I was a browser dev. I do not work for google, and in general have a rather low opinion of the company and its ethics. But... c’mon, that quote is stupid. Every

I was a browser dev. I do not work for google, and in general have a rather low opinion of the company and its ethics. But... c’mon, that quote is stupid. Every web dev knows there is an infinity of strange reasons to add divs in odd places. The idea that this is a stealthy tactic targeted to slow down edge is ridiculous. Edge will patch the issue in a general way, and that will be that, and now Youtubes source would be stuck with the unnecessary complexity. Even if youtube’s devs would be okay with this, there are so many better ways to force youtube users over to chrome.. My guess is this dev had to debug a reported issue “youtube is slow”, and after realizing it is difficult to patch (likely because of shitty code in edge), started pointing fingers. No. That is called a bug, plain and simple. Maybe try fixing your browser implementation so a single empty element doesn’t destroy video performance... Edit with one more thought: I also feel youtube’s response in not removing the element seems completely justified. Youtube has features to implement and deadline to meet. Why should google have to throw dev resources at fixing problems stemming from microsoft’s bugs with no benefit to themselves? M$ should be the one footing that bill, again, by paying their own devs to fix problems of their own creation.