> 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?