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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

#191

Post by pmontra »

boxed wrote: post #180
xigency wrote: post #2

Arguably, Google divesting Chrome would be great for the web. This piece seems to be looking at Google at large (and I think all of Alphabet would be better scope there). Certainly this would be unpopular here but I would be all for aggressive trust-busting beyond what the DOJ has done historically, including vertical integrations. Right now tech is a strange feudal state with hundreds of thousands of small teams anc…

> Arguably, Google divesting Chrome would be great for the web. Because then Chrome would slowly rot since there's no one to fund development, leading us to WebKit being the only engine, as Firefox is also defunded. I don't see how that's better.

The new owner of Chrome can sell it to the manufacturers of Android devices. Royalties.

They can even make it closed source or enforce a not for commerce license. That would make manufacturers choose between paying those royalties, installing Firefox, investing in their own browser (a fork of Chrome or their very own tech.) Some of them will pay royalties.

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

#192

Post by burnerthrow008 »

quinnirill wrote: post #184
boxed wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Arguably, Google divesting Chrome would be great for the web. Because then Chrome would slowly rot since there's no one to fund development, leading us to WebKit being the only engine, as Firefox is also defunded. I don't see how that's better.

That’s assuming the divested Chrome would then proceed to lose its gigantic market share and thus the mind-boggling proceeds from defaulting to Google as the search engine. They might even be able to afford a bigger development team, if need be.

But what makes you think the DoJ allow Google to continue paying Chrome to have Google as default? Google is already not allowed to pay Apple to be default.

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

#194

Post by burnerthrow008 »

the_other wrote: post #99
fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It isn’t relevant that the thing you want to split off won’t be able to stand on its own two feet? Wouldn’t it be simpler to simply require Google to burn the source code?

And what is the point of the breakup if everyone (including consumers/users) is worse off? Is the point of government to make people better off, or just to maximize the number of paperclips produced?

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

#196

Post by VladStanimir »

wincy wrote: post #190
Ygg2 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did? AJAX of jQuery fame, is extremely similar to ActiveX XmlHttpRequest. The problem isn't XmlHttpRequest, but everything else they added/removed. Same with Google. The problem isn't they made request more secure, they made ad blocking impossible.

My custom user scripts from Tampermonkey that I used to make my life as a developer easier are just gone. I can’t even access the extension to grab them, some of them are complicated workflow stuff that made my life easier in some pages that are poorly designed. Like I’m often looking at the contents of JWTs so I added a global function into my global scope to parse JWTs. There wasn’t even a “hey we’re getting rid of…

What do you mean? I have the new version of Tampermonkey installed and after turning on developer mode in the extensions section all my scripts work perfectly. https://www.tampermonkey.net/faq.php?locale=en#Q209

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

#197

Post by hermanradtke »

charcircuit wrote: post #126
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…

Advertising is a monetization modal. That's like saying that resteraunts are just credit card swiping businesses. 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 me…

> That's like saying that resteraunts are just credit card swiping businesses.

You are being sarcastic here, but ironically you are not far from the truth. The core financial model of a businesses is not always obvious.

McDonald’s is a real-estate business. Costco is a subscription business.

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

#198

Post by burnerthrow008 »

blagie wrote: post #189
kweingar wrote: post #92

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…

Business model is the same as Firefox: Google pays to be the default search engine. The economics are identical to Chrome being within Google. The differences are three-fold: - Bing, DDG, OpenAI, and others can compete to pay for placement - There can be no central directives to shove things like Manifest V3, weird data sharing, or DRM down our throats - Google has no incentive to favor Chrome over Firefox or Edge in…

> Business model is the same as Firefox: Google pays to be the default search engine.

How do you image that working? Google is already banned from paying Apple to be the default search engine, so why would they be allowed to pay Chrome?

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

#199

Post by wffurr »

burnerthrow008 wrote: post #192
quinnirill wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s assuming the divested Chrome would then proceed to lose its gigantic market share and thus the mind-boggling proceeds from defaulting to Google as the search engine. They might even be able to afford a bigger development team, if need be.

But what makes you think the DoJ allow Google to continue paying Chrome to have Google as default? Google is already not allowed to pay Apple to be default.

>> Google is already not allowed to pay Apple to be default

The antitrust remedy isn’t set until the September hearings and won’t take effect until after years of appeals hearings.

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

#200

Post by knowriju »

int_19h wrote: post #34
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…

"Development slows" is not necessarily a bad thing. E.g. quite a lot of people would love development to slow wrt Manifest v3. It would also mean that web standards are less of a moving target for browsers playing catch-up (like Firefox). People can also pay for browsers. The only reason why this isn't feasible today is because it's hard to compete with the top-of-the-line stuff that megacorps offer for free - which…

This is such a 'first-world' comment. A majority of the folks logging on the web in the developing and emerging world will be unable to afford paying any kind of subscription for their web browser over and above what they pay their ISPs for internet access.
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