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I don't think there's any question Chrome is going to win the Second Broswer War. The question is only when we all agree it's over. The monopoly issue seems e
by throwaway_87 14y ago
I don't think there's any question Chrome is going to win the Second Broswer War. The question is only when we all agree it's over.
The monopoly issue seems even more troublesome this time, as compared with when Microsoft was trying to tie the browser to the desktop PC OS, because the web and search is actually Google's core business.
If I were working on Chrome I would find myself wondering, "So what happens after we become the browser that 99% of the web uses and develops for? What if ChromeOS follows a similar path? Is that going to be good for the web in the long term? What if Google's business starts to slow down? We have created a virtual strangehold over the web. We might have to use it more aggressively."
Or maybe not. All that free food. The big bonuses. The great things we achieved. In the near term, we have seriously made things better for everyone. Life's just too good to think business could ever falter. Maybe I might never have such thoughts. I'm just an engineer. I'm just doing my job. I can't worry about these things.
The amount of control one company is developing over something so essential as the web is just obscene.
- DannoHung 14y agoThe difference this time is that the whole thing is open source. If it goes off the rails, we don't have to have someone start fromt the ground up fixing it. Just start building from the last good version.
- bzbarsky 14y agoExcept that large chunks of Chrome are not in fact open source....
- jiggy2011 14y agoGoogle has been the defacto gatekeeper of the web for some time now. The nice thing is that their business model doesn't seem to revolve around locking people into any particular system. In fact they want the opposite, as far as they are concerned everyone should be equal in terms of clicking on ads.
- bzbarsky 14y agoGoogle's business model does in fact involve around locking people into Google's services. To the extent that lockin into a particular system makes that easier, they are quite happy with such lockin.
- bagacrap 14y agoso in other words, the extent to which lockin makes lockin easier makes google quite happy with lockin.
- bzbarsky 14y agoPretty much, with different objects for "lockin". ;)
- Raphael 14y agoGoogle offers a stable of compelling free services. If that's lock-in, then throw away the key.
- bzbarsky 14y agoGoogle's goal is to make sure you see their ads. To the extent that having compelling free services helps, they're doing compelling free services. But the goal is user eyeballs, not having compelling free services. So Google is perfectly happy to do other things that help ensure users will use said services. Nothing wrong with that, by the way.
- throwaway_87 14y agoI agree. However I think this is only possible because of how well the company is doing. I could be very wrong on this. Indeed I hope I am wrong.