While the debate over European digital sovereignty stalls between statements of intent and timid measures, a former European commissioner has decided to move from words to action. Margrethe Vestager, who from 2014 to 2024 embodied Brussels’ most combative stance against U.S. technology giants, has launched Rebuild: a non-profit initiative that aims to rewrite the rules of the digital game. But can a grassroots initiative truly dismantle the hegemony of platforms that have colonized every aspect of our online lives?
Rebuild stems from a serious and tangible problem: despite years of regulatory battles, Europe has essentially lost control of its own digital infrastructure. The project therefore seeks to address this structural dependency not through new rules—of which Brussels is already notoriously prolific—but by building concrete alternatives. The stated goal is to bring governance, open source, and artificial intelligence back under models based on limited surveillance, ethical advertising, and transparent algorithmic capacity.The initiative takes shape in a context where the European Union has indeed approved regulations such as the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act. Yet these legislative tools, ambitious as they may be, have not dented Big Tech’s market dominance. According to data from the European Commission, more than 80% of cloud services used by European companies depend on U.S. providers, while in the social media sector the share of users on U.S.-made platforms exceeds 90%.
The central question Rebuild seeks to explore is whether it is possible—and above all sensible—to create “European” platforms capable of competing with established giants. Recent history offers little encouragement: Quaero, for example, the “European Google” announced in 2005 as a Franco-German initiative designed to counter Google, was plagued by internal friction before fading away in the following years, demonstrating the Old Continent’s subordination to U.S. infrastructure.
As several analysts have pointed out, this dependency is not merely economic or related to privacy concerns; it touches on the very ability of states to exercise sovereignty over their digital economies. The issue becomes even more critical in the age of artificial intelligence, where control over data and algorithms determines who holds the power to shape behaviors and decisions.
Rebuild puts uncomfortable questions on the table: is European regulation enough, or is it necessary to radically rethink what we mean by a “social platform”? The project seems to suggest that years of multi-billion-euro fines and stringent regulations have not altered Big Tech’s business models, which continue to thrive despite sanctions.
Rebuild’s approach focuses on three pillars: transparent and participatory governance, open source as a guarantee of democratic oversight, and artificial intelligence developed according to European ethical principles. A model that looks to experiences such as Mastodon, the decentralized social network, or sovereign cloud initiatives like Gaia-X—both of which, however, have so far struggled to achieve large-scale adoption.
The real challenge remains quantitative. U.S. platforms do not dominate solely because they are technologically superior, but because they have reached a critical mass of users that makes competition almost impossible. Network effects (more users attract more users) create barriers to entry that are extremely difficult to overcome. Moreover, as recent economic studies have shown, economies of scale in the digital sphere tend to favor oligopolistic configurations.
Rebuild will therefore have to confront a paradox: to be truly alternative, European platforms would need to renounce the extractive logics that made U.S. platforms dominant. But without those same logics, how can they achieve the scale necessary to compete? The answer may not lie in direct competition, but in building value niches where principles matter as much as—or more than—size. It remains to be seen whether Europe, having already lost too many digital battles, will this time manage to build not a clone of U.S. platforms, but something radically different. And desirable.
Alessandro Mancini