4 ms·

Asking a rhetorical and irritating question - but one which web nerds need to be much better at answering: why, exactly does it matter? Don't get me wrong, I'm

by dmje 6y ago

Asking a rhetorical and irritating question - but one which web nerds need to be much better at answering: why, exactly does it matter? Don't get me wrong, I'm totally uncomfortable with a monopoly of this scale; I'm a Firefox user, a Pihole user, a non-FB user. But when people (non nerds) ask me why, it's hard to answer. They're all happy enough: Chrome is fast, AMP is faster, they get to find out the stuff they want to find out from incredibly accurate search, or Facebook - so what's the actual problem here? My answer is normally about principles or competition or fairness but in practical terms, I haven't got a lot of answers. Help me out here.

lisper 6y ago
It's about the extent to which you want to allow a very small number of very rich people to control your life and your voice. If the open web dies, if FB is all that is left, then effectively no one will be able to say anything in the public sphere without Mark Zuckerberg's permission, and no one will be able to even participate in daily life without paying Mark Zuckerberg for the privilege, even if only indirectly. Is that really the world you want to live in?
- sukilot 6y ago
  Compared to the world before Zuckerberg where there was not even that way?
TekMol 6y ago
Many reasons come to mind. Here is one: When one entity controls the web and you run a web based business, then you have to live in constant fear that they will destroy it. By accident or by malice. One example how this is already happening is AMP. Google says "Give us your content or we will send people interested in it to your competitors instead". And they get away with it.
zanny 6y ago
Having any infrastructure controlled by a publicly traded corporation has enormous historical precedent to lead to the dissolution of that infrastructure for shareholder profit. Once Google feels comfortable with doing so not allowing arbitrary routing in Chrome will be on the table to control what websites people visit. The only things stopping that is a feeble threat of state intervention or the threat of competition in the browser space reclaiming market share as a result. They can, and probably will, take Chrome wholly proprietary at some point. Microsoft kowtowing to their engine is in their favor for now, but long term its in their business interests that Microsoft not have a browser anymore. That they present Chrome as the only option to users. We can mire in the details of what a browser is, but for 99% of people Chrome is a program you run that shows you the stuff you want. The http, html, etc underpinnings are totally irrelevant. Chrome could be doing anything as long as it were showing the content the user of it expects. Google has already done this in the past with things like SPDY. I'm sure standards realize this - its why http/2 was a thing after all - that at this point if Google creates a new protocol it is de-facto required to become a standard because that is the only way for alternative browsers to keep pace with Chrome. As such Google gets to dictate the future of hypertext. Not the users of the platform, not standards bodies formed to collaborate, the board of directors of a publicly traded US company.
- satyrnein 6y ago
  Even if Google takes Chrome proprietary in the future, Microsoft and others can continue on their forks. That's the beauty of open source in this case. As for SPDY, standards bodies like to "pave the cowpaths" so they codify existing implementations. Apple and Mozilla supported SPDY, it eventually became http/2 as you say, and then everyone dropped support for SPDY. This sounds like everything worked as intended.
  - Drakim 6y ago
    > Even if Google takes Chrome proprietary in the future, Microsoft and others can continue on their forks. That's the beauty of open source in this case. It won't help much if a huge part of Chrome's proprietary new future involves running on proprietary content as well. Just wait until Chrome has some special non-HTTP integration with "lightning fast AMP pages" that other browsers can't serve, or serves a lot slower.
simonkafan 6y ago
Take a look at what happend to Huawei. If your business is somehow dependent on the goodwill of one person or one company, they can decide if you live or die. And they will at some point. This is the opposite of freedom.
bananaface 6y ago
For non-techies? "Once they have wiped out all competition, they can start charging you."
stjohnswarts 6y ago
Because monopolies stifle progress and technology. They choke out the competitors that were driving that and when they're on top they're the only game in town and dictate unfair conditions and bribe politicians (at even higher rate) and generally become a cancer on society rather than a plus. Standard oil, railroads killing unionists, and on and on. People in power begin to crave power and will do absolutely anything to get more of it and eliminate any competitors.
bonestamp2 6y ago
Tracking. Chrome has so many more niche features than FireFox and Safari. For example, using WebUSB sounds really awesome, what could be wrong with lots of new features? These unique features, and people's use of them, provides so many more "fingerprint" elements to uniquely identify people as they move around the web.
tannhaeuser 6y ago
Because the web is how we communicate in this day and age. HTML is used for legal, medical, personal, press, cultural, and educational purposes, like paper and pencil used to be, and stone and chisel before. We can't let our language allow to be taken over by a single commercial entity. We're already experiencing a loss of digital heritage from a decade or two ago. We think we are so advanced, but lack basic means of communication available to former generations. We're seeing digital media being used to influence people at a scale not possible before. We need widespread competence and broad representation for digital media. I guess you don't want to kiss the ring of an ad company if you want to tell and show your grandchildren how our time was like, do you?
AshamedCaptain 6y ago
We've HAD a browser monopoly in the past, and the results are _still_ visible. Entire countries are hooked in technology that is absurdly obsolete (even by the monopolist itself) and almost an entire decade passed by without much innovation.
kybernetikos 6y ago
Amp is much worse for me. It makes pages wait seconds without displaying anything. I frequently visit an amp page by mistake and think it's broken and close it before it displays. It frustrates me, why not just give me a link to an actual web page?
stjohnswarts 6y ago
Basically one look at the history of monopolies will tell you all you want to know. This is a digital monopoly (well not yet) but heading there quickly, and the public doesn't seem to care. They will care when google starts monetizing services rather than only getting the vast majority of its profits from ads. When you're the only game in town you can start dictating terms unilaterally. Google scares me far more than Apple or Amazon or Facebook. Apple is a hardware company with lots of alternatives, Amazon actually has competition with itself from third party sellers on it's platform, Facebook is just getting old and tired and I predict won't be relevant in 5-8 years, I smell an AOL event coming for them. Google however controls our main source of -information- and that's fucking scary in the digital age.

by dmje 6y ago

lisper 6y ago

It's about the extent to which you want to allow a very small number of very rich people to control your life and your voice. If the open web dies, if FB is all that is left, then effectively no one will be able to say anything in the public sphere without Mark Zuckerberg's permission, and no one will be able to even participate in daily life without paying Mark Zuckerberg for the privilege, even if only indirectly. Is that really the world you want to live in?

sukilot 6y ago
Compared to the world before Zuckerberg where there was not even that way?

TekMol 6y ago

Many reasons come to mind. Here is one: When one entity controls the web and you run a web based business, then you have to live in constant fear that they will destroy it. By accident or by malice. One example how this is already happening is AMP. Google says "Give us your content or we will send people interested in it to your competitors instead". And they get away with it.

zanny 6y ago

Having any infrastructure controlled by a publicly traded corporation has enormous historical precedent to lead to the dissolution of that infrastructure for shareholder profit. Once Google feels comfortable with doing so not allowing arbitrary routing in Chrome will be on the table to control what websites people visit. The only things stopping that is a feeble threat of state intervention or the threat of competition in the browser space reclaiming market share as a result. They can, and probably will, take Chrome wholly proprietary at some point. Microsoft kowtowing to their engine is in their favor for now, but long term its in their business interests that Microsoft not have a browser anymore. That they present Chrome as the only option to users. We can mire in the details of what a browser is, but for 99% of people Chrome is a program you run that shows you the stuff you want. The http, html, etc underpinnings are totally irrelevant. Chrome could be doing anything as long as it were showing the content the user of it expects. Google has already done this in the past with things like SPDY. I'm sure standards realize this - its why http/2 was a thing after all - that at this point if Google creates a new protocol it is de-facto required to become a standard because that is the only way for alternative browsers to keep pace with Chrome. As such Google gets to dictate the future of hypertext. Not the users of the platform, not standards bodies formed to collaborate, the board of directors of a publicly traded US company.

satyrnein 6y ago
Even if Google takes Chrome proprietary in the future, Microsoft and others can continue on their forks. That's the beauty of open source in this case. As for SPDY, standards bodies like to "pave the cowpaths" so they codify existing implementations. Apple and Mozilla supported SPDY, it eventually became http/2 as you say, and then everyone dropped support for SPDY. This sounds like everything worked as intended.
- Drakim 6y ago
  > Even if Google takes Chrome proprietary in the future, Microsoft and others can continue on their forks. That's the beauty of open source in this case. It won't help much if a huge part of Chrome's proprietary new future involves running on proprietary content as well. Just wait until Chrome has some special non-HTTP integration with "lightning fast AMP pages" that other browsers can't serve, or serves a lot slower.

simonkafan 6y ago

Take a look at what happend to Huawei. If your business is somehow dependent on the goodwill of one person or one company, they can decide if you live or die. And they will at some point. This is the opposite of freedom.

bananaface 6y ago

For non-techies? "Once they have wiped out all competition, they can start charging you."

stjohnswarts 6y ago

Because monopolies stifle progress and technology. They choke out the competitors that were driving that and when they're on top they're the only game in town and dictate unfair conditions and bribe politicians (at even higher rate) and generally become a cancer on society rather than a plus. Standard oil, railroads killing unionists, and on and on. People in power begin to crave power and will do absolutely anything to get more of it and eliminate any competitors.

bonestamp2 6y ago

Tracking. Chrome has so many more niche features than FireFox and Safari. For example, using WebUSB sounds really awesome, what could be wrong with lots of new features? These unique features, and people's use of them, provides so many more "fingerprint" elements to uniquely identify people as they move around the web.

tannhaeuser 6y ago

Because the web is how we communicate in this day and age. HTML is used for legal, medical, personal, press, cultural, and educational purposes, like paper and pencil used to be, and stone and chisel before. We can't let our language allow to be taken over by a single commercial entity. We're already experiencing a loss of digital heritage from a decade or two ago. We think we are so advanced, but lack basic means of communication available to former generations. We're seeing digital media being used to influence people at a scale not possible before. We need widespread competence and broad representation for digital media. I guess you don't want to kiss the ring of an ad company if you want to tell and show your grandchildren how our time was like, do you?

AshamedCaptain 6y ago

We've HAD a browser monopoly in the past, and the results are _still_ visible. Entire countries are hooked in technology that is absurdly obsolete (even by the monopolist itself) and almost an entire decade passed by without much innovation.

kybernetikos 6y ago

Amp is much worse for me. It makes pages wait seconds without displaying anything. I frequently visit an amp page by mistake and think it's broken and close it before it displays. It frustrates me, why not just give me a link to an actual web page?

stjohnswarts 6y ago

Basically one look at the history of monopolies will tell you all you want to know. This is a digital monopoly (well not yet) but heading there quickly, and the public doesn't seem to care. They will care when google starts monetizing services rather than only getting the vast majority of its profits from ads. When you're the only game in town you can start dictating terms unilaterally. Google scares me far more than Apple or Amazon or Facebook. Apple is a hardware company with lots of alternatives, Amazon actually has competition with itself from third party sellers on it's platform, Facebook is just getting old and tired and I predict won't be relevant in 5-8 years, I smell an AOL event coming for them. Google however controls our main source of -information- and that's fucking scary in the digital age.