this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2025
845 points (99.8% liked)

Buy European

4614 readers
1387 users here now

Overview:

The community to discuss buying European goods and services.


Matrix Chat


Rules:

  • Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. No direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments.

  • Do not use this community to promote Nationalism/Euronationalism. This community is for discussing European products/services and news related to that. For other topics the following might be of interest:

  • Include a disclaimer at the bottom of the post if you're affiliated with the recommendation.

  • No russian suggestions.

Feddit.uk's instance rules apply:

  • No racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia or xenophobia
  • No incitement of violence or promotion of violent ideologies
  • No harassment, dogpiling or doxxing of other users
  • Do not share intentionally false or misleading information
  • Do not spam or abuse network features.
  • Alt accounts are permitted, but all accounts must list each other in their bios.

Benefits of Buying Local:

local investment, job creation, innovation, increased competition, more redundancy.

European Instances

Lemmy:

Matrix:


Related Communities:

Buy Local:

Continents:

European

Buying and Selling:

Boycott:

Countries:

Companies:

Stop Publisher Kill Switch in Games Practice:


Banner credits: BYTEAlliance


founded 2 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] [email protected] 35 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

Too bad about crypto.

This is the exact kind of situation it was meant to deal with: finance independent of bad entities. But itโ€™s such a dumpster fireโ€ฆ

I donโ€™t think thereโ€™s a purer example of social media engagement hype, predatory capitalism, and disinformation ruining something neat so quick.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Too bad about crypto. You mean cryptocurrencies? Which ones?

[โ€“] [email protected] 0 points 6 days ago

All of them?

Big/popular ones have been taking over by the day trading/tech bro crowd.

Small ones seem to be in the realm of scammers/hypers, and there is no way to sort through the sludge.

Those in the middle seem to spin with no traction, and even stablecoins or the GNU one have some inherit issues to adoption.

[โ€“] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There is GNU Taler which is quite cool, but thats not really ready for use yet sadly.

[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Oh yeah, that seems really cool. The core premise is much more practical.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah, money that expires is very practical

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (2 children)
[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Their very own FAQ says:

How to avoid digital cash expiration?

Taler e-money is issued with a validity period. One month before the expiration date, your wallet should automatically exchange any digital cash that is about to expire for new digital cash with an extended validity period. However, if your wallet is offline for an extended period of time, it may be unable to do so. Ensure your wallet is regularly online to avoid losing money due to expiration!

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Jesus, that sounds like a catastroph waiting to happen.

Depending on the length of the period and when that period starts.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

People get sick, people get jailed, all kinds of events happen that can incapacicate you for extended periods of time

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Meanwhile the bitcoin landfill guy has finally given up his search

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Their very own FAQ says:

How to avoid digital cash expiration?

Taler e-money is issued with a validity period. One month before the expiration date, your wallet should automatically exchange any digital cash that is about to expire for new digital cash with an extended validity period. However, if your wallet is offline for an extended period of time, it may be unable to do so. Ensure your wallet is regularly online to avoid losing money due to expiration!

[โ€“] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago (3 children)

social media engagement hype, predatory capitalism, and disinformation ruining something

I mean, it still works for getting around Visa and Mastercard. For instance it can be used to make donations to various media piracy groups. It's just that it's so useful to scammers and many people see the technology as a whole as being one 'brand'.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

media piracy

Do you mean privacy?

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

No I meant piracy, as it's an example of something good you can use crypto for that payment processors are liable to censor. For example Annas Archive, which is practically a modern Library of Alexandria, takes crypto. I don't think Visa is censoring the EFF etc. Yet.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Itโ€™s more than a perception problem now, itโ€™s a culture one within the crypto community (as far as I can tell).

Even if you treat the most prominent crypto as a utility, the sea of hype and speculation will affect you.

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Maybe. I feel a bit out of the loop on "crypto community culture" because I understand that much of it largely exists on Twitter nowadays, and I don't go there. Still, it is a functional solution for a money equivalent of encrypted communication.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Or Discord! And investment TV! Itโ€™s so cultish, itโ€™s unreal.

I think this should be distinguished between "pure" crypto enthusiasts, in it for the utility, not speculation, which are probably like pink elephants now.

AI has a similar divide, where like 99% of the hype is on Twitter and TV with AI bros, but there are little niche communities messing with open weights, locally runnable models in a much more grounded way. /r/localllama used to be a hub for this (and there is a little branch on Lemmy), but unfortunately it seems to be getting strangled by Reddit enshittification .

[โ€“] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

It really depends on the cryptocurrency in question. Some coins are much more credible than others. Lumping them all in together is like saying that the Japanese Yen and the Lebanese Pound are the same.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Doesn't work when the valuation goes up and down like a yo-yo. You need same currency.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Stablecoin is a thing. So is a system to control inflation.

The more pressing issue to me is the core premise: a totally anonymized but publicly recorded financial system makes no sense, especially when the user generally wonโ€™t grasp it. Itโ€™s just begging for thieves and scammers, and thatโ€™s what it got.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[โ€“] BedSharkPal 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Doesn't it use proof of work? Why the hell would anyone torch the planet for crypto? If they switch to something like proof of stake then maybe... like Nano, but anonymized sounds great.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

And proof of stake provides yet another advantage to the already wealthy.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

But if you can't get rich, no one wants to buy it or use it. This is the conundrum of crypto.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Yeah, and that toxic idea has completely poisoned the well.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Unlike fiat currencies most of the credible cryptocurrencies have increased in value over the past 10 years.

[โ€“] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

These were the most credible cryptocurrencies 10 years ago. How many of them do people today recognize?

Beware survivorship bias.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

But you can use the technology behind it

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (2 children)
[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

Seriously? Blockchains are only useful for cryptocurrencies?

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

CBDCs & IPFS are a thing (even GNU-Jami uses it too)