[woodandsteel]

But the economic recession has been for only the last two years. Are you saying there was a vigorous startup scene before that? That is sure not the impression I have had.

And beyond that, there is lots of technological innovation going in the US and other countries, but not Russia, even before the recession. It seems to me this must be due to fundamental problems like the ones I described.

[guard-of-terra]

Well wasn't there? Russia has multiple social networks, webmail providers, multiple search engines, multiple mapping services complete with traffic and navigation, multiple UBER-style mobile taxi services, etc, etc...

Most of those alive and kicking today, holding against megacorps' offerings.

You can say most of those are copycats of preexisting ideas, but face it, people have copycat needs that still need to be fulfilled. People don't fall for uniqueness alone.

What's technological innovation? Is maps.me one? Because it's a game changer isn't it?