771–780 of 1001 posts
Who would possibly buy Chrome? Letting any of the large tech companies purchase it (the only possible buyers) would just give someone else monopolistic power. Chrome can’t exist as a standalone business without being even more consumer hostile.
In the most chaotic alternate reality possible: Mozilla
The conflict of interest between owning search , being a provider of user identity/login , and effectively owning the entire internet ads marketplace , and being a provider of the "user agent" (remember when people thought of that way!?) is immense. This should have happened years ago. TBF, I worked in Chrome almost 7 years and I didn't see anything outright nefarious. I don't know how user-hostile decisions (like br…
"Conflict of interest" has a precise ethical/legal definition. It doesn't mean "somebody is doing something I don't like".
conflict of interest, n:
a situation in which the concerns or aims of two different parties are incompatible.
"the conflict of interest between elected officials and corporate lobbyists"
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> browsers aren't really a self funding product They are, see how both Safari and Firefox, the 2nd and 3rd most popular browsers, have brought in tens of billions of revenue per year. Safari is immensely profitable, Firefox too would be if Mozilla wouldn't be run in an absurdly poor manner. > the user gains a huge amount of value by a browser being integrated into the OS, webviews in other applications, etc What is t…
In what way is Safari profitable? How is that even measured? Has any consumer in the last 10 years ever specifically paid for safari? Or do you mean the payments by google to be the default search engine?
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You raise some very important points. Specifically, this one: > browsers aren't really a self funding product I feel the same. I also feel the same about a modern C library and C compiler (and C++, if you like). They are essential to build any modern system and applications. Yet, those are also (mostly) no longer self-funding products. What do you think will happen if Google is forced to divest Chrome?
> They are essential to build any modern system and applications. Yet, those are also (mostly) no longer self-funding products. so, an utility. create a (partially?) state-owned steward with a legislated mandate to develop the browser, self-funded via extra tax on digital goods and services.
Arguably out of the big 4 (Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon) Google gave the most back to humanity: Android, Chromium, Kubernetes, Google Office suite, the Go programming language, Tensor Flow, Alpha Fold (and Google DeepMind), donating to Linux, etc. All these are things everyone has access to precisely because Google is such a big player and can afford to lose money on innovation that fails. What did Microsoft and…
Most of them are tools for making money for Google. Some others are on similar level that others are contributing to open source and the world. I mean you get Microsoft Office for free too, and even with more services than Google. And, most of Googles contributions started out one or two decades ago, but are just now moving into more harmful directions. Which is a relevant point with Google. The company today, is not the same it was 10-15 years ago when they were still heavily gaining goodwill.
> Yet Google gets targeted while Microsoft, Apple and Amazon are left alone.
They are also getting targeted all the time. Microsoft had a long, deep anti-trust-process around two decades ago, which still sees some restriction imposed onto them. Apple and Amazon do see some targeting, but more outside the USA or by competitors, which means there is less demand for official influence on them, at the moment. Additionally, their specific influence is simply not as big and harmful as Google has it on some parts.
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The problem is this: - the browser is undeniably critical as everyone's window through which they view the online world; - the user gains a huge amount of value by a browser being integrated into the OS, webviews in other applications, etc - browsers aren't really a self funding product - having a single for-profit US advertising company control everyone's view of the online world, however slightly (e.g. by obstructi…
You raise some very important points. Specifically, this one: > browsers aren't really a self funding product I feel the same. I also feel the same about a modern C library and C compiler (and C++, if you like). They are essential to build any modern system and applications. Yet, those are also (mostly) no longer self-funding products. What do you think will happen if Google is forced to divest Chrome?
But not everything must be for-profit. Free/Libre/Open Source Software is a prime example. Projects like GNU, Linux, GNOME, KDE, WebKitGTK, LibreOffice are sustainable for a long time.
Why is this a better solution than forcing chrome to have no defaults and select an option just like IE. Chrome google pulled the entire browser market forward by investing in chrome. A stand alone chrome is just going to make money by charging by default status or be bought by someone else trying to create push their defaults.
+ No platform ever must include an Internet Brower by default. User must install one some way without anyone being suggested or hinted by platform. Platform can inform user an internet browser can be installed but not saying how. Platform owner can set a default anytime
+ No Internet Browser ever must default, or suggest or hint a search engine. The platform owner can always pick one himself.
Internet Browser is defined as any program with a User Interface which can acquire content from any public network
The devil is inthe defaults.
Edit: I forgot to add how to finance it: Internet browser will now datamine the customer. Customer can pay for a privacy respecting browser, but we all know how that doesn't fly (yet)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You raise some very important points. Specifically, this one: > browsers aren't really a self funding product I feel the same. I also feel the same about a modern C library and C compiler (and C++, if you like). They are essential to build any modern system and applications. Yet, those are also (mostly) no longer self-funding products. What do you think will happen if Google is forced to divest Chrome?
> They are essential to build any modern system and applications. Yet, those are also (mostly) no longer self-funding products. so, an utility. create a (partially?) state-owned steward with a legislated mandate to develop the browser, self-funded via extra tax on digital goods and services.
Create a consortium or interested private entities but let's not give such an important piece of technology to governments where meritocracy is non-existent (also based on personal experiences).
People here seem to be underestimating the advantages that Google gets just because of Chrome: - When you sign in to Google, you sign in browser-wide. Google now gets all of your browsing data, perfect for advertising. (If you ever doubt it, go check out Google Takeout. You'll be shocked at the amount of data you see there.) - They have special APIs and features that they get to use, and nobody else. Only because the…
I know this is anecdotal and that I should look further into this but I recently had to switch to chromium because google suite products were slightly unusable in firefox: youtube used way more CPU than it should’ve (maybe this is due to codecs but I was not able to solve it), google sheets crashed constantly, google meet slowed my laptop to a halt and I couldn’t even share my screen, and for some reason google calen…