Yes actually. After zirp ended, cloud costs got materially more expensive for enough enterprises that there was a good year or so of celebrated "we're moving back on-prem" stories on hn, where companies were announcing savings in the several to tens of millions per year.
what i personally don't like about privacy-preserving age verification is the single subsequent law change that would criminalize individuals for "improperly" doing age verification.
it'd be so easy to do, and would immediately make obsolete any measures taken digitally to preserve privacy
Are you kidding right now? Have you seen what's happening with ICE in the US? EU countries are just one effective social media campaign cycle away from the same policies. "It can't happen here" is foolish thinking.
Just because the government is not out to get you at this exact moment doesn't mean that a future government won't be. Surveillance capacity seems to be a one way ratchet.
Europe needs a private European identity provider. Until this happens, Europe will remain a technological vassal state of the US.
These are expensive products, you need depth of expertise and experience to create a system that could compete with the likes of gmail and Microsoft and ... so it's not a wonder that this hasn't happened yet. But pretending like this can be a public service is foolish (too high stakes ~~if~~ when it gets hacked), and pretending like existing providers that offer identity and email are sufficient is equally foolish. Google and ms and apple etc all offer the basics for free, and this is necessary for mass adoption. It will be an expensive project. But necessary, if the eu wants strategic autonomy.
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Oh and requiring a us based account is not even the most egregious part of this proposal, ffs
Bad teeth also harbor bacteria that have been shown to exacerbate cardiovascular disease, at the very least. Not saying this article is claiming that as a casual mechanism, but diseased teeth are known to cause other systems to also become diseased.