Comment by fc417fc802
1 year ago
None of those exhibit the same sort of outsized influence that chrome does on global web standards. The app store duopoly might come close but still not to the same extent.
Being open source has nothing to do with it. Of course selling it off won't necessarily accomplish the desired result since at the end of the day it isn't the legal ownership per se that results in the influence.
Chrome isn't bundled with Windows, but most Window users decided to install Chrome.
While I agree outsized influence that chrome does on global web standards, it is not like Apple doesn't or couldn't invent something as well. The reality is that no one has the incentive to make better web technology.
If Google sold off Chrome, who will buy it? Are Google even allowed to make another browser based on same technology? What is everyone just installed that again? Selling off Chrome doesn't make any sense at all. And as you said. Their influence on development of Blink is still, Google.
Outsize influence combined with conflict of interest. The other branches of Google have too much to gain from being able to steer the direction of the web with Chrome, and the company as a whole benefits from writing its web apps in a way that makes them work better under Chrome, making for self-reinforcing hegemony. It’s just as bad as MS+IE, maybe worse since Chromium/Blink being open source has given them plausible deniability that MS didn’t have.
> None of those exhibit the same sort of outsized influence that chrome does on global web standards
Besides the renaissance in web interop we've been having recently under baseline and Interop, which quite a few commenters in this thread seem to have no idea about but still feel the need to share their opinion on web standards...
That has nothing to do with a search monopoly, which is what this remedy is trying to address.