to European providers is the next best solution and should be encouraged.
That’s kinda my point, though. The solutions I mentioned in my original comment are already approaching the same level of simplicity as a smartphone, and they should be recommended over centralized options as much as possible. I’m not suggesting that the average person should try and host their own email, but with something like Yunohost, running a copy of Nextcloud or Seafile is about as difficult as installing their corresponding apps on your phone.