Why there’s no European Google? par Ploum - Lionel Dricot.
  • CosmoNova@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    I always wonder what people actually mean by „European Google“ because every single Google service already has a European equivalent, some of which are very popular already like Proton Mail.

    • Holytimes@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      01·
      1 month ago

      Google is infinity more then just it’s search engine or mail service. Proton is barely 5% of the services Google offers.

      The question is why isn’t their a major international European company that can compete with Google at their full power and on their full plat field.

      Functionally the reason is European laws around copyright basically allowed old companies to squash and shit on any start ups in the growing tech sector of the 70s though the 90s and stopped any growth.

      So Europe was 20 years behind the US and China since your old companies kept killing your new ones till the laws changed.

      Nowadays yeah there are lots of small European tech companies doing small parts of what Google does. But you will never see a European company able to compete fully with Google.

      That ship has sailed at this point. Google would have to fall first and a lot of laws would have to change.

  • zebidiah@lemmy.caEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    Because, generally speaking, Europe has this thing called laws, and the government arguably exists to protect it’s “citizens”.

    In the US you have this thing called lobbyists and the government unilaterally exists, only to protect it’s “corporations”

    For example, in Europe McDonald’s French fries contain 3 ingredients (potato, salt, oil) and in the US there are around 20 ingredients… The US adds all that extra shit to make the frier oil last longer, to make it easier to clean, etc. and fuck you for being poor if it gives you cancer.

    Europe has better frameworks in place to prevent robber barons, this is just as true for the digital age as it was 200 years ago.

    • scarabic@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      The question here is why weren’t Google and the Mac and eBay all originally invented in Europe. Not why don’t the tech barons of 2026 all live in Europe.

      The question is even more pointed because some of the people who invented the above were immigrants from Europe. Why did they have to leave to do their world-changing work?

      Google was world-changing before it was the big tech nightmare it is today. So stop hiding behind the glory of GDPR and face the actual question.

      • Holytimes@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        01·
        1 month ago

        European laws back in the 80s and 90s basically kept killing off anything that could have grown into a Google competitor.

        Draconian copyright laws screwed Europe over rather hard. Took a long time for them to fix it, and by then it was too late.

        Hard to build a search engine back then when you just got sued into the ground.

  • saxrussell@slrpnk.netEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    There’s actually pretty many to choose from.

    Ones I’ve tried:

    others:

    Honestly, just switch your default search engine in your phone-settings and see what happens. After a while you don’t even realize you’re not using Google anymore. And if you’re not pleased with the search result (which I rarely am these days, using ecosia) see if Google gives a better answer. Mostly not. Happy experimenting! ;)

    • Holytimes@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      01·
      1 month ago

      I think the question is more why isn’t there a like Google in terms of size reach and power in Europe. Less then why ain’t there a search engine arguably one of the smallest aspects of Google

      There are plenty of good European searches engines. There are NO googles in Europe.

      Which basically just comes down to Europe has some of the most Draconian laws possible when it comes to ownership, copyright and the like. That basically squashed any hope for Europe to ever hope to compete against something like Google back in the day.

      Even today the laws in Europe basically make it unviable to complete on the scale of most American or Chinese companies operate at generally.