Would you trade a European collider for a failed commercial alternative like FirefoxOS or PalmOS? Because keep in mind that commercial failure is the overwhelmingly likely outcome of the project you’re proposing. I’d rather fail at finding dark matter and learn things along the way than having a state-backed organization make lousy software that nobody uses.

Of course, the more fundamental point is that industry seems perfectly happy to try (and fail) at making Google competitors, while nobody in industry is going to do fundamental physics research.