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Off course it is worth it, but not for the americans. It is good for the European Space technology and its engineers by boosting research and development.
But some prefer to be the intellectual passive servant of the strongest.

May be many people thinks that, instead being invited to “Chez Gaston”, what is being received is a HDR (Humanitarian Daily Ration) from DoD, which as stated in the characteristics “is designed to provide a full day’s sustenance to a moderately malnourished individual”, very useful for surviving but not to satisfy their current demands.
With regard to the “French restaurant in New York”, promoters intend to offer a wide menu for all taste, including “Service Ouvert à la fréquence unique” (similar to HDR), and also “SO à la double fréquence” for vegetarians, or “SO à la triple fréquence” for gourmets. It you need a second strong and safe plate probably “Deux fréquences protégées avec sauce intégrité” will be your best choice. But if you prefer some extra from the wine cellar, the sommelier would guide you to find your preferred Château (please ask first for the price). Promoters do not intend to take away Gaston’s business (HDR is gratis!), but to improve diet.
May be for this reason Gaston decided to dust off the Modernization Plan to offer new plates and now is boosting its implementation. Besides that, there are rumours that a new Chinese restaurant will be opened in the neighbours, and that the old fashioned Ivan is looking for a new chef.
Are you sure that hungry people are unhappy with this landscape?. Are you still considering Galileo (or Ivan or Ming) a loser?

In his article "No Payoff for Galileo Navigation System" (IEEE Spectrum Jan 2008 ), William Sweet compares GPS and Galileo to two restaurants that would vie to take away each other's business. That comparison is pointless. Restaurants have customers who pay for what they get. GPS does not have customers; it has users and those do not pay anything. The world's biggest manufacturer of car navigation systems is a Dutch company named TomTom. That company is very prosperous and has never paid one cent of its revenue to the GPS owners. Whether Galileo comes along or not will make no difference whatsoever to GPS. On the other hand, with both GPS and Galileo in the sky, TomTom will manufacture new equipment that will combine signals from the two constellations with a consequent increase in accuracy and quality of service. Lots of new applications will no doubt emerge as a result.

The initial idea of the European Commission, the main promoter of Galileo, was to have it financed by the private sector. I for one was of the opinion that, given the endemic allergy of the European private sector to such kind of risky enterprise, the Galileo project would never reach the launching pad. After many years wasted in sterile discussions, the Commission admitted that a public/private partnership was not the solution and recently decided to go ahead with public funds. The whole thing now begins to make sense.

For Europe Galileo is essential because positioning by satellite is a technology that shows great promise and our industry cannot afford to ignore it. Furthermore Galileo will be a civilian system while GPS will remain military. Although it may today look like a duplication of GPS, there is no doubt in my mind that the two systems will evolve in different directions. GPS will look for new military applications and Galileo for new civilian applications. We can't even begin to imagine what those applications will be.

I think that Galileo is worth it because GPS is a military system and Galileo is a civil system. If the American army wants to exclude civil users from GPS, than they can and will do so. I don't think that the "great" American army is not trustworthy because they have all these secrets (more than most other countries in the Western world); take Area 51 for example... Europe on the other hand, IS trustworthy :)

I think that Galileo is considered a 'loser' by the American because they are jealous of the great European technologies, and that Europe is capable of making better things than the 'great' USA :D The USA finds itself so great, but all the wile Europe is mutch, mutch better!!!

Why shouldn't Europe have it's own civilian navigation system? More and more of Europe's commerce is supported by navigation.

And above that, the military GPS system is wildly inaccurate, at least for civilians. On top of that, why should Europeans depend on a American military system that can be switched off for civilian use at any time?

Let's face it, America is not really a partner you can trust. They feel they have to "police" the world (bullying is what non americans call it). America is bound to start a war at the drop of a hat and each time they do they can come into a postion they feel that shutting off GPS for civilian use is the only option.

If Europe wants a trustworthy and accurate Navigation system there is only one rational solution: build it themselves!

And yes, of course the project goes over budget. We Europeans are quite used to that. When a political body says they will do something for amount x we all know it will end up costing us x times two to x times five.

I realise of course that all American projects are exactly on budget and on time. On budget to the last cent and on time to the last second. I guess we Europeans are just a bit stupid.

We are luckily not stupid enough to depend on GPS when navigation gets to be more and more important to us economically.