> They’re also cutting dependence on Visa/Mastercard because tying your payment rails to a declining, unstable empire is a bad long-term bet.
People need to get real here and I've got numbers: Europe is the declining, unstable empire.
The US is the US and in three years there's going to be another president. But the EU's problems are much deeper.
Inflation-adjusted, since the 2008 crisis, the Eurozone's GDP barely grew while both China and the US' GDPs grew like crazy.
2008 to 2025 Eurozone's GDP: $14 trillion USD to $17 trillion USD (+18%, inflation adjusted it's basically zero)
US same period: about $15 trillion to $30 trillion [1]
China same period: $4 trillion to $19 trillion, going from not a quarter of the Eurozone's size in 2008 to surpassing the Eurozone in 2025 FFS! In 17 years. This is jaw dropping.
That's when reality should kick in for people who believe the EU is not declining.
At this rate it's not even declining: it's falling from a cliff.
Now, sure, the Eurozone ain't the entire EU and countries outside the Eurozone like Poland are, thankfully, doing better. But things still look terribly bad.
Moreover The EU managed to shoot itself in the foot by destroying the biggest export of its biggest economy: german cars. They handed over the market to chinese EVs.
The EU also managed, when the US advised it not to, to become dependant on Russia for energy. And of course four years ago we now all know how well that played for Germany: Russia wasn't our friend anymore and energy price --and the industries in Germany do need lots of energy-- skyrocketted.
The EU is destroying itself both economically and culturally. Things are looking terribly bad over here.
I don't know how anyone can look at the US and at China's GDP growth compared to the Eurozone and believe that somehow Europe is doing fine.
Europe is not doing fine: Europe is definitely a declining, unstable (lots of far-right vs far-left parties opposing themselves in elections in many EU countries now) empire.
That said I very much welcome ditching MS software.
[1] round numbers but it is what it is: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDP
Re: "Europe is not doing fine: Europe is definitely a declining, unstable (lots of far-right vs far-left parties opposing themselves in elections in many EU countries now) empire."
If this is reality in Europe, which is perhaps likely, then by comparison, the US has devolved into failed-state status. Better a slow decline than a catastrophic fall into the constitutional/regulatory/legal/technological/scientific abyss.
Even if Europe has insurmountable problems, its best move forward is to decouple strategically from the US, and these days, all things strategic are underpinned by information technology. The fact that Europe (soon to be followed by Canada, Australia and New Zealand) is heading down this path is why the US has hit the panic button[0].
Re: "The US is the US and in three years there's going to be another president. But the EU's problems are much deeper."
The US may have another president or even another style of president, but that wont stop this migration away from American technological/strategic hegemony; because at this level and at this scale, complete trust by former allies, once lost, will never be regained. The US century is now over.
Thankfully open source software is there as an alternative to that US software. I guess it's no co-incidence that LibreOffice and Linux both have their roots in Europe.
[0]https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat...
> The EU is destroying itself both economically and *culturally*
I understand the former. Can you clarify the details around the later? I hear this often, but the people I hear it from are not the most trustworthy or the most knowledgable.