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How would you feel if Google started building its websites to function significantly better in Chrome than in any other browser? (I guess is already happening t

How would you feel if Google started building its websites to function significantly better in Chrome than in any other browser? (I guess is already happening to some extent... but not as egregiously as it could.) Because that's the same idea. We have Web standards, which all websites should use, just like we have wireless standards which all wireless hardware should use. Efficient implementation of the standard should be all that's required. Why do we do this? Because it's better for individual large companies? No, it's not. We do it because following interoperable standards is better for everyone. Having tightly-integrated Apple products is nice, but having tightly-integrated everything is better for consumers, innovators, and small new companies. Car analogies are not apt here. Cars and engines are physical things. Software is not.

MontyCarloHall 3y ago
>How would you feel if Google started building its websites to function significantly better in Chrome than in any other browser? (I guess is already happening to some extent... but not as egregiously as it could.) Because that's the same idea. We have Web standards, which all websites should use If the proprietary Chrome-only extensions to web standards provided a dramatically better user experience, I would have no issues with this, as long as users are 100% free to choose whichever browser (and online services) they please, and as long as other companies were free to independently implement/reverse engineer these extensions. I would only have a problem if Google abused a monopoly position to force users to use its products, à la Microsoft and Internet Explorer in the late 90s. >Why do we do this? Because it's better for individual large companies? No, it's not. It's almost always better for companies to maximize their marketshare, unless maximizing marketshare would compromise the quality of the product. The iPod was originally Mac only, and was a rather niche toy until Apple opened compatibility, at which point it became a global sensation. This was likely due to the fact that in 2001, when the iPod debuted, all Apple computers had a port fast enough to transfer gigabytes of music (FireWire, 400 Mb/s), while most non-Apple machines still had USB 1.0 (12 Mb/s), so a high capacity MP3 player simply would not have been a good user experience. It wasn't until USB 2.0 (480 Mb/s) became common a year or so later that a large MP3 player became a good experience on non-Apple machines, and Apple rationally decided to maximize its marketshare. >Car analogies are not apt here. Cars and engines are physical things. Software is not. You are correct that analogies to physical goods are imperfect; I was merely using them to point out how the experience of tight product integration can sometimes be more valuable to the user than interoperability. It all depends on the use case.
- kodah 3y ago
  Not to be rude, but your vision is very exclusivity focused, which is at odds with the era of free software that RMS emerged from. Chrome is very resource intensive. If I'm giving machines away to people to make computing "free" your description of an acceptable standard is not compatible with mine. Specialized machines, Chromebooks, now exist for this purpose but they're still arguably expensive and sacrifice other "free OS" capabilities and standards to make this possible. On the note of Apple I didn't even bother mentioning them. Their whole business is exclusivity, incompatibility, and avoiding standards/sharing. Today's free software is optimized for business congruency, which is another valid side of free software but I'd argue we've over indexed in this category at this point. To some of your original points about PulseAudio I agree that it's old and shit for today's age. I think there's some WIPs that aim to replace it with a modern stack, but I haven't checked in a bit. That said, I'd also argue that Bose had to work with Microsoft and Apple to develop drivers for their headphones. I don't think it'd be much of a stretch for them to do that with the Linux community. I'm not blaming them for how shit Pulse is; I'm disappointed that the standards of audio are not shared so that developing one product that works everywhere is possible in that category as it is in other categories of computing. This is what free software organizations harping on standards do for everyone. They also do so mostly behind the scenes.

MontyCarloHall 3y ago

>How would you feel if Google started building its websites to function significantly better in Chrome than in any other browser? (I guess is already happening to some extent... but not as egregiously as it could.) Because that's the same idea. We have Web standards, which all websites should use If the proprietary Chrome-only extensions to web standards provided a dramatically better user experience, I would have no issues with this, as long as users are 100% free to choose whichever browser (and online services) they please, and as long as other companies were free to independently implement/reverse engineer these extensions. I would only have a problem if Google abused a monopoly position to force users to use its products, à la Microsoft and Internet Explorer in the late 90s. >Why do we do this? Because it's better for individual large companies? No, it's not. It's almost always better for companies to maximize their marketshare, unless maximizing marketshare would compromise the quality of the product. The iPod was originally Mac only, and was a rather niche toy until Apple opened compatibility, at which point it became a global sensation. This was likely due to the fact that in 2001, when the iPod debuted, all Apple computers had a port fast enough to transfer gigabytes of music (FireWire, 400 Mb/s), while most non-Apple machines still had USB 1.0 (12 Mb/s), so a high capacity MP3 player simply would not have been a good user experience. It wasn't until USB 2.0 (480 Mb/s) became common a year or so later that a large MP3 player became a good experience on non-Apple machines, and Apple rationally decided to maximize its marketshare. >Car analogies are not apt here. Cars and engines are physical things. Software is not. You are correct that analogies to physical goods are imperfect; I was merely using them to point out how the experience of tight product integration can sometimes be more valuable to the user than interoperability. It all depends on the use case.

kodah 3y ago
Not to be rude, but your vision is very exclusivity focused, which is at odds with the era of free software that RMS emerged from. Chrome is very resource intensive. If I'm giving machines away to people to make computing "free" your description of an acceptable standard is not compatible with mine. Specialized machines, Chromebooks, now exist for this purpose but they're still arguably expensive and sacrifice other "free OS" capabilities and standards to make this possible. On the note of Apple I didn't even bother mentioning them. Their whole business is exclusivity, incompatibility, and avoiding standards/sharing. Today's free software is optimized for business congruency, which is another valid side of free software but I'd argue we've over indexed in this category at this point. To some of your original points about PulseAudio I agree that it's old and shit for today's age. I think there's some WIPs that aim to replace it with a modern stack, but I haven't checked in a bit. That said, I'd also argue that Bose had to work with Microsoft and Apple to develop drivers for their headphones. I don't think it'd be much of a stretch for them to do that with the Linux community. I'm not blaming them for how shit Pulse is; I'm disappointed that the standards of audio are not shared so that developing one product that works everywhere is possible in that category as it is in other categories of computing. This is what free software organizations harping on standards do for everyone. They also do so mostly behind the scenes.