4 ms·

I was nodding along with this article until this point: > There is no plausible option where other vendors stop these features coming to the web entirely. In m

I was nodding along with this article until this point: > There is no plausible option where other vendors stop these features coming to the web entirely. In many cases, they're already there. There's only a world in which they stop them reaching beyond Chrome's 65% market share (~70%, including all Chromium-based browsers, or ~80% for desktop). If 2 out of 3 browser engines decide not to implement a feature out of principle than arguably it isn‘t part of the Web and if Google was serious about being a good web citizen they‘d disable features (or make them only available to ChromeOS) where they can‘t convince one other browser engine to implement it.

pimterry 5y ago
Yes, it is bad behaviour, but yes, they're absolutely doing it anyway. I wouldn't necessarily describe this as malicious, merely impatient (perhaps too generous) - they've been doing controlled origin trials and similar for web bluetooth for example since 2015, but the other browsers haven't engaged. I do think if Firefox/Safari had serious counter-proposals today that would work for everybody and limit the standards to mitigate the concerns, the Chrome team would happily compromise in return for wider compatibility.
- realityking 5y ago
  > I do think if Firefox/Safari had serious counter-proposals today that would work for everybody and limit the standards to mitigate the concerns, the Chrome team would happily compromise in return for wider compatibility. I believe you‘re right but that leaves no room to say “we fundamentally believe this feature should not be part of the web”. Something I consider quite reasonable with regards to Web USB and Web Bluetooth.
coliveira 5y ago
Google is using a similar strategy to what Microsoft used in the late 90s. The difference is that MS implemented new tags and features in IE without any standard. Google is taking care of manipulating the standard, and then singlehandedly implementing these new features in the standard even if nobody else cares about it. Then it manipulates their services to require those features, so Chrome is the only option. This is behavior typical of large corporations and monopolies, because they have the resources to throw at the creation of more and more features, at the expense of smaller competitors.

pimterry 5y ago

Yes, it is bad behaviour, but yes, they're absolutely doing it anyway. I wouldn't necessarily describe this as malicious, merely impatient (perhaps too generous) - they've been doing controlled origin trials and similar for web bluetooth for example since 2015, but the other browsers haven't engaged. I do think if Firefox/Safari had serious counter-proposals today that would work for everybody and limit the standards to mitigate the concerns, the Chrome team would happily compromise in return for wider compatibility.

realityking 5y ago
> I do think if Firefox/Safari had serious counter-proposals today that would work for everybody and limit the standards to mitigate the concerns, the Chrome team would happily compromise in return for wider compatibility. I believe you‘re right but that leaves no room to say “we fundamentally believe this feature should not be part of the web”. Something I consider quite reasonable with regards to Web USB and Web Bluetooth.

coliveira 5y ago

Google is using a similar strategy to what Microsoft used in the late 90s. The difference is that MS implemented new tags and features in IE without any standard. Google is taking care of manipulating the standard, and then singlehandedly implementing these new features in the standard even if nobody else cares about it. Then it manipulates their services to require those features, so Chrome is the only option. This is behavior typical of large corporations and monopolies, because they have the resources to throw at the creation of more and more features, at the expense of smaller competitors.