What are you talking about?

Lots of countries have their own social networking apps. Some have their own search engines.

Also, quite a few countries have strong computer science schools and developers.

Linux was developed in Finland. Raspberry PI was developed in England.

“Big tech” isn’t preventing them from developing anything. The only thing holding these countries back is their business culture.

> Linux was developed in Finland.

I'd say that Linux kernel was developed by an international network of hackers with a Finnish leader, and benefited a lot from GNU userland. If you want more Finnish operating system, try Jolla. There was a lot of Finnish contribution to Series 60 too, but it's kind of awful.

> I'd say that Linux kernel was developed by an international network of hackers with a Finnish leader, and benefited a lot from GNU userland.

Linus did quite a bit before the network of hackers joined in. But I don’t disagree with you. My main point is that the US, and big American tech companies don’t have a monopoly on talent.

Not monopoly, but they do pay well and let developers do things, and those two things attract talent. AFAIK it used to be really uncommon in European companies to have advanced career path for engineering, and switching to management is still kind of expected.

> it used to be really uncommon in European companies to have advanced career path for engineering, and switching to management is still kind of expected.

That matches my experience. It concurs with the statement I made elsewhere in this thread that what is holding Europe back is its business culture, not some kind of American Colonialism.