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(I'm a googler who works closely with the web.dev team). Google also pays technical writers to contribute to MDN which we consider to be THE destination for re

(I'm a googler who works closely with the web.dev team). Google also pays technical writers to contribute to MDN which we consider to be THE destination for reference documentation. Both Google and Microsoft have employed multiple fulltime techwriters to contribute to MDN for the last ~7 years, I believe. We don't consider web.dev to be an alternative to MDN. web.dev doesn't do reference documentation, but rather guides, tutorials, and news. web.dev is developed by the Web DevRel team and you can be sure that everyone working on Web DevRel and Chrome knows the fundamental importance of a diverse browser ecosystem. If there's anything we can do to make web.dev more inclusive, we'd love to hear it.

jameslk 6y ago
I have my doubts that MDN will be able to keep receiving the same level of updates with these layoffs. I'd hope they would, but that doesn't seem logical unless either contributions increase from outisde somehow (e.g. Google and Microsoft decides to add more writers for MDN), or GPT-3 starts generating those docs. Now if MDN starts becoming outdated, someone else will fill that void. W3Schools maybe (nobody wants this), but it seems like a better opportunity for Google to swoop in and lead, to further solidify their domination in the browser space. Cynical sounding to you I'm sure, but that seems logical to me from a homo economicus business stance. I'd be happy to hear I'm missing something or wrong in some way so this doesn't happen, since after all, competition is great.
nojvek 6y ago
Wow! paulirish on HN. I assume you have the best of intentions, I'm a massive fan of your work on DevTools and web.dev. It's just hard to digest that this will always be the view of Google especially with its ads, search, android and chrome market share (monopoly). Google has conflicting interests and it's hard to digest "Chrome knows the fundamental importance of a diverse browser ecosystem".

jameslk 6y ago

I have my doubts that MDN will be able to keep receiving the same level of updates with these layoffs. I'd hope they would, but that doesn't seem logical unless either contributions increase from outisde somehow (e.g. Google and Microsoft decides to add more writers for MDN), or GPT-3 starts generating those docs. Now if MDN starts becoming outdated, someone else will fill that void. W3Schools maybe (nobody wants this), but it seems like a better opportunity for Google to swoop in and lead, to further solidify their domination in the browser space. Cynical sounding to you I'm sure, but that seems logical to me from a homo economicus business stance. I'd be happy to hear I'm missing something or wrong in some way so this doesn't happen, since after all, competition is great.

nojvek 6y ago

Wow! paulirish on HN. I assume you have the best of intentions, I'm a massive fan of your work on DevTools and web.dev. It's just hard to digest that this will always be the view of Google especially with its ads, search, android and chrome market share (monopoly). Google has conflicting interests and it's hard to digest "Chrome knows the fundamental importance of a diverse browser ecosystem".