Buy European

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.

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?

Sorry, but ASML is actually proof of the opposite and here's why:

The EU has been a place for a long time where tech is expensive to produce. The high wages and cost of living is mainly why.

Cutting edge tech can flourish here. IMEC, ASML, medical device companies, robotics and industrial equipment (abb, Schneider, etc...) Because these industries have waaay more margin and are B2B sales, not B2C.

Consumer electronics have much more competition and are competing with the wages and working conditions of workers in China and India, along with the sheer local tech supply chains, proximity to Taiwan, and manufacturing scale.

ASML is a titan specifically because they are an almost complete monopoly and closely guards their trade secrets. Their margins are absolutely massive because they can be. The price of labor isn't a dealbreaker for them because each machine sells for multiple millions of euros.

If phones and smart watches were actually produced in the EU, they would be double the cost and absolutely nobody would buy them as there is no technical benefit besides being made in the EU.

Just look at fairphone. It costs about 50% more than its spec competitors because it uses European engineering and software development and a little better material sourcing while still being produced in China.

We have the means to do it, but I think we lack the market and the necessary demand. There are already 2 initiatives from the EU under the EPI, for 2 chips. One is a general data-center CPU based on the ARM arch, called RHEA 1: https://www.european-processor-initiative.eu/general-purpose-processor and the other, EPAC, based on the RISC-V arch, is a fusion of accelerators which can be used for specialized tasks like AI training etc: https://www.european-processor-initiative.eu/european-processor-initiative-announces-the-successful-bring-up-of-the-epac1-5-acceleration-chip Despite the initial funding and the goodwill, not a single unit has been produced from the RHEA1, while they have already a design for RHEA2. The EPAC has had sample shipped which can boot Linux. Overall on the consumer side we have nothing to compete. The EU ceded any kind of consumer silicone tech to the US, which now can use it as a bargaining chip to their benefit.

True, I just find it particularly interesting for furniture. Tech in my experience is more mixed.

Refurbished with warranty is a good choice, particularly for something like a used business laptop. But in the person to person second-hand market I find that people usually have unrealistic price expectations for older tech and you also run a higher risk of hidden flaws that you can't see before purchase.

As for second hand clothing I admittedly have little experience, but that is partially down to the fact that I tend to wear my pieces for a very long time. And then often want to purchase a few identical things at the same time. Which i assume is harder to find second-hand.

They do shady stuff with Romania‘s forests for their lumber. I am boycotting them since a few years ago when I say a documentary on DW.