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Doesn't mean that Chrome isn't a monopoly, with their current marketshare, if Chrome introduces a new feature or changes how some feature works, all competitors

by zaarn 7y ago

Doesn't mean that Chrome isn't a monopoly, with their current marketshare, if Chrome introduces a new feature or changes how some feature works, all competitors have no choice but to implement that change or websites stop working.

scarface74 7y ago
Right, because Apple is going to change how Safari works on iOS because of a change that Google makes.... And “monopoly” has a legal definition it isn’t defined by random HN posters every week.
- zaarn 7y ago
  In the EU having a monopoly doesn't require you to be the only vendor in the market, it's sufficient to be large enough to exert abusive market forces on competitors. Google Chrome definitely fits that definition, so no it's not redefined by random HN posters this week.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    And having a monopoly isn’t illegal. Again, despite what all of the wannabe lawyers who post to HN think. How many times have HN users posted that Apple is a “monopoly”?
    - zaarn 7y ago
      Google is certainly not a corporation that has ever shown to have an interest in the best for their users. They have already done quite a few things that benefit them or hurt competitors (youtube's UI is slow on firefox, changing the scrolling UI for no reason, trying to kill adblockers and now blocking uBlock from their store).
      - scarface74 7y ago
        Google is no different than any other for profit corporation. Their first interest is making money by getting their customers to pay them. Their customers are advertisers. Their users are what they sell to their customers.
        zaarn 7y ago
        Even better reason to push for independent browser engines like Gecko (Firefox).
        scarface74 7y ago
        And that’s fine. But anytime HN users start whining “monopoly” the next thing they start screaming is for government to intervene every time that Google/Apple/Amazon doesn’t something that they don’t like.
        zaarn 7y ago
        Oh, don't worry, the government, or atleast the EU, should intervene and force Google to split Chrome into an independent organization.
        scarface74 7y ago
        And when has the EU successfully come to the rescue of geeks who don’t like the way a software company runs?
        zaarn 7y ago
        Correct.
cookie_monsta 7y ago
That's not really how it worked pre-2010 when IE had the monopoly. And for all of Chrome (and Google's) faults, it does seem to be reasonably standards- compliant and even open to experimentation. If they want to spend some of their piles of cash developing new features that other browsers can then adopt and then standardise, I don't see the problem. If developers choose to use Chrome-only features and their pages break on other browsers, that's on them
- zaarn 7y ago
  When IE had a monopoly it was bad because Microsoft made a shitty webbrowser and everyone built websites for IE. Even today I have devices which are "best viewed on IE6", thanks to modern browsers they still tend to work somewhat. Chrome will not be bad because it's a shitty browser, it'll be bad because Google can force features into standards and essentially do what they want with no recourse. It's not the developers fault directly but they inherently support an abusive vendor-user relationship. Everyone who doesn't see that is just a Google-apologist.
  - cookie_monsta 7y ago
    > it'll be bad because Google can force features into standards and essentially do what they want with no recourse. Again, not the way it worked with IE 1-8 > Everyone who doesn't see that is just a Google-apologist. Well I don't and I'm not.
    - zaarn 7y ago
      And again, that's what Google is already doing, I'm not saying they're doing the exact same things that happened with IE1-8 but a browser monopoly is still equally bad regardless of how badly a browser is maintained.
      - cookie_monsta 7y ago
        Oh, absolutely - I'm not arguing in favour of browser monopolies. I'm saying that browser standards aren't a popularity contest. You can have the most popular browser in the world but still not be able to strongarm your way into compliance. Remember attachEvent?

by zaarn 7y ago

scarface74 7y ago

Right, because Apple is going to change how Safari works on iOS because of a change that Google makes.... And “monopoly” has a legal definition it isn’t defined by random HN posters every week.

zaarn 7y ago
In the EU having a monopoly doesn't require you to be the only vendor in the market, it's sufficient to be large enough to exert abusive market forces on competitors. Google Chrome definitely fits that definition, so no it's not redefined by random HN posters this week.
- scarface74 7y ago
  And having a monopoly isn’t illegal. Again, despite what all of the wannabe lawyers who post to HN think. How many times have HN users posted that Apple is a “monopoly”?
  - zaarn 7y ago
    Google is certainly not a corporation that has ever shown to have an interest in the best for their users. They have already done quite a few things that benefit them or hurt competitors (youtube's UI is slow on firefox, changing the scrolling UI for no reason, trying to kill adblockers and now blocking uBlock from their store).
    - scarface74 7y ago
      Google is no different than any other for profit corporation. Their first interest is making money by getting their customers to pay them. Their customers are advertisers. Their users are what they sell to their customers.
      - zaarn 7y ago
        Even better reason to push for independent browser engines like Gecko (Firefox).
        scarface74 7y ago
        And that’s fine. But anytime HN users start whining “monopoly” the next thing they start screaming is for government to intervene every time that Google/Apple/Amazon doesn’t something that they don’t like.
        zaarn 7y ago
        Oh, don't worry, the government, or atleast the EU, should intervene and force Google to split Chrome into an independent organization.
        scarface74 7y ago
        And when has the EU successfully come to the rescue of geeks who don’t like the way a software company runs?
        zaarn 7y ago
        Correct.

cookie_monsta 7y ago

That's not really how it worked pre-2010 when IE had the monopoly. And for all of Chrome (and Google's) faults, it does seem to be reasonably standards- compliant and even open to experimentation. If they want to spend some of their piles of cash developing new features that other browsers can then adopt and then standardise, I don't see the problem. If developers choose to use Chrome-only features and their pages break on other browsers, that's on them

zaarn 7y ago
When IE had a monopoly it was bad because Microsoft made a shitty webbrowser and everyone built websites for IE. Even today I have devices which are "best viewed on IE6", thanks to modern browsers they still tend to work somewhat. Chrome will not be bad because it's a shitty browser, it'll be bad because Google can force features into standards and essentially do what they want with no recourse. It's not the developers fault directly but they inherently support an abusive vendor-user relationship. Everyone who doesn't see that is just a Google-apologist.
- cookie_monsta 7y ago
  > it'll be bad because Google can force features into standards and essentially do what they want with no recourse. Again, not the way it worked with IE 1-8 > Everyone who doesn't see that is just a Google-apologist. Well I don't and I'm not.
  - zaarn 7y ago
    And again, that's what Google is already doing, I'm not saying they're doing the exact same things that happened with IE1-8 but a browser monopoly is still equally bad regardless of how badly a browser is maintained.
    - cookie_monsta 7y ago
      Oh, absolutely - I'm not arguing in favour of browser monopolies. I'm saying that browser standards aren't a popularity contest. You can have the most popular browser in the world but still not be able to strongarm your way into compliance. Remember attachEvent?