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Hypothetically speaking, suppose we didn't care about privacy at all. In that case, what are the disadvantages of a single browser engine taking over the market

by _cs2017_ 8y ago

Hypothetically speaking, suppose we didn't care about privacy at all. In that case, what are the disadvantages of a single browser engine taking over the market? I suspect one disadvantage is that it's harder to innovate. Specifically, your new browser engine has no hope of sticking if all websites are heavily customized to Blink, rather than to open standards. It may seem that it's not a problem if Blink is open sourced. However, writing a new engine that works exactly like some legacy engine is nearly impossible, even if that legacy engine is open sourced. OTOH, writing a new engine to the specifications of well-designed standards is much more realistic, since presumably those standards are (a) clearly spelled out, (b) written with the idea that they can be implemented without a million lines of legacy code. Of course, this assumes that the community can create high quality and efficient standards. It's not obvious, given how difficult it's been to achieve in the past, when there was more competition between browsers. Does it sound about right? Any other disadvantages I haven't thought of?

briffle 8y ago
The vendor will make decisions that are not in your interest, but in theirs. have you have tried to install an ad-blocker in chrome mobile? they just work in firefox mobile, and in both desktop browsers, but not in chrome mobile. (unless you do some very weird things with rooting your phone, using VPN providers, etc) Without using an ad-blocker, if I use chrome mobile on my older phone (original Pixel), any time I browse a web site, the whole phone appears to lock up for a few seconds, it starts getting warm, and then a whole page ad appears over the web-site, and half the time clicking the X in the corner loads up the ad in a new tab...
- _cs2017_ 8y ago
  Ah yeah good point, ads isn't only a concern for privacy reasons but also for performance/annoyance reasons. I personally expect that, for purely selfish business reasons, Chrome will eventually kill all ads that are especially annoying or cause performance issues. But you're right, situations where vendor and user interests are at odds may always come up.
  - newscracker 8y ago
    > I personally expect that, for purely selfish business reasons, Chrome will eventually kill all ads that are especially annoying or cause performance issues. What I expect is that Chrome will be designed to block all non-Google ads alone, so that Google doesn’t get affected. Google/Chrome then becomes the gatekeeper for what constitutes a decent ad for users. That would then arm twist publishers to switch to Google AdSense because that would be the only one providing revenues (or more revenues). Advertisers would then see their CPM/CPC costs increase, and they wouldn’t have many other choices. That would increase prices for consumers. I recall seeing stats recently that Google (still) is the largest in online advertising, with Facebook being second. We’ve seen this kind of behavior before with Adblock Plus and the “acceptable ads” scheme. There’s almost nothing to gain for the users. It will always drift (and only faster, with a monopoly) to satisfy the interests of the company.
    - _cs2017_ 8y ago
      > What I expect is that Chrome will be designed to block all non-Google ads alone, so that Google doesn’t get affected. I assume you meant: > What I expect is that Chrome will be designed to leave Google ads alone, so that Google doesn’t get affected. I agree with your analysis, but I'm surprised with your conclusion. I think if there's a monopoly that decides which ads are decent, it will cause the overall level of the ads to be higher, which is better for users - at no extra cost to them. My rationale (and I'm very interested in the opposite opinion, if you're willing to explain it) is this. A monopoly has too much to lose from frustrated or unhappy users. If too many people become too angry, they'll eventually cause a major damage to the ad industry through political action, greater popularity of ad blockers, people avoiding websites with too many ads, or people becoming desensitized to ads (leading to a dramatic reduction in ad value). A small company won't really care if its ads damage the industry -- it's not there for a long run, it just needs to push its products and long-term effects are something it worries about. A (near-)monopoly that controls 20-30% or more of the market worth $100B's a year is going to be really, really careful about even the slightest damage to the industry. As to your other point, CPM/CPC costs are not dictated by Google. It's a marketplace with supply provided by publishers, and demand created by advertisers. Google influences the prices by choosing the auction rules and by saying which ads are acceptable, but any large shift in prices can only happen from a change in supply/demand. So I'm not sure why you think a monopoly would cause a rise in CPC. If anything, a monopoly would make the marketplace more efficient, taking out intermediaries who take a big cut, and lead to lower prices (as for example happened with Amazon in online retail).

briffle 8y ago

The vendor will make decisions that are not in your interest, but in theirs. have you have tried to install an ad-blocker in chrome mobile? they just work in firefox mobile, and in both desktop browsers, but not in chrome mobile. (unless you do some very weird things with rooting your phone, using VPN providers, etc) Without using an ad-blocker, if I use chrome mobile on my older phone (original Pixel), any time I browse a web site, the whole phone appears to lock up for a few seconds, it starts getting warm, and then a whole page ad appears over the web-site, and half the time clicking the X in the corner loads up the ad in a new tab...

_cs2017_ 8y ago
Ah yeah good point, ads isn't only a concern for privacy reasons but also for performance/annoyance reasons. I personally expect that, for purely selfish business reasons, Chrome will eventually kill all ads that are especially annoying or cause performance issues. But you're right, situations where vendor and user interests are at odds may always come up.
- newscracker 8y ago
  > I personally expect that, for purely selfish business reasons, Chrome will eventually kill all ads that are especially annoying or cause performance issues. What I expect is that Chrome will be designed to block all non-Google ads alone, so that Google doesn’t get affected. Google/Chrome then becomes the gatekeeper for what constitutes a decent ad for users. That would then arm twist publishers to switch to Google AdSense because that would be the only one providing revenues (or more revenues). Advertisers would then see their CPM/CPC costs increase, and they wouldn’t have many other choices. That would increase prices for consumers. I recall seeing stats recently that Google (still) is the largest in online advertising, with Facebook being second. We’ve seen this kind of behavior before with Adblock Plus and the “acceptable ads” scheme. There’s almost nothing to gain for the users. It will always drift (and only faster, with a monopoly) to satisfy the interests of the company.
  - _cs2017_ 8y ago
    > What I expect is that Chrome will be designed to block all non-Google ads alone, so that Google doesn’t get affected. I assume you meant: > What I expect is that Chrome will be designed to leave Google ads alone, so that Google doesn’t get affected. I agree with your analysis, but I'm surprised with your conclusion. I think if there's a monopoly that decides which ads are decent, it will cause the overall level of the ads to be higher, which is better for users - at no extra cost to them. My rationale (and I'm very interested in the opposite opinion, if you're willing to explain it) is this. A monopoly has too much to lose from frustrated or unhappy users. If too many people become too angry, they'll eventually cause a major damage to the ad industry through political action, greater popularity of ad blockers, people avoiding websites with too many ads, or people becoming desensitized to ads (leading to a dramatic reduction in ad value). A small company won't really care if its ads damage the industry -- it's not there for a long run, it just needs to push its products and long-term effects are something it worries about. A (near-)monopoly that controls 20-30% or more of the market worth $100B's a year is going to be really, really careful about even the slightest damage to the industry. As to your other point, CPM/CPC costs are not dictated by Google. It's a marketplace with supply provided by publishers, and demand created by advertisers. Google influences the prices by choosing the auction rules and by saying which ads are acceptable, but any large shift in prices can only happen from a change in supply/demand. So I'm not sure why you think a monopoly would cause a rise in CPC. If anything, a monopoly would make the marketplace more efficient, taking out intermediaries who take a big cut, and lead to lower prices (as for example happened with Amazon in online retail).