The "funding options" part has the unsurprising blind spot that, maybe, a search engine is the kind of basic infrastructure that ought to be paid (at least in part) by... The taxpayers ?
I have a long standing bet that, at some point, some company will be "globalized" (operated under some common funding by many different countries, like many research projects or defense organization or aid funds, etc...), and the "search engine" part of google is the prime candidate.
That being said, I'm from Europe, so "sharing the cost of something useful" is not culturally untolerable.
Far fetched and controversial opinion, I know. We'll see.
Considering their goal was to reach £50 a month to upgrade their server… I think any hope at convincing major governments is a few years off.
But I do wonder if the national archives or the library of congress could be a good host for this sort of project. Not sure I agree it should be run by a government… most don’t have great histories when put in charge of gatekeeping access to information.
I have a long standing bet that, at some point, some company will be "globalized" (operated under some common funding by many different countries, like many research projects or defense organization or aid funds, etc...), and the "search engine" part of google is the prime candidate.
That being said, I'm from Europe, so "sharing the cost of something useful" is not culturally untolerable.
Far fetched and controversial opinion, I know. We'll see.