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'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.
:::spoiler 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.
That's awesome :D
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
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.