Some people really will desparately do whatever it takes to cling onto Microsoft’s slop, just so they don’t have to spend an hour or two learning something new.
And if you do actually need Windows for a very specific piece of software or one of those 5 online games - okay, fair enough. But we all know the vast majority are just lazy and ignorant.
Facebook used to have a team dedicated to analyzing their apps’ risks to children’s and teenagers’ health. The team concluded that there are indeed many serious health risks for both children and teenagers, especially teenage girls. Shortly after, it got disbanded, and all its recommendations completely ignored.
The problem here is: the EU currently works quite well overall for its citizens, precisely because there isn’t really one big player. It is considerably more difficult to commit crimes and atrocities on the scale of the US, Russia and China when you’re small, weak, and all your close allies are watching you. I don’t have any doubts that a united EU, a federation perhaps, like it was originally intended, would be the greatest power the world has ever seen. But it would come at a great cost to all of its citizens. In anywhere between 50-250 years it would most likely develop into an empire similar to the ones we have right now. Unless we could figure out some sort of new structure to combat these challenges, which in itself is a major undertaking.
So essentially the same thing as the US 50 years ago? And in some ways, kind of like Russia 200 years ago? Except it’s progressively getting more civil.
Dealing with superpowers and empires is always unpleasant, and everyone would rather stay as far away from them as possible, but it’s not always and option. Well, it seems we either continue the cycle, and swap US partnership for China partnership (then probably same thing again in a couple decades), or we break the cycle somehow.
I think you’re bringing up good points about important issues. However, what the current US administration is doing doesn’t seem to solve any of those problems in any capacity. In fact, the previous administration did a lot more on that front, without collapsing the entire global economy at the same time. Also, as some other comments pointed out, almost nobody on the planet is ‘caving in’ to the tariffs. The vast majority of the world is simply cutting trade with the US wherever possible, resulting in Americans paying several times more for various goods, for no apparent reason or benefit.
From my experience, it’s almost always “Chrome doesn’t have feature x”. It’s the most feature poor browser currently in wide use. The only advantage that comes to mind is web dev tools, which: a) 99% of people don’t care about, because they aren’t web devs. b) Chromium also has, and it’s like the considerably less infuriating twin.