A few billion is no problem. Simply collect the GDPR defined maximum fine of 4% of total global revenue from Microsoft, and use that to build the alternative. Provide that solution for self-hosting, so the cost of the infrastructure is payed for by the user organizations.
Why would Microsoft (or Google, or anyone) continue to operate in Europe in that model? Seems like a recipe to go from an imperfect tech solution to none at all.
Because there is a market in Europe they can service.
Microsoft and Google are not shoestring budget bootstrapped startups - they can afford to run multiple products, or multiple variants of the same product adjusted for market need, and they will do it, as long as it's net profitable for them. Sure, it's nicer to earn X than X/2 or X/10, but as long as it's a positive amount, it's still worth doing.
That is, as long as it's more profitable to do it by the books than what a lot of industry players did so far, which is to spend money on malicious compliance and sabotaging GDPR.
The calculus changes when you’re being fined tens of billions of dollars that will be used to develop a competitor to your core product.
It’s not (X/2), it’s (X/2) - (NPV of future profits from giving X/2 to develop competition).
Your model would work for just an adaptation to a compliant product, but not to the proposed “just seize 4% of their global revenue and use that to fund a competitor” model that I was replying to.
