Buy European

Hey guys!

Visa and Mastercard are the 8th and 15th biggest companies in the world, worth more than 1.1T USD (!!!).

For any purchase made with a credit or debit cards and you give them 2-3% of your money.

That's one the biggest waste of money from EU you can imagine.

I'm trying to find viable alternatives but except paying cash it seem there is no real alternative. Even in where I live there is an alternate payment service but they take the money from my mastercard, duh...

And the idea would be to have something even my grandma can use, not some nerdy solution, any thoughts?

Edit: Bitcoin would be a solution if widely adopted, but more realistic would be something accepted by every cashier machine, and if possible using the NFC of your phone, a kind of "Apple/Google" Pay, that goes directly from your bank to the bank's shop. Where I live all debit cards are either visa or mastercard...

Edit2: There is an EU initiative that seem to be starting with WERO, never heard of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Payments_Initiative

Edit3: It seem that Paysafecard and Skrill are EU solutions and sometimes proposed in the payment method, but not with STRIPE payment solutions

I am looking for a reliable and preferably privacy oriented alternative to Skype credit - a service that allows me to call landlines and mobile phones via an app or website. I’ve heard of Yadaphone and Yolla, but I don’t know much about them or where they are based. Do you guys have any experience with these? Do you have other recommendations?

I'm looking to host a (very) basic website - assume limited technical knowledge - most likely with WordPress (though I am open to alternative suggestions).

Do ppl have recommendations on non US hosting platforms where I can also purchase a domain?

Price is of course important but not high up on my list, I would rather spend money to make sure its non US and as easy as possible to use.

TL;DR: A recent Handelsblatt commentary criticizes Google’s move to integrate AI-generated search results, warning it could be a threat to the open internet. The author argues that this change increases Google’s control over how information is presented, potentially reducing diversity and neutrality in search results. It raises concerns about Google’s monopolistic power and the future structure of the internet.

Google is the invisible hand on the internet. No other company controls global data traffic in Europe or the USA as strongly as the technology company from Mountain View. The search engine is so powerful that the dictionary has included the verb "to google". Now the company is taking the next step - and consolidating its power over the internet. Since Wednesday, Google has been providing AI-generated answers directly in the search results in Germany. Anyone searching for an explanation of heat pumps, a recipe for pancakes or a description of ETFs will receive an automatically generated summary - prominently placed above the classic links. Why click on a website when Google provides the answer itself? For the company, this is just the beginning. Google's parent company Alphabet is working on a future in which AI agents control our digital lives. The new summaries are just a test run - and a foretaste of how CEO Sundar Pichai envisions the internet.

A quarter of a century ago, Google set out to organize the world's knowledge and make it accessible. The algorithm became a beacon in the sea of data, Google the undisputed gatekeeper of the internet. The web is based on a simple principle: content versus reach. Specialist portals, bloggers and the media put their knowledge online because Google brings them readers. But with the new AI syntheses, this model is breaking down. Google uses third-party content, but users remain trapped in its ecosystem. Google lives from external content.

YouTube shows how it's done: the video platform grew so rapidly partly because Google started giving creators a share of the advertising revenue early on. But in the new world of AI search engines, this deal is no longer possible. Google no longer wants to share - Google wants to own.

This is reminiscent of Facebook's fatal strategy. Mark Zuckerberg has cut the distribution of journalistic content on Facebook in many countries, described traditional media as "unreliable" and labeled fact-checkers as biased. Yet Facebook had benefited from high-quality news for years. Sundar Pichai is more cooperative. He cultivates the partner's image and publicly emphasizes the importance of media, influencers and experts. But in the end, his AI strategy leads to the same result: Google is building a digital knowledge monopoly. And there is hardly any escape.

Nine out of ten search queries in Germany are made via Google. The alternatives? Microsoft's Bing, OpenAI's chatbots or Perplexity - they all follow the same principle: answers instead of links, compartmentalization instead of openness.

Artificial intelligence can revolutionize search - but not at any price. The start-up Perplexity shows a viable way forward: it gives the websites from which it sources content a share of the revenue.

Google could also follow this path. However, if the current strategy remains in place, the Internet as we know it is in danger of imploding. Because if nobody clicks anymore, who will create content?

I really really want to buy the fellow ode 2 coffee grinder, for it's quality and descent price, but I just learned that it's a USA company and the grinder is made in china. Before I buy I'm looking if there is an European alternative where my money is placed better.

Does anyone know of a coffee grinder made in Europe that is as good as the fellow ode 2 while not blowing the budget completely.

I make frensh press, pour over and mokka pot so i don't require espresso fine grind levels, but an even and precise grind is important to me.

Hi! I was looking for shampoo brands from the EU. Mostly Big Name brands that since I live in Brazil and I want to be sure I can find these in the supermarket. (I could be buying from Brazilian brands also, but I feel like supporting the EU against the global Trump menace since they are more able to oppose him. Also most made-in-Brazil brands are not affordable for me). We are able to find most reasonably big brands here, we just can't find more niche ones. Any type of shampoo will do, I have very short hair and anything I use in it looks good lol

EDIT: I should have thought about this before, but I just found out L'Oréal is an affordable alternative I can find in here :)

So, are we going to get any European alternatives to android?

Tuta is a end-to-end-encryption mail and calendar provider. They recently wrote a good blog-post about changing to european services.

Over the last couple of days, a few posts on Lemmy led me to read more about:

• Alternatives to (US-based) Wikipedia (triggered by a few comments in this /c)
• Gamergate & Rabid Puppies

Thus I found out about Infogalactic (I won't link to it); it's a fork of Wikipedia created by a far-right white supremacist mysogynist "Vox Day" (a sci fi author and publisher who tried to rig the Hugo Awards to show his disdain for non-white, non-male authors) so as to have an encyclopaedia free of "the left-wing thought police who administer [Wikipedia]".

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_Day

Trying out Mojeek today, I did a search (population of Rome through history) and an Infogalactic page (History of Rome) was the 6th result.

Not only was a far right website I had never seen before in the 8 years of its existence one of the top results, but the Wikipedia page it forked is nowhere to be found.

1. Is this common with Mojeek?
2. Are there ways to adjust its settings so as to not return far right search results?
3. And should we just stop recommending Mojeek as an alternative to US search engines as long as it does return far right search results to ordinary search queries?

cross-posted from: https://europe.pub/post/55363

Shoutout to u/theFallenWalnut on Reddit

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/59525691

I was getting disappointed with the quality of Converse boots before this whole thing kicked off. My partner suggested I try the French brand Paladium. The quality is much better. Apparently, the French paras use them. All I can say is they are more comfortable and last longer than my Converse ever did.