While it's great that Russia is getting hit with digital sanctions, it does highlight how much we depend on majoritarily American GMAX (Google, Meta, Amazon and X) for communications and information.

The internet shouldn't be like this. That's how you end up with limited access to important services and price gouging where net neutrality laws don't exist.

I feel really fortunate to have the fediverse.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago (7 children)

This is just Russian internet infrastructure collapsing. Nothing to do with sanctions. Although digital sanctions have hit Russia, for the most part using a VPN works fine.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (6 children)

This is just Russian internet infrastructure collapsing. Nothing to do with sanctions.

You don't think those might be related???

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I would guess the manpower drain of their costly Ukraine war has a larger effect than the sanctions. They are simply running out of people to work on stuff, throughout the country.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

It’s more than that. Russia is in terminal decline. The last batch of properly educated engineers graduated from Soviet schools in the late 80s. They are now retiring which leaves a huge skills gap. In the past Russia used Western expertise todo the work of building and maintaining oil fields etc. but that is cut off now. Chinese engineers can fill some of the gaps but they don’t have expertise in oil fields and certain types of engineering to replace Western expertise.

The war in Ukraine has only accelerated this process.

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