Comment by xp84
6 days ago
> If they do, what incentive does Google have to keep maintaining Chromium?
I agree, this is a problem, but there should be a trivial solution: Users of the browser should pay a small amount of "money" for the product they use all day every day. This money should go into paying to maintain it.
Anything else is perpetuating the Trash Web as it's come to be.
The only reason a "web browser" is "free" (as in beer) is because Microsoft in the 90s was (belatedly) very worried about a world where Netscape held a lot of power, and realized making and giving away a slightly better browser would neutralize this upstart. Everything flowed from that one tactical decision by a couple of execs at MS.
I'd argue that a browser should be a part of the OS or be a paid product, but funding it with ad money from under the same corporate umbrella is a gross practice which promotes things like... Google nerfing adblocker plugins, and Google trying to kill cookies in favor of something only they control. (Although on that last one, by some miracle their hand was stayed and they backed down.)
Of course the DOJ can't ban the idea of a browser funded by ad money (and most are) but separating it from the other side of the business which should have zero say in how it's implemented, that's common sense to me.
> The only reason a "web browser" is "free" (as in beer) is because Microsoft in the 90s was (belatedly) very worried about a world where Netscape held a lot of power, and realized making and giving away a slightly better browser would neutralize this upstart. Everything flowed from that one tactical decision by a couple of execs at MS.
There were free as in beer browsers before IE (although many were free for non-commercial use only).
Chromium is a fork (well, a fork of a fork) of a FOSS browser specifically developed to be a FOSS browser for FOSS OSes (primarily Linux).
> Anything else is perpetuating the Trash Web as it's come to be.
unless you ban "Free" products, this is going to keep happening. People seems to think that just because something is "Free" it must therefore cost nothing to make. I mean, downloading Chrome takes 2 minutes max and seems trivial to me? Whats the problem?
People think Youtube should just allow them to watch videos without any ads nor paying any money. Clearly, the consumer is not rational.
Android shares my location more than 14 times a day IIRC. They snoop through every single thing in my life. I can list a bizillion no. Of things. Zero damn given when they are horrible. Let them stop with dark patterns. Then I will start caring.
I pay for all my games, all good services which ainuse. I try and donate to open source project wherever and when I can. But I couldnt care less about FAANG like companies. If they want us to be good to them, let them be good first.
Hell, its just the other day we were talking about Youtube showing ads to paying customers. I really dont care whether a company is big or small. When companies are bad, they just are. That is it. I dont lose sleep over using FreeTube for watching youtube videos for free. Paying will solve issues, yeah right!
Edit: Language
Right but companies are perfectly rational actors /s
> I agree, this is a problem, but there should be a trivial solution: Users of the browser should pay a small amount of "money" for the product they use all day every day.
If getting people to pay for stuff they use were trivial then advertising wouldn't be as big as it is.
Yeah, OP is naive. Nobody ever paid for browsers, even before IE was a thing (well, nobody I know...).
We also don't pay for open TV which is ad supported.
This isn't a single decision that someone madennn it's actually very natural.
We don't pay for most of the web, not only browsers. Indirect monetization is great because making a consumer open his/her wallet takes a lot, no matter the price.
Netscape was sold at Babbages in my local mall. Plenty of people bought it. Just like my father bought Telix and Laplink and earlier communication software.
Not knowing anyone who admits to having done something, doesn't mean that thing never happens.
Netscape was free for non-business users before Internet Explorer existed. Netscape was competing with Mosaic, which was free, what with being a product of the NCSA (hence “Mozilla = Mosaic Killer”).
Could Chromium be made close source?
It's easy to just say "well, a company should charge money for a browser", but a company is free to write their own browser and charge for it right now. Chromium though, is bound by its open-source license and its copyright is owned by thousands of different contributors.
> Could Chromium be made close source?
Sure, it's BSD licensed, all future development could be done closed-source. Note that the name "Chromium" would need to stay with the open source side of the project, so it would be more like a closed fork than a re-licencing.
99% sure you could just keep using the name "Chrome", though, and stop releasing code into chromium instead.
So all companies can, right now, make a private fork and start selling it. There's no reason to pay for that right, everyone already has that right.
(I'm, of course, speaking in the context of xp84's suggestion that the browser should cost money. It's a fine idea, but I don't see how it applies here.)
2 replies →
> Users of the browser should pay a small amount of "money" for the product they use all day every day
How do you do this for something that's a basic necessity at this point? There must be a free browser because so many services depend on their user having access to them through one, and browsers aren't in the category of product where you can provide users a basic browser without features and then selling them a better version. If it's not Chrome that's free, any other free issue would inevitably run into the same issue. If not bankrolled by a company, browsers would need to be government funded
> How do you do this for something that's a basic necessity at this point? ... If not bankrolled by a company, browsers would need to be government funded
You mean like government funded food, housing, health care and other basic necessities?
Exactly, many of which now need to be requested through online portals. I know that the US is oddly a bit backwards in that regard (even though it houses Silicon Valley) but in many other countries in the world they have moved many if not all of these services online.
Making browsers paid would create all sorts of problems for people with lower incomes if not properly considered. Note the last part of the sentence, thank you.
5 replies →
> How do you do this for something that's a basic necessity at this point?
The response is further in OP’s comment:
> I'd argue that a browser should be a part of the OS or be a paid product
Part of the OS is basically free and the same situation as Chrome, and you can't do paid because basic necessities are done through the browser
> I'd argue that a browser should be a part of the OS or be a paid product
I am getting Microsoft flashbacks now. There is no way that bundling browsers with OSes and making all the others paid will have negative side effects! Oh wait... The 90s just called, it is Netscape and they would like to have a stern word.
Would Google still be allowed to fund Mozilla if ad funded browsers are an issue.
> I agree, this is a problem, but there should be a trivial solution: Users of the browser should pay a small amount of "money" for the product they use all day every day.
What a brain-dead idea. Having to pay for something does not affect the openness of a platform. You just create a de-facto tax that benefits no one at all.