Comment by vel0city
21 hours ago
It cracks me up when people say Chrome is a monopoly, because a massive amount of computing devices do not even ship with Chrome. Windows computers, Macbooks, and iPhones require users go search out and install Chrome on their own out of their own volition, shipping with entirely functional and decent browsers out of the box that they have lots of patterns to push. Even many Android phones ship with browsers other than Chrome as a default still from what I understand.
How is Chrome, of all things, a monopoly? Have words just entirely lost all meaning and now monopoly just means "things which are popular that I dislike"?
Chrome is a monopoly by extending the internet in ways that force users into chrome. Due to market share and Google's prevalence, they have the sway to introduce things that cannot meaningfully be avoided without extreme siloing.
Outside of WebUSB I personally haven't meaningfully been impacted in any ways. Can you share which ways this is?
Note, this is separate from a "so many things are just Chromium", which I agree is an issue, but isn't the same as a "Google Chrome is a monopoly". Because in the end there are still many non-Chrome browsers which support WebUSB which do not end up with a lot of the downsides of Chrome specifically about Google harvesting your data and what not.
Ah, the "this doesn't fit my very specific technicality argument"
You know full well what people mean when they say "Chrome"
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Do you actually think the majority of everyone else is being just as pedantic (or cares) about Google Chrome vs chromium-based?
For most, for the purposes of market share (the type of "monopoly" I believe they are referring to), I think they count it as one and the same.
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Why do you keep talking about who installs the app? That has nothing to do with whether something is a monopoly, which is primarily about market share.
If a user is openly going out of their way to go and install a competitor's product despite a perfectly serviceable version coming by default, how can the the one being sought out be seen as a monopoly? The competition came pre-installed!
How did the user manage to install Chrome on Windows if Chrome is a monopoly, the only serviceable browser around? They copy the source code from a magazine or something? Get a floppy disk in the mail?
Whatever your definition of monopoly is, it's wrong. The threshold is not 100% market share. If that was the threshold no monopoly has ever existed.
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I’m constantly badgered by google apps on my iPhone to use Chrome. In fact I’m not able to just click a link and open my default browser, I have to see the big chrome logo and a smaller link to choose my default browser.
> by google apps on my iPhone
Ever thought about just not using those apps if you want to avoid the Google ecosystem? Too bad there's just absolutely no mapping application available on iPhone but Google Maps. Too bad there's no way to send an email on an iPhone outside of Gmail.
What's that? A user has to once again go out of their way to install those apps as well? Well isn't that strange. I thought Google was a monopoly on iPhones.
What's the point of this pedantry? Replace "monopoly" with "dominant market player" and their point still stands. A company doesn't need to be a literal monopoly to engage in anti-competitive behavior. The EU would call this "abuse of dominance". [1]
>> Google holds absolute authority on how websites are rendered and if websites can be found.
This is still 100% correct. Google owns the dominant browser and the dominant search engine, this means that they get to dictate how websites function and pick winners and losers through their search algorithm. If you're a publisher (i.e. anyone who hosts a website) you're forced to fall in line or go out of business.
[1] https://competition-policy.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021-05...
> If you're a publisher (i.e. anyone who hosts a website) you're forced to fall in line or go out of business.
What features of Chrome are website publishers forced to fall in line with or go out of business that practically other browser makers aren't also pushing?
and even the iPhone Chrome doesn't use the Chromium engine, it's Safari under the hood
> Windows computers
Ship with a chromium fork called Edge
Edge isn't Chrome though, is it? Like, its not shipped by Google, it doesn't bug you to log in with a Google account, doesn't ship metrics back to Google, right?
Not quite the same thing now is it?
The usual complaint is that Chromium dominates as an engine. I don't fully understand the complaint because anyone can fork it, but maybe they're (rightfully) concerned nobody will fork it because Google controls the web standards, or they're concerned Chrome could stop using the open version of the engine.