Buy European

Obligatory !linuxphones@lemmy.ca plug

Looking for a USB-C powerbank for my phone. Any suggestions?

From !books@lemmy.world

People are being inspired by Greta Thunberg.

Cheers to traveling by sail and rail 🍷

cross-posted from: https://feddit.is/post/55738

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/27412102

A list of recommendations produced by the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly – a delegation of members from the UK and EU parliaments aimed at strengthening relations with the bloc – has urged the government to establish a “youth opportunity scheme”.

It is understood the scheme would operate similarly to proposals for a “youth mobility scheme”, which had become a major sticking point between the UK and EU.

It would allow 18- to 35-year-olds, including those doing apprenticeships, to move and work freely between countries for up to two years.

Britain already has a similar agreement with Australia and 12 other countries, including New Zealand, South Korea, Iceland, Uruguay, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

There is widespread support among the British public for such an agreement with the EU, with a YouGov survey of almost 15,000 people indicating that two-thirds (66 per cent) of people backed the scheme, compared to just one in five (18 per cent) who are opposed.

In Nigel Farage’s Clacton-on-Sea constituency, which voted overwhelmingly in favour of leaving the EU in 2016, more than twice as many people were in favour (57 per cent) than against (25 per cent) the idea of a mobility scheme.
[…]
There is now hope among MPs on the parliamentary delegation that the change in language will help to get the agreement over the line, as it is understood that a key stumbling bloc for ministers was the term “mobility” – amid fears critics would use it as evidence Labour is restoring freedom of movement.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/61095888

A Start Up bringing a new Phone into the Market. ITS worse a closer Look. Habe dun with it!

https://www.heise.de/en/news/More-interest-in-European-cloud-providers-due-to-the-Trump-effect-10349896.html

From the 7th of April to the 9th, the European Central Bank spoke extensively about the Digital Euro, expressing hope about its potential and publishing an update of its rulebook. Its President, Christine Lagarde, also called for it, wishing to end European reliance on international payment solutions providers such as VISA, Mastercard, PayPal, Stripe and others.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/10701035 by @nahostdeutschland@feddit.org

Let me tell you about the “boycott light”: It is of course difficult to directly eliminate all American products and all American technology from your life. Smartphones are one technology in particular for which there is no real European alternative. And of course, in some cases Amazon is the only place where certain products are available or where certain products are significantly cheaper than elsewhere. Boycotting is hard, but there is a way to hurt them without hurting yourself.

But: the big tech companies live from your “engagement”. The more time you spend on YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram or Facebook, the more advertising they can show you. And the more profitable you are for these companies. That's why they rely on all these addiction mechanisms, because every minute you spend there is hard cash for the companies. This also applies to the eCommerce giants. PayPal collects a commission for every payment. Visa and Mastercard too. Amazon also takes its cut and so on.

Every minute that you are not surfing Facebook but are on Lemmy, Mastodon, on other websites or even offline is a minute in which your engagement there drops and in which no profitable advertising can be shown to you. You can of course stop using those services completely and delete all accounts, but if that's not possible, a partial boycott is also a good idea. If only one of your friend groups stays on Facebook and you move with the others, that's less time spent there and therefore less profit for Zuckerberg. Your local football group wants to stay on WhatsApp, but you can move your friends to Signal? Less time spend in WhatsApp, KPIs are going down.

And of course it's hard when certain products are significantly cheaper on Amazon than in other stores. But if you compare prices before you buy and then buy many products elsewhere and don't just go for the default Amazon, then that's poison for Bezos pocket. If you simply select the other payment methods for stores and not PayPal by default, that attacks their business model. Does a store only have PayPal? Then you can of course do without the purchase completely, but: If you no longer use PayPal as the default, but only where it is absolutely necessary, then the KPIs at their HQ will be on fire.

This also applies to other digital services: If you no longer use Google Search as your main search, but only as a backup when you haven't found what you want in other search engines, then they will absolutly go nuts at Google HQ. If you use an Android phone but refuse to use the AI and all the cloud services, then that kills their engagement metrics and honestly: it doesn't do you any harm.

So: If you are unable to do a full boycott, a partial boycott is still an effective method of harming certain companies. Try to be as unprofitable as possible for you in your circumstances.

Golem.de is reporting about an increasing interest of European companies and people to buy European cloud services.

According to the article Open cloud reports 62% more users. Nextcloud would see a threefold of inquiries.

According to golem, major contributers to the trend would be corporation's and official state agencies. Private consumers would also contribute, but at a much lower scale.

Comment: I think this is great news. Things are changing not only on a personal level, but on a corporation level. I think this is super important because a huge portion of revenues of the tech companies is done in B2B. Yet, it is important for us to keep spreading the message. The more we speak about the topic, to further it grows in our societies. We need to use the momentum to emphasize the significance of a change.