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Google Being Forced to Sell Chrome Is Not Good for the Web

chriscoyier.net

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Re: Google Being Forced to Sell Chrome Is Not Good for the Web

#91

Post by pfooti »

mystified5016 wrote: post #45

Developing a browser is fantastically difficult and expensive. How much of that is because of Google using Chrome's dominance to dictate web standards? If instead web standards moved at a pace set by a standards body not incentivised to spy on users, how much more competition could exist in the browser space?

What makes you think a potential buyer would not be motivated to spy on its own users? Either it is profitable to do this (and therefore the owners will) or it is not (and therefore being forced to sell chrome won't harm googles bottom line).

Re: Google Being Forced to Sell Chrome Is Not Good for the Web

#92

Post by kweingar »

I've brought this up before, but I never got a response and I'm really interested what people think the business case is here. I keep wondering what a buyer would actually value beyond Chrome's userbase. Chrome is just Chromium with Google integrations, similar to how Edge is Chromium with Microsoft integrations.

If a company acquires Chrome, they don't have many choices: re-establish Google integration deals (so the divestiture would be pointless), replace Google integrations with their own (becoming just another Chromium distro in a sea of Chromium distros), or just monetize the existing userbase.

A Chrome acquisition doesn't include unlimited control over Chromium. Chromium is open source, with contributions from many organizations (who retain the copyright to their contributed code). Google can only sell what it exclusively owns: the brand, infrastructure, signing keys, etc. The real force behind Chromium is having a critical mass of engineers all pushing in generally the same direction. You can't necessarily just buy that, especially when you wouldn't own exclusive rights. Any other company is free to poach engineers and fork the project.

Edited to add: if Microsoft sold VS Code to, say, Oracle... don't you think that another company would leap at the opportunity to fork the project? Would the userbase and the thin layer of closed-source Microsoft customizations really be worth that much?

Re: Google Being Forced to Sell Chrome Is Not Good for the Web

#94

Post by bilbo0s »

CaffeineLD50 wrote: post #62
Spooky23 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The constitution establishes that a core role of government is to provide for the general welfare of the people, and public health is part of that. I’m generally in favor with government efforts to combat misinformation. I’m also fine with wartime propaganda within limits for similar reasons.

Given the dreadful state of public health this is a total fail. Epidemic obesity alone is a nightmare: heart disease, cancer, stroke, you name it. Trump, to his credit, is taking fentanyl seriously but heart disease is a bigger killer.

but heart disease is a bigger killer

Can't blame Mexico and China for heart disease. So it's of little political value. A government will take on public health challenges whose root causes can be used to confer political value. Other public health challenges may be more serious, but they are worthless to a politician.

That's actually why politicians shouldn't be in charge of those sorts of things.

Re: Google Being Forced to Sell Chrome Is Not Good for the Web

#95

Post by hkt »

beeflet wrote: post #78
thomassmith65 wrote: post #10

Google is a web business, that’s their whole thing. They made a browser to invest in the web itself because what is good for the web is good for Google, and happens to be good for all of us. This is a panglossian take that belongs in the year 2005. Google is less a 'web business' than it is an 'advertising business', a 'surveillance business', and a 'finance business'. Consequently, it is false that 'what is good for…

The 'what is good for the web is good for Google' line certainly was true in 2005 when the greatest threat to the web was companies like microsoft using internet explorer to adjust the de-facto web standards and privatize it in the "EEE" fashion. Obviously the most visited websites would maintain the web better than OS vendors, their buisness depended on it being open. We have a similar situation now, but with google…

Re: your first paragraph, this is exactly what Google does now. They maintain such an incredible pace of development and such a unilateral attitude that nobody can stop them from developing web standards even if they want to. When was the last time anyone said no to a Chrome feature and expected it everywhere else? Developers treat it as the go to to the extent that some don't even bother testing in other browsers. Google are showing Microsoft how it is done.

Re: Google Being Forced to Sell Chrome Is Not Good for the Web

#96

Post by stephenr »

gerash wrote: post #93

[flagged]

Neither Netflix nor Spotify make market dominating utility "media players" that can be used to browse any streaming media.

What Netflix and Spotify do is akin to what YouTube or Apple Music/TV, or even online marketplaces like eBay/Amazon/etc does. Personally I'm not that keen on the "recommendations" most seem to generate but it's them analysing what you've interacted with on their platform and showing you things they think you might be interested in.

Google controls the browser, search engine and ad network - all of which interact in some way with third party sites the user actually wanted to visit.

Re: Google Being Forced to Sell Chrome Is Not Good for the Web

#97

Post by ksynwa »

Is there a name for this line of argumentation? The guy is obsessing over how document is articulated and disregarding how Chrome's dominance and Google owning it empowers Google to be monopolistic by, for example, having disproportionate power to drive web standards, having Google as the default search engine in its already dominant browser, having popular Google owned services not play nice with competing browsers, etc., just because the document he is quoting does not spell it out.

Side question: If hypothetically Google is forced to sell off Chrome, who would buy it?

Re: Google Being Forced to Sell Chrome Is Not Good for the Web

#98

Post by wordpad »

int_19h wrote: post #25
thomassmith65 wrote: post #10

Google is a web business, that’s their whole thing. They made a browser to invest in the web itself because what is good for the web is good for Google, and happens to be good for all of us. This is a panglossian take that belongs in the year 2005. Google is less a 'web business' than it is an 'advertising business', a 'surveillance business', and a 'finance business'. Consequently, it is false that 'what is good for…

And that whole "war on cookies" where they keep pitching replacements that basically let Google (and only Google) do all the same things, so that they can then gatekeep it and pay others for the privilege of accessing some limited subset of that data. Regardless of why Google made Chrome originally, today, the main reason why it exists is to enable Google to track users more efficiently. And that is a bad thing.

Why is tracking a bad thing? It allows better monetization of the web which is good for everyone.

Re: Google Being Forced to Sell Chrome Is Not Good for the Web

#99

Post by the_other »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #33
ohso4 wrote: post #9

> Users don’t pay for Chrome. There aren’t ads in Chrome. There is no direct business model for Chrome. Unlike Safari and Firefox, nobody writes checks to Chrome to make a certain search engine the default. They track you. There IS a business model for Chrome: monetizing user data.

There isn’t a business model for a company whose product is just chrome, though. Unless it’s some kind of foundation or non-profit with a sufficient endowment to not need a business model. I’m no fan of Google, but—unless people really want browser subscriptions—I don’t see how you can have a browser company today. They exist better as a byproduct of some other business model.

> There isn’t a business model for a company whose product is just chrome, though.

This isn’t relevant, from the perspective of the ruling.

It might be relevant from the perspective of Chrome-the-business and from Chrome-users’ perspectives.

Re: Google Being Forced to Sell Chrome Is Not Good for the Web

#100

Post by stephenr »

klooney wrote: post #55
streptomycin wrote: post #22

I don't get the negative comments here. It's pretty simple I think... - Google is banned from paying Firefox to be the default search engine -> Firefox has way less money -> Firefox development massively slows - Someone buys Chrome and needs to turn a profit from Chrome, rather than using it to indirectly profit from the web in general like Google does -> Chrome probably goes to shit and development massively slows S…

> So what now? Safari is going to be the leading force moving the web forward? Even Safari is massively subsidized by Google paying to be the default browser. If those billions go away, engineering investment will be cut.

In a scenario where Google no longer control Chrome, I doubt Safari's budget is at risk, the company had nearly $400B in revenue in 2024.

Courtroom testimony implied that part of the reason Apple value(s/d) the deal with Google was a "peace deal" to prevent Google from doing what Google does and forcing Safari users on Google properties, to switch to Chrome.

Of all the browsers that would be affected by the loss of Google funding, Safari is least likely to be affected.

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