GAFAM is a Financial Problem and Sovereignty Risk, a Policy-Level (National Level) Boycott is Needed
"They cannot reconcile this with the excessive spending (1.2bn) on Microsoft licences," said an associate regarding this new report:
Recall:
- Governments Wasting Billions on Worthless and Even Harmful Microsoft Licences
- Russia Has Not Invaded Finland, But Microsoft Did
- A farewell to Finland, an occupied territory
- Finnish Politician Aura Salla Says Finland Must Dump Microsoft, Citing Security and Control Reasons, Not Costs
Seeing what sort of policies are adopted by the US (openly hostile towards Europe), perhaps it's time for the EU to boycott GAFAM and demand that member states do the same.
For such a boycott to be effective we'll need policies. No more outsourcing of the EPO to Microsoft. No more outsourcing of courts to Microsoft. Europe has plenty of skilled computer engineers. It's time to assign IT work to them.
There is a timely remark about boycotts.
"I think RMS is coming around to this insight," an associate said about enshittification as Cory Doctorow explains it (he coined the term), as "individual boycotts which worked well in the 1970s are quite ineffective now in the 2020s, due to monopolization. Only policy level decisions can make much of an impact any more. Individual choices still matter but the problem is now systemic and that means that the answer to the problem must also be systemic." █
