> That's because the Korean and Japanese internets are far older than most of Americas giants. They also were made for locals.
Google launched in 1998. Naver didn't launch search until 2000. Copying American tech companies but targeting your own market is a common theme (see China, Latin America, Southeast Asia, etc.). Let's not pretend it's not the case here or Korea is somehow special.
If you want to think that then that's fine by me. Would be interesting to see the usage of Naver in 2001 versus Google in 2001 in terms of percentage of local population. (even if Google had 3 years head start)
Yahoo was before Google and Japan has been on Yahoo forever. Yahoo is American but they engorged on it in Japan.
Google is just a copy of a copy.
Koreans and Japanese were definitely ahead of the West in both phone and internet uptake.
Google launched in 1998. Naver didn't launch search until 2000. Copying American tech companies but targeting your own market is a common theme (see China, Latin America, Southeast Asia, etc.). Let's not pretend it's not the case here or Korea is somehow special.