> Why limit it to the EU? Shouldn't every country have their own AWS, Azure and Google Cloud?

That is completely unrelated though. The only thing this ruling confirms is that you can not process data of EU residents when you can not be adequately protect them due to local laws i.e. the CLOUD act. If your laws allow you to keep the data safe, you can offer your cloud services to the EU market as much as you want. If they wanted to, the US could easily allow companies to guarantee those protections too.

I would not be surprised when, if no solution is found, some of the major cloud providers in the EU end up being e.g. japanese, israeli or canadian.

The EU as a block is pretty comparable to the US, so it wouldn't be that surprising if they came up with their own information infrastructure. I think you've answered your own question: why limit it to the EU? No moral reason, but it is a difficult project, you need a US/EU/China sized economy to have a good chance to pull it off.

> Why limit it to the EU? Shouldn't every country have their own AWS, Azure and Google Cloud?

Careful, there is such a thing as network effect for knowledge. More fractured systems mean more different approaches means less aftermarket documentation means less people being able to work for you.

It'd help if the United States wasn't allowed to aggressively brain drain most of the rest of the world.

You could also use something like 'embetty' [1] and proxy your users from YouTube, Twitter and the likes to ensure their privacy.

[1] https://github.com/heiseonline/embetty-server

If you flip the scenario around in your mind.. how would you feel if virtually every site or service you visit scoops up your data and sends it to [China|Russia|...] and hosts all your private data on servers operated by the [Chinese|Russians|...] and are subject to [Chinese|Russian|...] rule and disregard whatever laws your country has enacted? How would you feel if you couldn't opt out without virtually opting out of the entire internet, including all the services your friends and family and local associations & companies use for messaging?

That's how the internet has been. That's how I feel about US tech giants getting all my data. They write their privacy policy, they dictate their terms, they follow US laws. I have absolutely no choice or voice or vote, unless one considers "yo dawg just build your own internet" a realistic choice.

I don't feel like the purpose is to drive out foreign competition. I feel like the purpose is to enforce privacy as a right, and I fully support it. I also fully support the right to transmit data across borders as long as the destination country also respects my privacy and rights instead of treating me as an alien and potential terrorist. Is that too much to ask for?

And in general, is following the rules of the country you offer a service in too much to ask for? Local laws apply to brick and mortar business; if Walmart wants to come to my neighborhood, sure go ahead, but please respect our laws. I don't see why internet companies should be above the law either.

GDPR is replacing rules dictated by US corporations with democratically established rules written by our representatives. It's unfortunate that there's now a clash between US laws and EU laws, but it's not the end of the world.

Thanks!