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It could be the case if AMP grows dominant; given the market share of Google Search, it could be enough to create a controlled (er, "curated") web in a similar
by Seirdy 6y ago
It could be the case if AMP grows dominant; given the market share of Google Search, it could be enough to create a controlled (er, "curated") web in a similar spirit.
- ultrarunner 6y agoWe're closer than we have been in a long time to something like Google deciding to license Blink or Chromium. There are some good reasons that couldn't happen (yet), but what a world that would be.
- sebmellen 6y agoI can't picture this happening due to the sheer size of the Electron ecosystem. Do you think there's any precedent for this?
- social_quotient 6y agoJohn Deere saying you can’t work on your own tractor? 50 years ago this would have been an insane proposition. I know it’s not the same but something feels similar to me.
- colejohnson66 6y agoIs there any reason Electron couldn’t switch to, say, Firefox?
- sebmellen 6y agoElectron is really 100% Chromium. I can't see them switching from it (though it would be nice to have a Firefox-base version).
- jw14 6y agoA Firefox based Electron was tried: Positron. It was scrapped for some reason or other (lack of traction?): https://github.com/mozilla/positron https://github.com/mozilla/positron
- chrisco255 6y agoThey can't retract the open source license that already exists for Chromium. Maybe Google could start adding proprietary features to Chrome and close-source those bits, but the code that's out there is already out there.
- mkr-hn 6y agoThis is basically what happened to Android as they moved an increasing number of essential features to Play Services.
- nmfisher 6y agoTo be fair, these are mostly integrations with other Google services. I wouldn't expect this to be an OS-level package.
- zmmmmm 6y agoIronically, this is an example of where it is crucially important Oracle-Google case swings Google's way. Currently, there are alternative implementations of Play Services that can be installed to replace Google's. However, if it is not fair use to use even the bare bones of an API definition without permission, then we can't even create a compatible implementation of such an API without the copyright holder's permission. In which case, we cannot replace Google Play services with anything else.
- ROARosen 6y agoActually, Google already has closed source features in Chrome that are totally not related to Google accounts and/or sync. Take for example Android app support in ChromeOS. It is closed source even though both Chromium and Android are open-source.
- dontblink 6y agoWhy would that matter to anyone but Microsoft? AFAIK Firefox still exists as does KHTML.
- mmsmatt 6y agoFirefox is down for the count with the recent layoffs. It’s Google’s web to lose in the near future. Some days it really feels like there is nothing new under the sun.
- lern_too_spel 6y agoHow? The publishers publish AMP pages, and multiple link aggregators (including Bing) consume them. I could see an Apple News style system being controlled like that because it forces the publishers to directly integrate with a single link aggregator.
- AgentME 6y agoYeah I'm really lost about the AMP doomsaying. The fact google has a standard that anyone can use that lets pages be delivered faster and shows an icon on results that do that really doesn't seem like the sort of thing to get worried about. It's weird that this gets treated not only negatively but on par or worse than closed garden platforms.
- kadoban 6y agoIt gives Google more control over basic functionality of the internet. They already have _far_ too much control in the form of the biggest browser and the biggest search engine. Anything they do to expand or capitalize on that deserves a _lot_ of scrutiny.
- lern_too_spel 6y ago> It gives Google more control over basic functionality of the internet. How? Google controls neither the AMP specification nor the third party implementations like Bing's.
- three_seagrass 6y agoAMP isn't enforced though. You can say 'not yet' or 'it's kind of the same' but that applies for a lot of standards.
- ethbro 6y agoIt's enforced through visibility / rankings in Google Search results. https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/about-amp https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/about-amp Isn't there a term for using dominance in one market to compel behavior in another?
- three_seagrass 6y agoYour link doesn't say that Google forces AMP on publishers. It shows that Google displays an icon next to AMP results for mobile searches to indicate the page is mobile friendly. Bing does the exact same thing: https://blogs.bing.com/Webmaster-Blog/September-2018/Introducing-Bing-AMP-viewer-and-Bing-AMP-cache https://blogs.bing.com/Webmaster-Blog/September-2018/Introdu... This is not enforcing AMP on publishers in the results, and the argument that it is by using icons falls under the 'it's kind of the same' category.
- rhizome 6y agoIt says they use site speed in ranking, and, well, I'm sure it would come as no surprise if Google's (largely) having served a page/site increases the speed just enough.
- three_seagrass 6y agoIf you can beat AMP load times, you will likely rank higher than AMP pages from the speed factor. This is how you do agnostic search results, and it is not putting the thumb on the scale as you're implying.
- thefucnjosh 6y agoThere is a term for that.... I think it's either it's "abuse of dominance" or "anti-competitive behavior"
- IgorPartola 6y agoFuck AMP. The fact that there is no way to turn it off is one of the main reasons I don't use Google on my phone. DDG often has slightly poorer results, but I often find answers to my questions in Reddit threads and Reddit has a horrible mobile experience. Between AMP and them throwing 15 different popups at me to get their app (why would I want their single tab app?!?!), it's borderline unusable.
- pkamb 6y agoReddit has a mobile view that is almost the exact same UI as the AMP page. WHY do they allow Google to run the AMP page instead? I too have switched to DDG solely to avoid Reddit AMP pages.
- boogies 6y agoBecause they have a gun to their cold cash craving heads, and will be demoted to lower positions in the results, lose traffic, and lose revenue if they dare withhold their content from the Internet’s biggest gatekeeper?
- dontblink 6y agoTo be fair, reddit also has a horrible desktop experience. Thank goodness for RES and old version.
- Seirdy 6y agoThere's also https://i.reddit.com https://i.reddit.com for mobile. I personally prefer using the reddio [0] CLI and tuir [1] TUI for Reddit on the desktop. Ultimately, the best Reddit experience is less Reddit. [0]: https://gitlab.com/aaronNG/reddio https://gitlab.com/aaronNG/reddio [1]: https://gitlab.com/ajak/tuir https://gitlab.com/ajak/tuir
- phreack 6y agoI've had the best experience ever since I ditched Google for DDG on my phone, and stuck Reddit on (old) desktop mode with a text wrapping browser. Don't miss Google at all, I only now use it to search for programming stuff.
- LegitShady 6y agoStill looking for a Firefox plugin to make sure I don't connect to amp versions of anything
- i80and 6y agoI use https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/amp2html/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/amp2html/
- hutzlibu 6y agoBut to fight the wrong fake news this is what they are going to have to do.
- rootsudo 6y agoThen it becomes what they think is real and fake. There is no "true" standard for what is real and fake. Yes, I know some things seem "obvious" but it's a sliding scale per person... and, well that's the slippery slope.
- cromwellian 6y agoSo you're proposing diverting the conversation to a theoretical that has little chance of happening but not discussing the actual example that's happening right now? App Stores suck. App Stores with no side-loading are even worse. Platforms that are locked down so much that you can't even install your own OS are worse. We used to bitch about Tivoization on HN all the time, it seems post iPhone, everyone seems A-OK.
- scarface74 6y agoYou are not forced to buy an iPhone - in fact 85% of the world doesn’t. In every day life, the number of people who think “App Stores suck” is infinitesimal.
- cromwellian 6y agoThat's the same excuse my employer (Google) makes. Competition is just a click away. You're not forced to use Google, use Bing, use Fastmail. Brand surveys show Google is also one of the most trusted brands, ergo, the number of people who think it sucks is small. Does that mitigate any of the concerns people have about either company? This community used to have a strong focus on openness, open source, permission less innovation and the avoidance of checkpoints and tolls, but what it's turned into is often a battle of fanboys, who roll out excuses and lowered standards for their favorites. Yours is an easy position to maintain, until you have invested a lot of money and work in an app which gets booted from the App Store, or because Apple decides to shake you down for even more money. Apple fans simultaneously say Apple has a small marketshare, but also brag that earn the majority of all smartphone industry profits. If the latter is true, it means that anyone wanting to make money on mobile software has no choice but to publish on the App Store, ergo, effectively a monopoly.
- scarface74 6y agoAnd your employer is correct. We don’t need the government to protect people from their own decisions. I’ve made the same argument about Google, FaceBook, Apple, and Amazon (even before I started working for AWS). This community used to have a strong focus on openness, open source, permission less innovation and the avoidance of checkpoints and tolls, but what it's turned into is often a battle of fanboys, who roll out excuses and lowered standards for their favorites. Did the open source community whine about mean old Microsoft or did they create alternatives to the point where even Azure runs more Linux VMs than Windows VMs? They went out there and built something better. They out competed. Every single one of the big tech companies got there through better execution.
- Ziggy_Zaggy 6y agoPpl still use Google for searches? Mind.blown.
- sweatpants 6y agoI have DDG as my search portal, and pretty much every single search is followed by another with !g on it. The results are terrible. So please recommend something better.
- Covzire 6y agoI've been trying to use DDG for over a year now and it's not all roses either. Very frequent !g's. Overall it feels a little bit like self-flagellation which I'm hoping is for the greater good, that DDG's algo will improve with use and eventually I won't need !g anymore. Maybe DDG needs a browser extension that let's you seamlessly provide feedback with every !g to teach them what you were actually looking for.
- just-ok 6y agoAt the very least, you could use !s (for StartPage) to get Google’s results without the tracking.
- fooker 6y ago>Maybe DDG needs a browser extension that let's you seamlessly provide feedback with every !g to teach them what you were actually looking for. You are calling it seamlessly providing feedback because it is DDG. If this was about Google or Facebook, it could have sounded closer to 'tracking users'.
- sweatpants 6y agoYup, I hate DDG at this point. While having it as my main search on every browser/device. If there are better alternatives I'd love to know about them.
- ezconnect 6y agoMy experience is DDG results are ok, I only use g! on porn searches sometimes. I dont miss google search at all.