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The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

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Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#431

Post by gscott »

magicalist wrote: post #408
dfabulich wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a common misconception that tons of users manually install Chrome, but Google just pays PC makers to make Chrome the default browser. Chrome is the only browser with a business model that makes sense to do this. Microsoft just doesn't make enough money from Bing/Edge to pay PC makers to leave Edge as the default. Firefox makes no money at all, and makes 95% of its revenue from Google's payments to be the default…

> It's a common misconception that tons of users manually install Chrome, but Google just pays PC makers to make Chrome the default browser Maybe 10 years ago, but which ones do it now? thinkpads and HP machines, at least, ship with Edge as the default. Dell or something? Windows is also _hyper_ aggressive about pushing Edge now too. Like it's nuts how hard it pushes it, to the point that it embarrasses people who do…

If you buy a cheap computer with Windows S it is very hard to get out of the S configuration and in S configuration you can't install Chrome at all or Firefox.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#432

Post by pclmulqdq »

ody4242 wrote: post #263
pclmulqdq wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MS and Apple aren't companies who sell ads. MS and Apple are companies who sell tech products. Everyone analogizing the current situation with Google to Microsoft in 1999 is missing the core of the facts here. The Apple/Epic Games antitrust suits are much more similar to MS in 1999, but Google's antitrust issues are very different. Google's product isn't its software, it's the attention of its users. Having this larg…

MS does sell ads, they have an advertising platform.

Read MS's 10k and come back and seriously tell me they are an ad company. They don't have much ad infrastructure (that's outsourced), and they make very little of their money from ads. Microsoft is a software company, and some of that software is paid for with ads. Google is an advertising company.

Incidentally, this sort of proves the point that Google's ownership of platforms where ads are displayed puts them at an advantage compared to competitors, who have to go to people like MS for space.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#433

Post by magicalist »

realitysballs wrote: post #167
user3939382 wrote: post #134

If you look carefully at the Chromium project, it’s made up of teams that specialize in different components. The majority of the members of those teams are in turn Google employees. Presumably they have the best qualifications to be on those teams. I don’t see how a DOJ decision against Google would change any of that. Ban Google employees from participating in the project? And then who would replace them?

Think about difference between Brave and Chrome. Both Chromium browsers but Brave is much less intrusive and exploitative of user data. More Brave and less Chrome would allow average user greater privacy and less reliance on large corporations perhaps

Brave makes a profit because they don't pay for developing the browser.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#434

Post by gscott »

abirch wrote: post #365
dfabulich wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a common misconception that tons of users manually install Chrome, but Google just pays PC makers to make Chrome the default browser. Chrome is the only browser with a business model that makes sense to do this. Microsoft just doesn't make enough money from Bing/Edge to pay PC makers to leave Edge as the default. Firefox makes no money at all, and makes 95% of its revenue from Google's payments to be the default…

I agree with you. Of all the remedies to address Google's "monopoly" this seems to the most bizarre. My question is if Google has to divest from Chrome, would they be able to build a new web browser? In the article it said that they'd need approval for any new joint venture, collaboration, or partnership with any company that competes with Google in search or in search text ads. It makes no mention of web browsers.

The only reason Google is trying to take away cookies is because they make you log into Chrome which gives you all their browsing data anyway and probably anything you type. So maybe not having a browser controlled by Google would be good.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#435

Post by Spivak »

Ferret7446 wrote: post #373
hysan wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How does a non Google owned Chrome support itself and continue development? Possibly by trying to find a business model that can support Chrome development just like all other Chromium (and non-Chromium) based browsers? As much as I loved Chrome when it first came out, I’ve also been well aware that Google’s backing of Chrome (and Chromium) has given it undue advantages in the browser market by effectively making e…

> Possibly by trying to find a business model that can support Chrome development just like all other Chromium (and non-Chromium) based browsers? There is no such business model. Chromium development is almost entirely funded by Google. Other Chromium based browser rely on this humonguous investment of development resources; they would not have a "business model" without this "free handout", except perhaps Microsoft…

Good? I think sucking the air out of the browser ecosystem might be a good thing so they slow their roll. The breakneck speed Chrome adds features and devs adopt them is part of what makes it so damn expensive to keep up.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#436

Post by bobthepanda »

loeg wrote: post #275
bobthepanda wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not clear that Chinese owned monopolies are any good at breaking out. They seem to suffer from the same problem as Japan where their market is so unique and insular that a lot of products do not carry over all that well. WeChat, for example, is the end all be all megaplatform in China but never took off with any Western consumers simply because they’re uninterested.

Alibaba and ByteDance have both successfully broken out.

Two that prove the exception, not the rule. And ByteDance isn’t meaningfully a monopoly in any sense of that word. What are they monopolizing?

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#438

Post by gnabgib »

gscott wrote: post #431
magicalist wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a common misconception that tons of users manually install Chrome, but Google just pays PC makers to make Chrome the default browser Maybe 10 years ago, but which ones do it now? thinkpads and HP machines, at least, ship with Edge as the default. Dell or something? Windows is also _hyper_ aggressive about pushing Edge now too. Like it's nuts how hard it pushes it, to the point that it embarrasses people who do…

If you buy a cheap computer with Windows S it is very hard to get out of the S configuration and in S configuration you can't install Chrome at all or Firefox.

You can switch out of S mode (for free) https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/switching-out-of...

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#439

Post by bloppe »

bo1024 wrote: post #404
dfabulich wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a common misconception that tons of users manually install Chrome, but Google just pays PC makers to make Chrome the default browser. Chrome is the only browser with a business model that makes sense to do this. Microsoft just doesn't make enough money from Bing/Edge to pay PC makers to leave Edge as the default. Firefox makes no money at all, and makes 95% of its revenue from Google's payments to be the default…

Selling might not make business sense for Google or for Chrome, but it makes a ton of sense for the American public. Google is using Chrome to benefit advertisers, data brokers, and surveillance over users. Exhibit: the manifest v2 / Ublock Origin saga. And this is huge because so many other browsers use Chromium or its engine under the hood. Google can also use Chrome to push user-unfriendly web standards or de-fact…

The problem is that it doesn't make business sense for anybody else to buy Chrome. Bare in mind that 99% of Chrome is the free Chromium open source project, so you're not buying any sort of technological asset. You're just buying a big pre-existing user base, which would be extremely difficult to monetize without making the product much worse, although I'm sure Microsoft or Facebook would be happy to give that a go. It certainly wouldn't make any sense to buy it without a sprawling advertisement business or some major conflicts of interest. But what's the point of selling it to someone else like that?

It's easy to say "just sell it" without thinking about the actual implications, but you're basically talking about destroying it. Maybe that's the point, but we should at least be honest about it.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#440

Post by kweingar »

bloppe wrote: post #439
bo1024 wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selling might not make business sense for Google or for Chrome, but it makes a ton of sense for the American public. Google is using Chrome to benefit advertisers, data brokers, and surveillance over users. Exhibit: the manifest v2 / Ublock Origin saga. And this is huge because so many other browsers use Chromium or its engine under the hood. Google can also use Chrome to push user-unfriendly web standards or de-fact…

The problem is that it doesn't make business sense for anybody else to buy Chrome. Bare in mind that 99% of Chrome is the free Chromium open source project, so you're not buying any sort of technological asset. You're just buying a big pre-existing user base, which would be extremely difficult to monetize without making the product much worse, although I'm sure Microsoft or Facebook would be happy to give that a go.…

Yeah, Chrome is "Google-flavored Chromium", just as Edge is "Microsoft-flavored Chromium."

If (say) Meta bought Edge, then they'd get the userbase and the trademark, but the product seems pointless. Why would Meta want a browser whose killer features are integrations with Bing and Office 365? If Meta wanted a browser, they'd make a "Meta-flavored Chromium."

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