Comment by LightHugger
1 year ago
Monopolies are at their worst when they use their position to make a power play over a market (such as browsers) that isn't very profitable on it's own but can be used as a loss leader in a wider monopolistic scheme.
This is when antitrust is needed most, by design. There's a bit of understanding you need to do, but not only is it not dumb, what you said about nobody wanting to buy chrome is actually part of the proof of why google needs to be broken up and why chrome is an ideal target for doing so. The browser market needs to be made competitive again.
So who is going to fund a fully featured browser?
It's not like browsers will cease to exist though. If the proposed selling of Chrome leads to slower change in web specifications (i.e. 'fully featured' browser stuff) I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.
How does that help anyone? Firefox only survives from ad revenue from Google. Apple had some motivation to keep up with Chrome to a point. But wouldn’t be motivated from competition from Firefox. Apple is much more motivated to improve its own platform.
Microsoft definitely doesn’t care about the web or even its PC operating system much.
So now, no one is pushing the web forward. But Apple, Google and Microsoft are still motivated to improve their own platforms. While I personally think the modern web is a cesspool and I am okay with that as a user, I doubt many on HN who care about the “open web” feel that way.
As a developer, I haven’t touched the clusterfuck of modern web development for over a decade.