> It's a typically American argument "unless it's the global behemoth that has a global monopoly in the domain, it's a failure"
1. I'm not American, I'm European. And cool it with this finger pointing around nationality as I never brought it up. We can't have a civil discussion if you resort to identity politics as an argument.
2. I said no such thing. I never called those companies failures. You're the one saying that by twisting my arguments.
And those online marketplaces and doctor apps you mentioned that are "local success stories" don't have invented any core tech that can be exported and monetized globally the same like Microsoft, Intel, AMD, Nvidia, etc can. export products abroad, they just used existing FOSS technologies to build some local websites in the EU. Any other country on the planet can build their own versions of those apps, and they have, from India to Argentina. It's nothing special the EU made here. So how you can consider them in the ballpark of the tech companies before is beyond me.
> I'm not American, I'm European.
And I didn't say you're American, just that you're using the traditionally American bad faith argument.
> I never called those companies failures
You just called them "mom and pop shops".
> And those online marketplaces and doctor apps you mentioned that are "local success stories" don't have invented any core tech that can be exported and monetized globally
And that's a different argument altogether. Not everything has to be core tech exportable all over, and one can be very successful without doing that.
If you're looking for core tech developed by European countries exported all around the world, enjoy Airbus, Siemens, Infineon, Alstom, Spotify, DeepMind (ok they were acquired by Google), VLC, ASML, SAP and plenty of others.
> Microsoft
> they just used existing FOSS technologies
Can you explain to me the difference between using FOSS and proprietary software to build a product, and what Microsoft are doing?