121–130 of 345 posts
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They'll demand half of Google's rare earths deposits
Or just the keys to total surveillance and suppression of web content they don't like.
The author is correct on this: "Not so with the web. The web is a set of protocols and languages and file formats[...] Google, by virtue of having Chrome, invests heavily in the web itself " Without a company like Google which functions like a public steward for the web there's little reason for anyone else to drive web development. The competitive market logic doesn't incentivize an open ecosystem because by definit…
But it's not at all how the linux ecosystem looks. Redhat doesn't dominate linux distributions and they can't corral everyone into using their money-making services by making them default into their distribution.
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…
At least Safari has better privacy concern than Chrome. Let's see if Waterfox can substitute Firefox in the long run. I believe MS Edge will happily replace Chrome.
Almost the same argument applies to Edge and Chrome.
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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.
It’s not true but let me explain :
« Free » (like in free beer) web is :
- Good when it’s really free (like, people sharing things because they are nice, free software…)
- Not good when there is a business behind.
I have nothing against businesses. I love throwing my money at a lot of them. But I hate when I’m their product.
The master stroke of Google, Facebook and others have been to let the entire world think we are entitled to free things. It’s not true, you always somehow pay, if not with your money, then it means you are the money.
You’ve got a monopoly on lemonade because you pay all the grocery stores to be the default lemonade. So we’re going to force you sell your car. I don't think this is an accurate anaology. It's more like, you own the vast majority of grocery stores, and you make lemonade, and you force all the other grocery stores to only sell your lemonade. To put it another way, the problem is not so much that Google shouldn't be pa…
Yep. The rest of the article is equally disingenuous, desperately making up arguments and bad analogies.
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…
Chrome is similar to other apps like X, Instagram, or YouTube. You click on the app. You are given a way to discover content and ads are shown along side that content. When you click on a site / post there can also be ads. Maximizing engagement on the web, means people will discover more content, which means more ads can be displayed.
>AMP
Unlike the other platforms I mentioned the web hosts content using 3rd party tech stacks and server which means that the user experience can be variable. AMP allows Google to provide a more consistent experience. It was optional and served to provide a better user experience for the users of the web.
>Ad-blocking prohibition
Google Search and Chrome have not prohibited ad blockers.
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Web browsers are probably complex enough at this point. Putting them on maintenance and letting new architectures fight it out might not be a bad outcome.
Putting hopes in someone else making an entirely new standards and protocols based hypermedia sounds outlandish. Whose going to go on a decade long quest to build something amazing to give away, again? I for one really tire of this spiritual vandalism masquerading as a hopeful pineing ask for a new beginning. The web rocks, is amazing. Sure there's some incidental complexity that's accrued, but the versatility & wide…
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> 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 G…
Apple only has a browser team because they need to keep up with parity for their OS.
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I honestly don't see what the issue is. "Pressuring" in this case just means "asking". Nobody was punished for not fulfilling these requests. And funding research grants into studying misinformation doesn't really bother me either. Maybe there are better ways to spend the money but you could argue that about almost anything. Also, none of what you linked points to the Biden administration paying tech companies to rem…
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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…
The real question is to what level Google continue investment in Chrome after the sale. Remember both Mozilla and Apple will also loose out on the search engine deal.