3 ms·

> antitrust law says that you can't leverage a monopoly in one area in order to establish one in another area Would Chrome have gained that much popularity if

by sph 2y ago

> antitrust law says that you can't leverage a monopoly in one area in order to establish one in another area Would Chrome have gained that much popularity if Google hadn't been the most used search engine, nay, website in the world? > As far as I understand, developing a non-monopoly business to try to protect your monopoly business is not illegal. IANAL either, but whatever Google is doing with Chrome should be illegal, i.e. making so many (open) web standards that it is basically impossible for a new browser engine entrant unless they invest billions. In fact, I reckon that no major corporation should be sitting on the W3C board if they have vested interest in controlling the future of the internet. It's the equivalent of lobbying legislators, but worse, because the people writing the standards are openly on your payroll. Right now the only thing that stands between Google and total domination of the world wide web is Apple and their stubborn dedication to Webkit. Another example that only a company with the revenue in the hundreds of billions can complete in this field that affects the entire world. I am sincerely thankful to them.

lazide 2y ago
This is a classic ‘be careful what you wish for’. Because what do you think the alternative is going to look like?
- freedomben 2y ago
  I'm not GP, but IMHO the alternative will be stagnation on web standards. Normally I would think that a bad thing, but as the "progress" nowadays is becoming more and more user-hostile and developer-friendly (as both a user and a developer, I can see both side here), I would prefer stagnation to progress. I don't want Web Integrity or manifest v3 or any of that crap. That's a blatant transfer of power from the user to the developer, and the latter is already substantially more powerful than the user. We need to go the other way.
  - lazide 2y ago
    Or bug for bug lockin of existing players in an increasingly more static space.
eastbound 2y ago
> Would Chrome have gained that much popularity if Google hadn't been the most used search engine, nay, website in the world? Yes, Chrome was absolutely superior to Firefox in every way at the beginning. > impossible for new entrants unless they invest billions All industries require that you invest billions, and it’s to compensate the civilization-long effort of R&D that the other company did. Reasoning-by-absurd: Should Boeing display all the plans of the band new Dreamliner so that it doesn’t take billions for new competitors to emerge? Should all companies make their blueprint public so they can have immediate competition? No, Google invested in browsers and set up new norms in WWW in exchange for their position on the market. The benefit to the general population has been excellent WWW norms, to be honest. I’m thinking outside the law framework but to me, no corporation should be have 51% market share. But that’s wishful thinking, not the law (also, market share is something economists struggle to define).
- protimewaster 2y ago
  > Yes, Chrome was absolutely superior to Firefox in every way at the beginning. I can't speak to the technical capabilities early on, but I will say that I distinctly remember many of the computing people I knew explicitly not preferring Chrome early on. I distinctly remember a discussion in one of my college CS courses, shortly after the release of Chrome, where everyone was in agreement that Chrome was just "that awful browser that Google made".
- Adverblessly 2y ago
  > Yes, Chrome was absolutely superior to Firefox in every way at the beginning. At the time of Chrome's introduction, Firefox still had XUL extensions and a somewhat different UI from Chrome, so Chrome wasn't strictly superior (though it is fair to say it had better performance than Firefox). Over time, Mozilla replaced XUL extensions with Chrome's extensions API (without providing meaningful additions, like reintroducing the ability to modify the UI) and reworked the UI to be a clone of Chrome, so thanks to Mozilla's efforts it might be fair to say that today Chrome is strictly superior (excluding privacy and MV3 etc.). (I still begrudgingly use Firefox BTW :))

by sph 2y ago

lazide 2y ago

This is a classic ‘be careful what you wish for’. Because what do you think the alternative is going to look like?

freedomben 2y ago
I'm not GP, but IMHO the alternative will be stagnation on web standards. Normally I would think that a bad thing, but as the "progress" nowadays is becoming more and more user-hostile and developer-friendly (as both a user and a developer, I can see both side here), I would prefer stagnation to progress. I don't want Web Integrity or manifest v3 or any of that crap. That's a blatant transfer of power from the user to the developer, and the latter is already substantially more powerful than the user. We need to go the other way.
- lazide 2y ago
  Or bug for bug lockin of existing players in an increasingly more static space.

eastbound 2y ago

> Would Chrome have gained that much popularity if Google hadn't been the most used search engine, nay, website in the world? Yes, Chrome was absolutely superior to Firefox in every way at the beginning. > impossible for new entrants unless they invest billions All industries require that you invest billions, and it’s to compensate the civilization-long effort of R&D that the other company did. Reasoning-by-absurd: Should Boeing display all the plans of the band new Dreamliner so that it doesn’t take billions for new competitors to emerge? Should all companies make their blueprint public so they can have immediate competition? No, Google invested in browsers and set up new norms in WWW in exchange for their position on the market. The benefit to the general population has been excellent WWW norms, to be honest. I’m thinking outside the law framework but to me, no corporation should be have 51% market share. But that’s wishful thinking, not the law (also, market share is something economists struggle to define).

protimewaster 2y ago
> Yes, Chrome was absolutely superior to Firefox in every way at the beginning. I can't speak to the technical capabilities early on, but I will say that I distinctly remember many of the computing people I knew explicitly not preferring Chrome early on. I distinctly remember a discussion in one of my college CS courses, shortly after the release of Chrome, where everyone was in agreement that Chrome was just "that awful browser that Google made".
Adverblessly 2y ago
> Yes, Chrome was absolutely superior to Firefox in every way at the beginning. At the time of Chrome's introduction, Firefox still had XUL extensions and a somewhat different UI from Chrome, so Chrome wasn't strictly superior (though it is fair to say it had better performance than Firefox). Over time, Mozilla replaced XUL extensions with Chrome's extensions API (without providing meaningful additions, like reintroducing the ability to modify the UI) and reworked the UI to be a clone of Chrome, so thanks to Mozilla's efforts it might be fair to say that today Chrome is strictly superior (excluding privacy and MV3 etc.). (I still begrudgingly use Firefox BTW :))