A really nice essay, I agree with the sentiment of it. We don't need European tech billionaires, we need government support for open source
this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2026
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But at the end we have government who buys another service from Alphabet or Microsoft…
I like the essay's highlighting European contributions to software and technology, but it doesn't quite answer the fundamental question of its title:
Why there’s no European Google?
The essay's answer is [paraphrased] "...because we don't need it.".
I don't quite understand that position because if a Google wasn't needed in Europe then Google could disappear from Europe and no one would notice or care. Yet that isn't likely the case. If Google disappeared overnight it would likely have massive impacts on business and personal lives across Europe.
I guess my answer to the article's question as to "Why is there no European Google" is that creating Google (or a European Google) is extremely resource and financially expensive. Unless the funding for that effort comes from somewhere, it won't just happen in Europe spontaneously without replicating the same private business model that many dislike about Google.
P.S. Another European created technology that should be added to the list for accolades is the creation of Deepmind machine learning/AI. This also lead to the creation of Google Gemini. While this is owned by Google, it was created out of the London offices.
What if you rephrased the question to "Why isn't there a major EU computer/Internet company?"
I don't see how that rephrasing changes the outcome of the question. What's your view on it? What is the difference you're seeing with that modified question?
The modified question takes a step back and asks why isn't any EU innovation being used to create EU tech champions that can compete on the level of any US tech champion.
Losing in one tech monopoly could be bad luck. Losing in all tech monopolies indicates that there may be major structural problems in the EU preventing these kinds of companies being created.
@partial_accumen @HobbitFoot
I understand the question in 2 ways :
- making a difference in google the browser and google the company ( we have EU browser we dont have company equivalent)
- not promoting google
@Iamaquantummechanic
We have Qwant a very good browser that i use for years successfully
I use Qwant. The question is not whether there is an alternative search engine. It's why we don't have huge internet companies. And the author gives his ideas.
I want the LHC with a functioning rail system that can accelerate a 1x1 brick 2-3 times before it disappears into the target.