3 ms·

I would also urge people to wonder: why do they care so much? I don't have the answer. Especially in the past, it seemed like a cost factor to keep up a modern

by Aachen 3y ago

I would also urge people to wonder: why do they care so much? I don't have the answer. Especially in the past, it seemed like a cost factor to keep up a modern browser (just ask Mozilla) if people might as well install anything else and still buy your OS and use your services. That may have just been going with the flow, not wanting to miss the boat. My best guess for nowadays is the same as why Google hijacked a login to any google service (from gmail to youtube) as a log in to the Chrome browser, after which all the data on any website is up for grabs and they can facilitate privacy extensions all they want without compromising their own market position. Does Microsoft (plan to) run an ad business? Is it built-in Cortana integration which can answer with ads included or ranking own services higher? Is it just to be able to shove any new future service into more people's faces? To steer web standards, like if you have >70% market share on Windows desktops can you just build in a new ActiveX for WebOffice (as an example) and you'd force others to follow? Or maybe a combination of all of the above. Either way, I think it would be good to know what strategy is behind this relentless pushing

resoluteteeth 3y ago
> I don't have the answer. Especially in the past, it seemed like a cost factor to keep up a modern browser (just ask Mozilla) if people might as well install anything else and still buy your OS and use your services. Microsoft ditched their own browser engine and the current version of edge is just using chromium, so it's cheap to maintain. Edge uses bing by default so Microsoft can serve you ads, and it has a shopping plugin built in which also probably generates revenue. They can also try to redirect people to other microsoft services whenever they want in the future.
creshal 3y ago
> Does Microsoft (plan to) run an ad business? Microsoft Advertisement is pulling in 10 billion dollars a year (~=5% of total) and Microsoft wants to aggressively expand it.

by Aachen 3y ago

resoluteteeth 3y ago

> I don't have the answer. Especially in the past, it seemed like a cost factor to keep up a modern browser (just ask Mozilla) if people might as well install anything else and still buy your OS and use your services. Microsoft ditched their own browser engine and the current version of edge is just using chromium, so it's cheap to maintain. Edge uses bing by default so Microsoft can serve you ads, and it has a shopping plugin built in which also probably generates revenue. They can also try to redirect people to other microsoft services whenever they want in the future.

creshal 3y ago

> Does Microsoft (plan to) run an ad business? Microsoft Advertisement is pulling in 10 billion dollars a year (~=5% of total) and Microsoft wants to aggressively expand it.