> This is like the first stone of an avalanche.

I wouldn't even say it's the first.

And things have already happened. Close allies have stopped sharing intelligence information with the US. Even if the US doesn't need the info the deterioration of those partnerships is concerning. Or maybe good from the perspective of weakening the global surveillance machine but that's a whole other issue.

Not to mention all the other things that happen that when you put together are more concerning.

People forget, there are no real "big things".

Instead there's just a bunch of little things that come together to look big. As programmers we should be intimately familiar with this. Though normally we're using it in the other direction: taking a big problem and determining all the little problems that come together to create the big one. Working in the assembly direction is much harder than the disassembly direction (far larger solution space) but the concept is still the same.

But I agree with you, this isn't the end. This is definitely a concerning inflection point.