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Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

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Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#101

Post by chii »

dalbasal wrote: post #34

Antitrust law is, I suspect, hopelessly outdated... both the laws and the understanding of monopolies/trusts that are baked into them. These laws were based on 19th-century competition. The problems att were price fixing, predatory pricing (eg price low to kill competition then raise prices), supply chain bottlenecking (how you gonna sell your ore without my trains) ... industrial era trust stuff. The precedents and…

Breaking up a monopoly requires that said monopoly be bad for society, and it's adverse effects can't be fixed via markets due to reasons like size and reach.

Monopoly in its own is neither good nor bad.

Facebook has a monopoly in social network. Is that bad? What is the effect of the monopoly? Is Facebook's monopoly having an adverse effect, or is the adverse effect inherent in the way social networks work (and breaking the monopoly won't help).

Simply being a monopoly is an unreasonable reason to break it up.

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#102

Post by dTal »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #43
dTal wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In the case of Chrome, you can't blame Google. They made a good browser, did some marketing and it got popular. Where "did some marketing" equals "unethically abused monopoly position to aggressively push through dark patterns", sure. I think I can still blame them for that.

Google invested a shit ton into marketing when they launched Chrome. I have pictures from 2012 (I think) when they had the entire grand hall of Paris' Gare de Lyon hung with dozens of huge Chrome banners. That alone must have cost them tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of Euros. That said I think the web's under Google's thumb screws (AMP, mail, DNS, browser-almost monopoly, etc) is in a bad place. But they did inv…

Your comment reads strangely and I can't tell what you're trying to say. I'm not sure why you frame these things as being at odds ("That said... But...). They were willing to pay to bundle Chrome with installers - it's not surprising they also invested in "conventional" marketing. And it directly led to the browser-almost-monopoly you cite.

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#103

Post by [deleted] »

tikkabhuna wrote: post #42
kuu wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is if Chrome finally wins it all (we're almost there) and at some point they decide to remove a functionality that we all love, or they stop improving as there is no competition, or they decide to make you pay a little fee for developing a website with an extra functionality, or they decide that Chrome does not run on Mac anymore.... The problem with monopolies is that they control all the power, for the…

As Chromium is open source, wouldn't someone then fork it and re-add those features or maintain Mac support? It seems like there is little motivation to maintain a separate browser at the moment, but one day Google may do something that motivates people to fork/create a new one. That could be a big bang moment or just a slow crawl that opens up a niche that a new browser could fill.

[deleted]

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#104

Post by dalbasal »

julienfr112 wrote: post #81
anewhnaccount2 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you search for Firefox, Google says "did you mean Chrome?" Edited to add: This has actually happened to me when setting up a new Windows PC for someone.

That's fuel for a millions dollars lawsuit by the European Commission.

Billions, if at all.

The EC recently ruled against Google in a "slam dunk" case about anti-competitive contracts with "search partners." €1.5bn & it barely got noticed.

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#105

Post by [deleted] »

bad_user wrote: post #18
dTal wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In the case of Chrome, you can't blame Google. They made a good browser, did some marketing and it got popular. Where "did some marketing" equals "unethically abused monopoly position to aggressively push through dark patterns", sure. I think I can still blame them for that.

I've seen dark patterns from Google, but in the case of Chrome I have a hard time remembering any. Do you mean that they advertised for Chrome on their properties? Advertising on your own property is legitimate in my book. And simple advertising isn't a "dark pattern". Or do you mean something else?

[deleted]

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#106

Post by dalbasal »

wguaa wrote: post #73
dalbasal wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" They made a good browser, did some marketing and it got popular. " They did make a good browser. However, their market share is not down to better browser or "some advertising." They use their other assets (search, youtube, android, docs..) to make chrome the "default" option. It's a dominance breeds dominance cycle... a hallmark of modern monopoly. Chrome wouldn't have gotten anywhere if it wasn't a very good brow…

>Chrome wouldn't have gotten anywhere if it wasn't a very good browser. It is good. It is not only good. When it came out it wiped the floor with the alternatives. Firefox 3, from that time, was absolutely pathetic in terms of performance. I remember sticking to 2 for a while. Even today Chrome is still the best, even if the margin has narrowed. Other browsers are having to adopt Blink to catch up.

Idk about wiped the floor, but it gets subjective.

Immediately before chrome launched, FF was slowly eating into IE's market share. Chrome was good, but so was FF.

I don't think chrome ever had a lead in FF anything like the lead FF had over IE. Mozilla always had to play with a disadvantage. Still do.

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#107

Post by chii »

zaarn wrote: post #71
tikkabhuna wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As Chromium is open source, wouldn't someone then fork it and re-add those features or maintain Mac support? It seems like there is little motivation to maintain a separate browser at the moment, but one day Google may do something that motivates people to fork/create a new one. That could be a big bang moment or just a slow crawl that opens up a niche that a new browser could fill.

Maintaining a browser fork is a lot of work. And Google can simply decide to close-source their browser engine once their takeover is complete. What could anyone do about it? Google just keeps adding features until all Chromium forks die off.

The problem is not the source but the way Google can affect the standard.

The biggest is DRM. If stuff like that gets into the standard where only large players can make a compliant implementation, then it becomes a huge problem for the web.

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#108

Post by azangru »

kmlx wrote: post #4

as a software dev, not having to deal with other browsers is a blessing. countless hours wasted on debugging various browsers gets massively reduced. second point, moving the conversation from " hasn't caught up" to "everyone's caught up" helps the web focus on technologies more so than before. discussions should now concentrate almost exclusively around the next web technologies, no more competition regarding web en…

Agreed. As a web developer, I want browsers to adhere to the same specs and I want them evergreen. I do not want to deal with browser inconsistencies. Catering to different browsers quirks takes a lot of joy out of the work.

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#109

Post by masswerk »

masswerk wrote: post #67

Anecdotal observation: A few years ago, I made a video game for an early 1960s computer, the PDP-1, running in an homegrown emulator in web technology. [1] Amazingly, the game runs at 60 frames per second (yes, you could do this with early 1960s tech), and, amazingly, browsers were able to render the emulation, including a rather complex simulation of the dual-phosphor screen, at 60 fps (you could do this in 2016). A…

P.S.: For details on the project, see the blog at https://www.masswerk.at/rc2016/10/

(And for a description of Computer Space, see https://www.masswerk.at/rc2017/04/02.html)

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#110

Post by icebraining »

dalbasal wrote: post #34

Antitrust law is, I suspect, hopelessly outdated... both the laws and the understanding of monopolies/trusts that are baked into them. These laws were based on 19th-century competition. The problems att were price fixing, predatory pricing (eg price low to kill competition then raise prices), supply chain bottlenecking (how you gonna sell your ore without my trains) ... industrial era trust stuff. The precedents and…

> Facebook was Facebook on that budget not long ago.

Facebook was Facebook, but it wasn't Facebook+Whatsapp+Instagram, and "mergers and acquisitions that substantially reduce market competition" have been impermissible under the US anti-trust law for over 100 years, since the Clayton Act, and I'm not sure you need more than that.

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