[Rinzler89]

>- and it fails the same in a loop

Because that's the desired feature, not a bug. The system works just as intended. None of the people at the helm actually believe they can create competitors to US giants, the scope is to funnel public tax money into the right politically connected private industry pockets.

It's just wealth redistribution with a veneer of "sovereignty", similar to large infrastructure projects, except a lot more profitable since more people understand physical infrastructure so it can more easily be scrutinized for corruption, but almost nobody understands IT infrastructure, so it can easily gamed as a bottomless pit for your tax euros that constantly fails in a loop while you socialize the losses and privatize the winnings.

[Y_Y]

And usually at the end of a public infrastructure project you have something of some benefit to the public, even if there's bad RoI. With tech stuff that goes nowhere at best you have a jobs programme and short-term PR for some politicians.

The fervent wish to only let deserving people get grants results in a huge amount of box-ticking and self-promotion that (in my experience) seems to select for self-promotion parasites rather than people who want to make useful products and get rich from customers rather than government funds.

[tartoran]

Yep. Reminds me of how the internet started.

[carlosjobim]

Exactly. The worst thing that can happen for a project like this is that it becomes successful. The goal is that it fails completely, so that politicians and friends can try again in a couple of years with a massive new load of tax payer money. What about the old projects, why did they fail? Those are questions that only traitors and Russian assets would ask.