I think you are forgetting an important part of the equation: the interior market. In France it was much easier for entrepreneurs to move from the Minitel to internet, than for people to trust a new medium over a trusted one that worked seemlessly for decades.
So while your average American was emptying his wallet buying stuff on the web, French were still checking their bank accounts on the Minitel. That makes for a slow start, but eventually we moved on and there has been a lot of successful web startup in France (that usually end up either moving to SV, and/or being bought by American giant, but that's another story).
So while your average American was emptying his wallet buying stuff on the web, French were still checking their bank accounts on the Minitel. That makes for a slow start, but eventually we moved on and there has been a lot of successful web startup in France (that usually end up either moving to SV, and/or being bought by American giant, but that's another story).