10 ms·

Monopolies are bad. Splitting up monopolies is good for the consumer. That doesn't mean this makes any sense. How are they going to separate Chrome from Chrom

Monopolies are bad. Splitting up monopolies is good for the consumer. That doesn't mean this makes any sense. How are they going to separate Chrome from Chromium? If they do, what incentive does Google have to keep maintaining Chromium? Can Google make another new fork of Chromium and start yet another browser? Or are they now banned from making browsers? What company has the resources to maintain Chrome's massive codebase? What profit incentive is there in maintaining Chrome without Google's ad business? What about ChromeOS? How are they going to handle the extensions store and ecosystem? How is this going to impact web standards? There's just a lot of significant unknowns surrounding this.

dijit 2y ago
in general, I find a little bit distasteful that the only way to build a browser is as a loss leading project for the largest advertising company on the planet No wonder nobody can compete, loss leaders tend to kill competition as they can be maintained without direct business revenue at all. The same issue plagues domesticated cats, they don’t need to hunt for food since they have an abundance at home so instead without risk of starvation they are free to hunt all birds in the territory for fun. There are no browsers left except the artificial ecosystem of Safari. Firefox is not a blip on the radar. So, everything is chrome and chrome is the web standard. Having a single private company in charge of what is and what is not web standards is a little bit scary, as, like the cat, they don’t really need to see and serve the needs of the environment. They are fed at home.
- graycat 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - zelphirkalt 2y ago
    > A Web browser is on the way to being similar, just a standard tool? I hope not, because then we get no choices regarding privacy and the most likely dominant player right now cares very much to not give you any privacy.
    - graycat 2y ago
      > the most likely dominant player right now cares very much to not give you any privacy. I've installed a recent version of Chrome, but likely your point is some of why I've never let that program even execute. Firefox seems to do well on privacy. Maybe that's why I use it and some of why it gets funded!! And for privacy I do use the proxy Firefox offers. Some people want privacy. If they begin to sense that Chrome is a real threat to privacy, people will look for alternatives. Then some people, maybe with venture funding will get one of the recent copies of the Chrome source code, modify it, and offer a browser with good privacy, maybe charge $50 for it. Okay, problem solved? Then hopefully privacy will be as accepted as 120 volt, 60 Hz AC home electrical power. All the homes want that power because all the appliences use it because all the homes use it. Google makes their money from people arriving for the Google search service, maps, etc. From Web crawling, or whatever is done now, for their search service, Google is also a HUGE user of the Internet. Then it is very much in Google's interest to have the many millions of Web sites, HTTP, HTTPS, TLS (Transport Layer Security), DNS (Domain Name System), HTML, JavaScript, etc. all very standard: Google has to be able to read those millions of Web sites so wants them all to be standard, i.e., without a Tower of Bable problem. Or all the Web sites (and programmers) follow the standards because all the Web browsers do (and several billion Web users use those browsers); and all the Web browsers do because many millions of Web sites do. Maybe some of what Google might do but does not is due to some people noticing that situation and being sure to help Firefox.
- nextlevelwizard 2y ago
  How much of Mozilla’s budget actually goes to Firefox? Last I checked making a browser wasn’t even on the road map
  - bonzini 2y ago
    There's Mozilla Foundation (where making a browser is not on the road map) and Mozilla Corporation (which makes money by making a browser to finance the foundation). Mozilla Corporation revenue is about half a billion, most of it coming from Google and only 2% (from what I found) going to the foundation. The foundation gets most of its money from Google as well, but separately, and the foundation's revenue is about 10% of Mozilla Corporation's. So overall over 90% of Mozilla's budget goes to software development and to cost centers that are associated to Mozilla Corporation.
  - Certhas 2y ago
    That vast majority. And Firefox is massively profitable, too (with a rising share of income not coming from google, up to 15% the last time I looked). Software development was 220 out of a total 425 M$ of expenses. General and administrative coming in second at 108 M$. I don't know exactly what comparable software companies invest, but assuming that the 220 is entirely SWE salaries this seems appropriate overhead to my mind. Edit, all of this is 2022: https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-2022-fs-final-0908.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-202...
    - bonzini 2y ago
      > assuming that the 220 is entirely SWE salaries With 750 employees for Mozilla Corp, that's unlikely. Even if 80% are developers that would be $350,000 salary on average.
      - dijit 2y ago
        good rule of thumb (at least in Europe) is that whatever your developer salaries are, double it to get closer to the actual operational cost. There's lots of hidden costs, licenses, insurances, computers/servers, email hosting, document editing suites; that's before you get to the big stuff like office space and social contributions. -- then there's managers, HR etc; Anyway, it's a reasonable rule of thumb. YMMV.
- MichaelCharles 2y ago
  All very good points.
- graemep 2y ago
  It is not the only way to build a browser. It is the only way to build a browser and push adoption. The problem is not the lack of direct revenues. It is the lack of marketing budget and control of platforms (Chrome dominates on Android for exactly the same reason Safari does on Apple). Firefox is a perfectly good browser, but has lost its market share because Google has huge marketing advantage.
- m463 2y ago
  and televisions. Now you can't get a television that doesn't spy on you because of unhealthy funding driving the price down.
- rrr_oh_man 2y ago
  I love how this went from "monopolies are bad" to "fuck cats".
  - antonvs 2y ago
    Cats have a monopoly on suburban predation in many places. When is the DOJ going to step in?
    - gryn 2y ago
      After cats start selling their prey.
- satchlj 2y ago
  Can you explain the cat thing? Why wouldn't cats who are not fed be forced to kill even more birds? Is it because they would be focused on more efficient sources of food like mice instead?
  - dijit 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife Essentially, in the wild, cats would be forced to hunt based on hunger, so they'd have to pick and choose what to hunt. Since they're never hungry, they do it based on fun, and they can "out-starve" their prey who may be hiding but have a higher need to eat and thus: leave their safety.
    - account42 2y ago
      > they're never hungry IME cats are hungry as soon as they have finished their food.
      - coretx 2y ago
        They are predators while they eat too.
- whywhywhywhy 2y ago
  > in general, I find a little bit distasteful that the only way to build a browser is as a loss leading project for the largest advertising company on the planet Safari came into the world on a similar timeline so this isn't true
  - StilesCrisis 2y ago
    If you look at the code size and feature set of Safari 1.0, it’s really a different universe from 2024. Web browsers have become miniature OSes. They contain multiple 3D rendering stacks (WebGL, WebGPU), hardware-accelerated 2D compositors, multiple languages that JIT optimize into native code (JavaScript, WASM), and require passing test suites with millions of cases. The bar has been raised massively since Safari came out, largely to user’s benefit, and honestly we mostly have Chrome to thank for it.
- executesorder66 2y ago
  Tangent, but I don't understand this argument at all: > The same issue plagues domesticated cats, they don’t need to hunt for food since they have an abundance at home so instead without risk of starvation they are free to hunt all birds in the territory for fun. Please could you help me understand. - If they don't _need_ to hunt for food, the frequency of hunting birds should go down (even if they still do it for fun sometimes) - If they don't need to take risks to get food, why would they then take those same risks now for the purpose of entertainment? (That cancels out any meaning of there no longer being any risk in killing birds, so why mention it at all?) My understanding is that you are implying that cats not having to kill birds out of necessity leading to them now being able to do it for fun is a bad thing. Is that correct? And if so, I don't follow that logic because of my above two points.
  - dijit 2y ago
    The points you raise would make sense if cats were purely logical, unfortunately they're not and a lot of what makes a cat work is instinct. - Instinctively, cats will hunt. - Lack of care about food source will make cats outlast prey who have to leave safe areas to find food. - Lack of care about food availability can (and has been proven to) cause cats to hunt more often, not less- as the "cost" of going for a hunt is basically zero; there's no consequences for failure and even success is met with satisfaction but no "cost". Anyway,there's better info on this subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife
    - executesorder66 2y ago
      Thanks, your second point makes a lot of sense to me, and helped me to understand your point. The Wikipedia article was also a good read.
- crabmusket 2y ago
  > loss leaders tend to kill competition as they can be maintained without direct business revenue at all Ding ding ding. This is a classic monopolist strategy. It poisons the market for any other potential competitors by removing all possibility of profit from the category. It's kind of eyebrow-raising that more people in this thread don't notice this. And instead just assume of COURSE browsers can't be funded except by a monopolist using it to shore up their surveillance business.
littlestymaar 2y ago
> There's just a lot of significant unknowns surrounding this. That's what happen when you let anomalies like this become the norm. Antitrust actions should have been taken against Google 15 years ago, and at that point it wouldn't have undermined the whole web because back then didn't yet control the entire web (but the trend was clear and that's why action should have been taken).
- MichaelCharles 2y ago
  I guess that's a fair point.
jdub 2y ago
Sounds like a Google problem. The web existed before Chrome, and will continue to exist afterward.
- leetnewb 2y ago
  Yes and no. The web may exist, but there is a viable digital alternative to it today, which didn't exist before Chrome - the mobile and app ecosystem. Virtually everybody who uses the web also uses mobile apps, but there are people who only ever use Android or iOS on a handheld device. It is also possible that in losing Chrome, Google will neglect its web properties and focus exclusively on access to services through mobile apps.
  - jdub 2y ago
    (I don't think your analysis makes sense, but...) Hey, if Google loses its advertising cash cow and vacates the web for apps, that'll really open up the web search market too! Great news!
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    Likewise we used the Internet before someone CERN came up with HTML render application.
  - Talinx 2y ago
    In the broadest sense Android and IOS are similar to browsers: All are platforms that execute code given in a certain format and have APIs for interacting with the device. (The browser is different in that it doesn't need a separate download to acquire the code and makes partial code downloads easy. And from search to opening an app is a single click and very quick.)
    - leetnewb 2y ago
      Just thinking through this now, but the ease of authoring content on the web started very early on, whereas publishing new mobile apps on the dominant platforms is highly technical and exclusionary many years in. Web - available in 1993, content authoring/hosting become available through blogger, wordpress, etc, in about 7-10 years. Authoring tools Frontpage and ColdFusion were available in 1995, Netscape Composer in 1997. In other words, one could build a basic website with a bare minimum of technical knowledge with the help of widely available tools within 5 years of the web becoming available (it would take many more years for the web to become pervasive). Mobile - It has been 17 years since the iphone was launched, 19 years since Google acquired Android. To my knowledge, there are no easy ways for a non-technical person to author a basic app, let alone one that runs on both platforms.
lucideer 2y ago
There's an implicit assumption embedded in this comment that the Chromium project is indispensable, whereas I'm unconvinced it's even a net positive at all. Anyone who follows standards discourse would probably appreciate the prospect of this open source codebase having independent stewards much more than any fears over maintenance resources.
Certhas 2y ago
Firefox is massively profitable at a fraction of Chrome's marketshare.
- professor_v 2y ago
  With 81% [1] of their revenue in 2022 provided by Google... --- [1] https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-2022-fs-final-0908.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-202...
  - Bombthecat 2y ago
    And Google will pull out of the deal when they are forced to split off chrome
    - iamacyborg 2y ago
      Why would they? They still want people to use Google Search vs other alternatives.
      - sumedh 2y ago
        The only reason they pay firefox is to make sure its not killed and they can tell the regulators that look there some competition.
        iamacyborg 2y ago
        That and the captive audience for their search ads…
      - nolist_policy 2y ago
        Google's payment to Mozilla was ruled anti-competitive and is forced to stop paying them. https://fortune.com/2024/08/05/mozilla-firefox-biggest-potential-loser-google-antitrust-search-ruling/ https://fortune.com/2024/08/05/mozilla-firefox-biggest-poten...
xp84 2y ago
> If they do, what incentive does Google have to keep maintaining Chromium? I agree, this is a problem, but there should be a trivial solution: Users of the browser should pay a small amount of "money" for the product they use all day every day. This money should go into paying to maintain it. Anything else is perpetuating the Trash Web as it's come to be. The only reason a "web browser" is "free" (as in beer) is because Microsoft in the 90s was (belatedly) very worried about a world where Netscape held a lot of power, and realized making and giving away a slightly better browser would neutralize this upstart. Everything flowed from that one tactical decision by a couple of execs at MS. I'd argue that a browser should be a part of the OS or be a paid product, but funding it with ad money from under the same corporate umbrella is a gross practice which promotes things like... Google nerfing adblocker plugins, and Google trying to kill cookies in favor of something only they control. (Although on that last one, by some miracle their hand was stayed and they backed down.) Of course the DOJ can't ban the idea of a browser funded by ad money (and most are) but separating it from the other side of the business which should have zero say in how it's implemented, that's common sense to me.
- DaiPlusPlus 2y ago
  Netscape was free for non-business users before Internet Explorer existed. Netscape was competing with Mosaic, which was free, what with being a product of the NCSA (hence “Mozilla = Mosaic Killer”).
- anon-3988 2y ago
  > Anything else is perpetuating the Trash Web as it's come to be. unless you ban "Free" products, this is going to keep happening. People seems to think that just because something is "Free" it must therefore cost nothing to make. I mean, downloading Chrome takes 2 minutes max and seems trivial to me? Whats the problem? People think Youtube should just allow them to watch videos without any ads nor paying any money. Clearly, the consumer is not rational.
  - portaouflop 2y ago
    Right but companies are perfectly rational actors /s
maeln 2y ago
> What company has the resources to maintain Chrome's massive codebase? What profit incentive is there in maintaining Chrome without Google's ad business? As an aside, maybe this is part of the issue. We have been privileged to enjoy some of the most advanced and complex software created for free since basically their inception. Nobody every paid for a web browser. But then look around the software industry and every software of even remotely similar complexity need to be paid for, or are a kept free due to a convergence of interest of people who can make money out of it (most notably: Linux). Now, a web browser could be seen exactly the same way Linux is: Many, many, (many!) company makes ton of profit from people have access to a web browser, therefor, they should be fine with paying people to develop it. And in some way, considering that chromium and firefox are open-source, this is what could happen. But it does not really happen. Google is bankrolling both FF and Chromium, and they have basically total control over Chromium development. Who else is even giving remotely even money for 1 FTE for FF or Chromium ? Thing is, no company would do it for Chromium because it is seen as a Google product, so why pay them for something they will do in any case. Company could have financed Firefox, but now that it is the underdog (and that the Mozilla Foundation makes questionable decision), it doesn't seem like a very good investment. This is in many way crazy to me that almost every tech company heavily really on people having free access to a web browser, yet nobody is really trying to finance one. But I do think it is a political issue, and that, maybe just maybe, separating Chromium from Google would actually give incentive to the rest of the industry to finance the development of a browser that is not directly own by neither of them. Again, some what just like Linux.
- Propelloni 2y ago
  Without engaging the broader argument... > Nobody every paid for a web browser. Sure we did! Back in the day when the choices were Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, and Opera, many people -- me included -- paid for Opera. I continued to do so up to version 5 in 2004 or 2006, can't remember, when I noticed that Phoenix aka. Firebird aka. Firefox were good enough for me. Have been a Firefox (and derivatives) user ever since.
zelphirkalt 2y ago
If no one can maintain Chromium, well, that's a pity. On the other hand other projects can catch up then, and maybe the web as a whole can take a breather, without Google pushing more and more "standards". That's actually a good reason to do this. I really couldn't care less about Google's ad business. It is a burden on society. I think it cannot get much worse than it currently is, with one company dictating the web's future and raking in the money from that. So while there are significant unknowns, probably the result will be something at least a little bit better. I am a little worried about Chrome being only fake sold, to some company that is indirectly controlled by Google again.
regularfry 2y ago
The question of who would likely buy it is just as important. I can't help but think that MS would love to have the dominant browser again.
wanderingbit 2y ago
I use Brave which is based off of Chromium just like Chrome, and the experience is great. I’d say I’ve had to go to chrome maybe 3 times in the last year, and it was always for some super complicated SPA. Whatever decrease we see to our browsing experience will be worth the gains I expect to see from dealing a blow to a monopoly like Google.
Xelbair 2y ago
If there's no market for that it will die, simple as. keeping chrome alive isn't the goal, keeping the web not being at whims of a single company is.

dijit 2y ago

in general, I find a little bit distasteful that the only way to build a browser is as a loss leading project for the largest advertising company on the planet No wonder nobody can compete, loss leaders tend to kill competition as they can be maintained without direct business revenue at all. The same issue plagues domesticated cats, they don’t need to hunt for food since they have an abundance at home so instead without risk of starvation they are free to hunt all birds in the territory for fun. There are no browsers left except the artificial ecosystem of Safari. Firefox is not a blip on the radar. So, everything is chrome and chrome is the web standard. Having a single private company in charge of what is and what is not web standards is a little bit scary, as, like the cat, they don’t really need to see and serve the needs of the environment. They are fed at home.

graycat 2y ago
[flagged]
- zelphirkalt 2y ago
  > A Web browser is on the way to being similar, just a standard tool? I hope not, because then we get no choices regarding privacy and the most likely dominant player right now cares very much to not give you any privacy.
  - graycat 2y ago
    > the most likely dominant player right now cares very much to not give you any privacy. I've installed a recent version of Chrome, but likely your point is some of why I've never let that program even execute. Firefox seems to do well on privacy. Maybe that's why I use it and some of why it gets funded!! And for privacy I do use the proxy Firefox offers. Some people want privacy. If they begin to sense that Chrome is a real threat to privacy, people will look for alternatives. Then some people, maybe with venture funding will get one of the recent copies of the Chrome source code, modify it, and offer a browser with good privacy, maybe charge $50 for it. Okay, problem solved? Then hopefully privacy will be as accepted as 120 volt, 60 Hz AC home electrical power. All the homes want that power because all the appliences use it because all the homes use it. Google makes their money from people arriving for the Google search service, maps, etc. From Web crawling, or whatever is done now, for their search service, Google is also a HUGE user of the Internet. Then it is very much in Google's interest to have the many millions of Web sites, HTTP, HTTPS, TLS (Transport Layer Security), DNS (Domain Name System), HTML, JavaScript, etc. all very standard: Google has to be able to read those millions of Web sites so wants them all to be standard, i.e., without a Tower of Bable problem. Or all the Web sites (and programmers) follow the standards because all the Web browsers do (and several billion Web users use those browsers); and all the Web browsers do because many millions of Web sites do. Maybe some of what Google might do but does not is due to some people noticing that situation and being sure to help Firefox.
nextlevelwizard 2y ago
How much of Mozilla’s budget actually goes to Firefox? Last I checked making a browser wasn’t even on the road map
- bonzini 2y ago
  There's Mozilla Foundation (where making a browser is not on the road map) and Mozilla Corporation (which makes money by making a browser to finance the foundation). Mozilla Corporation revenue is about half a billion, most of it coming from Google and only 2% (from what I found) going to the foundation. The foundation gets most of its money from Google as well, but separately, and the foundation's revenue is about 10% of Mozilla Corporation's. So overall over 90% of Mozilla's budget goes to software development and to cost centers that are associated to Mozilla Corporation.
- Certhas 2y ago
  That vast majority. And Firefox is massively profitable, too (with a rising share of income not coming from google, up to 15% the last time I looked). Software development was 220 out of a total 425 M$ of expenses. General and administrative coming in second at 108 M$. I don't know exactly what comparable software companies invest, but assuming that the 220 is entirely SWE salaries this seems appropriate overhead to my mind. Edit, all of this is 2022: https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-2022-fs-final-0908.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-202...
  - bonzini 2y ago
    > assuming that the 220 is entirely SWE salaries With 750 employees for Mozilla Corp, that's unlikely. Even if 80% are developers that would be $350,000 salary on average.
    - dijit 2y ago
      good rule of thumb (at least in Europe) is that whatever your developer salaries are, double it to get closer to the actual operational cost. There's lots of hidden costs, licenses, insurances, computers/servers, email hosting, document editing suites; that's before you get to the big stuff like office space and social contributions. -- then there's managers, HR etc; Anyway, it's a reasonable rule of thumb. YMMV.
MichaelCharles 2y ago
All very good points.
graemep 2y ago
It is not the only way to build a browser. It is the only way to build a browser and push adoption. The problem is not the lack of direct revenues. It is the lack of marketing budget and control of platforms (Chrome dominates on Android for exactly the same reason Safari does on Apple). Firefox is a perfectly good browser, but has lost its market share because Google has huge marketing advantage.
m463 2y ago
and televisions. Now you can't get a television that doesn't spy on you because of unhealthy funding driving the price down.
rrr_oh_man 2y ago
I love how this went from "monopolies are bad" to "fuck cats".
- antonvs 2y ago
  Cats have a monopoly on suburban predation in many places. When is the DOJ going to step in?
  - gryn 2y ago
    After cats start selling their prey.
satchlj 2y ago
Can you explain the cat thing? Why wouldn't cats who are not fed be forced to kill even more birds? Is it because they would be focused on more efficient sources of food like mice instead?
- dijit 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife Essentially, in the wild, cats would be forced to hunt based on hunger, so they'd have to pick and choose what to hunt. Since they're never hungry, they do it based on fun, and they can "out-starve" their prey who may be hiding but have a higher need to eat and thus: leave their safety.
  - account42 2y ago
    > they're never hungry IME cats are hungry as soon as they have finished their food.
    - coretx 2y ago
      They are predators while they eat too.
whywhywhywhy 2y ago
> in general, I find a little bit distasteful that the only way to build a browser is as a loss leading project for the largest advertising company on the planet Safari came into the world on a similar timeline so this isn't true
- StilesCrisis 2y ago
  If you look at the code size and feature set of Safari 1.0, it’s really a different universe from 2024. Web browsers have become miniature OSes. They contain multiple 3D rendering stacks (WebGL, WebGPU), hardware-accelerated 2D compositors, multiple languages that JIT optimize into native code (JavaScript, WASM), and require passing test suites with millions of cases. The bar has been raised massively since Safari came out, largely to user’s benefit, and honestly we mostly have Chrome to thank for it.
executesorder66 2y ago
Tangent, but I don't understand this argument at all: > The same issue plagues domesticated cats, they don’t need to hunt for food since they have an abundance at home so instead without risk of starvation they are free to hunt all birds in the territory for fun. Please could you help me understand. - If they don't _need_ to hunt for food, the frequency of hunting birds should go down (even if they still do it for fun sometimes) - If they don't need to take risks to get food, why would they then take those same risks now for the purpose of entertainment? (That cancels out any meaning of there no longer being any risk in killing birds, so why mention it at all?) My understanding is that you are implying that cats not having to kill birds out of necessity leading to them now being able to do it for fun is a bad thing. Is that correct? And if so, I don't follow that logic because of my above two points.
- dijit 2y ago
  The points you raise would make sense if cats were purely logical, unfortunately they're not and a lot of what makes a cat work is instinct. - Instinctively, cats will hunt. - Lack of care about food source will make cats outlast prey who have to leave safe areas to find food. - Lack of care about food availability can (and has been proven to) cause cats to hunt more often, not less- as the "cost" of going for a hunt is basically zero; there's no consequences for failure and even success is met with satisfaction but no "cost". Anyway,there's better info on this subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife
  - executesorder66 2y ago
    Thanks, your second point makes a lot of sense to me, and helped me to understand your point. The Wikipedia article was also a good read.
crabmusket 2y ago
> loss leaders tend to kill competition as they can be maintained without direct business revenue at all Ding ding ding. This is a classic monopolist strategy. It poisons the market for any other potential competitors by removing all possibility of profit from the category. It's kind of eyebrow-raising that more people in this thread don't notice this. And instead just assume of COURSE browsers can't be funded except by a monopolist using it to shore up their surveillance business.

littlestymaar 2y ago

> There's just a lot of significant unknowns surrounding this. That's what happen when you let anomalies like this become the norm. Antitrust actions should have been taken against Google 15 years ago, and at that point it wouldn't have undermined the whole web because back then didn't yet control the entire web (but the trend was clear and that's why action should have been taken).

MichaelCharles 2y ago
I guess that's a fair point.

jdub 2y ago

Sounds like a Google problem. The web existed before Chrome, and will continue to exist afterward.

leetnewb 2y ago
Yes and no. The web may exist, but there is a viable digital alternative to it today, which didn't exist before Chrome - the mobile and app ecosystem. Virtually everybody who uses the web also uses mobile apps, but there are people who only ever use Android or iOS on a handheld device. It is also possible that in losing Chrome, Google will neglect its web properties and focus exclusively on access to services through mobile apps.
- jdub 2y ago
  (I don't think your analysis makes sense, but...) Hey, if Google loses its advertising cash cow and vacates the web for apps, that'll really open up the web search market too! Great news!
- pjmlp 2y ago
  Likewise we used the Internet before someone CERN came up with HTML render application.
- Talinx 2y ago
  In the broadest sense Android and IOS are similar to browsers: All are platforms that execute code given in a certain format and have APIs for interacting with the device. (The browser is different in that it doesn't need a separate download to acquire the code and makes partial code downloads easy. And from search to opening an app is a single click and very quick.)
  - leetnewb 2y ago
    Just thinking through this now, but the ease of authoring content on the web started very early on, whereas publishing new mobile apps on the dominant platforms is highly technical and exclusionary many years in. Web - available in 1993, content authoring/hosting become available through blogger, wordpress, etc, in about 7-10 years. Authoring tools Frontpage and ColdFusion were available in 1995, Netscape Composer in 1997. In other words, one could build a basic website with a bare minimum of technical knowledge with the help of widely available tools within 5 years of the web becoming available (it would take many more years for the web to become pervasive). Mobile - It has been 17 years since the iphone was launched, 19 years since Google acquired Android. To my knowledge, there are no easy ways for a non-technical person to author a basic app, let alone one that runs on both platforms.

lucideer 2y ago

There's an implicit assumption embedded in this comment that the Chromium project is indispensable, whereas I'm unconvinced it's even a net positive at all. Anyone who follows standards discourse would probably appreciate the prospect of this open source codebase having independent stewards much more than any fears over maintenance resources.

Certhas 2y ago

Firefox is massively profitable at a fraction of Chrome's marketshare.

professor_v 2y ago
With 81% [1] of their revenue in 2022 provided by Google... --- [1] https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-2022-fs-final-0908.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-202...
- Bombthecat 2y ago
  And Google will pull out of the deal when they are forced to split off chrome
  - iamacyborg 2y ago
    Why would they? They still want people to use Google Search vs other alternatives.
    - sumedh 2y ago
      The only reason they pay firefox is to make sure its not killed and they can tell the regulators that look there some competition.
      - iamacyborg 2y ago
        That and the captive audience for their search ads…
    - nolist_policy 2y ago
      Google's payment to Mozilla was ruled anti-competitive and is forced to stop paying them. https://fortune.com/2024/08/05/mozilla-firefox-biggest-potential-loser-google-antitrust-search-ruling/ https://fortune.com/2024/08/05/mozilla-firefox-biggest-poten...

xp84 2y ago

> If they do, what incentive does Google have to keep maintaining Chromium? I agree, this is a problem, but there should be a trivial solution: Users of the browser should pay a small amount of "money" for the product they use all day every day. This money should go into paying to maintain it. Anything else is perpetuating the Trash Web as it's come to be. The only reason a "web browser" is "free" (as in beer) is because Microsoft in the 90s was (belatedly) very worried about a world where Netscape held a lot of power, and realized making and giving away a slightly better browser would neutralize this upstart. Everything flowed from that one tactical decision by a couple of execs at MS. I'd argue that a browser should be a part of the OS or be a paid product, but funding it with ad money from under the same corporate umbrella is a gross practice which promotes things like... Google nerfing adblocker plugins, and Google trying to kill cookies in favor of something only they control. (Although on that last one, by some miracle their hand was stayed and they backed down.) Of course the DOJ can't ban the idea of a browser funded by ad money (and most are) but separating it from the other side of the business which should have zero say in how it's implemented, that's common sense to me.

DaiPlusPlus 2y ago
Netscape was free for non-business users before Internet Explorer existed. Netscape was competing with Mosaic, which was free, what with being a product of the NCSA (hence “Mozilla = Mosaic Killer”).
anon-3988 2y ago
> Anything else is perpetuating the Trash Web as it's come to be. unless you ban "Free" products, this is going to keep happening. People seems to think that just because something is "Free" it must therefore cost nothing to make. I mean, downloading Chrome takes 2 minutes max and seems trivial to me? Whats the problem? People think Youtube should just allow them to watch videos without any ads nor paying any money. Clearly, the consumer is not rational.
- portaouflop 2y ago
  Right but companies are perfectly rational actors /s

maeln 2y ago

> What company has the resources to maintain Chrome's massive codebase? What profit incentive is there in maintaining Chrome without Google's ad business? As an aside, maybe this is part of the issue. We have been privileged to enjoy some of the most advanced and complex software created for free since basically their inception. Nobody every paid for a web browser. But then look around the software industry and every software of even remotely similar complexity need to be paid for, or are a kept free due to a convergence of interest of people who can make money out of it (most notably: Linux). Now, a web browser could be seen exactly the same way Linux is: Many, many, (many!) company makes ton of profit from people have access to a web browser, therefor, they should be fine with paying people to develop it. And in some way, considering that chromium and firefox are open-source, this is what could happen. But it does not really happen. Google is bankrolling both FF and Chromium, and they have basically total control over Chromium development. Who else is even giving remotely even money for 1 FTE for FF or Chromium ? Thing is, no company would do it for Chromium because it is seen as a Google product, so why pay them for something they will do in any case. Company could have financed Firefox, but now that it is the underdog (and that the Mozilla Foundation makes questionable decision), it doesn't seem like a very good investment. This is in many way crazy to me that almost every tech company heavily really on people having free access to a web browser, yet nobody is really trying to finance one. But I do think it is a political issue, and that, maybe just maybe, separating Chromium from Google would actually give incentive to the rest of the industry to finance the development of a browser that is not directly own by neither of them. Again, some what just like Linux.

Propelloni 2y ago
Without engaging the broader argument... > Nobody every paid for a web browser. Sure we did! Back in the day when the choices were Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, and Opera, many people -- me included -- paid for Opera. I continued to do so up to version 5 in 2004 or 2006, can't remember, when I noticed that Phoenix aka. Firebird aka. Firefox were good enough for me. Have been a Firefox (and derivatives) user ever since.

zelphirkalt 2y ago

If no one can maintain Chromium, well, that's a pity. On the other hand other projects can catch up then, and maybe the web as a whole can take a breather, without Google pushing more and more "standards". That's actually a good reason to do this. I really couldn't care less about Google's ad business. It is a burden on society. I think it cannot get much worse than it currently is, with one company dictating the web's future and raking in the money from that. So while there are significant unknowns, probably the result will be something at least a little bit better. I am a little worried about Chrome being only fake sold, to some company that is indirectly controlled by Google again.

regularfry 2y ago

The question of who would likely buy it is just as important. I can't help but think that MS would love to have the dominant browser again.

wanderingbit 2y ago

I use Brave which is based off of Chromium just like Chrome, and the experience is great. I’d say I’ve had to go to chrome maybe 3 times in the last year, and it was always for some super complicated SPA. Whatever decrease we see to our browsing experience will be worth the gains I expect to see from dealing a blow to a monopoly like Google.

Xelbair 2y ago

If there's no market for that it will die, simple as. keeping chrome alive isn't the goal, keeping the web not being at whims of a single company is.