zlacker

>>dochtm+(OP)
We don't have to speculate, we've been through this already during the IE4 to IE6 era.

Microsoft just did whatever they wanted with the web "platform", and so will Google.

In Microsoft's case what they wanted was nothing. They weren't a web business, saw it as a threat to their platform leverage, and so just left it abandoned and stagnant for years.

Google is simultaneously better and worse: they won't leave it stagnant because the web is their platform, but on the other hand they have a lot more to gain by abusing control of it.

>>paol+B6
You fail to mention that IE was closed source while Chromium is open source. That's a completely different situation.

We already have a number of Chromium based browsers that go against some of Google's most fundamental interests (e.g Brave).

>>fauige+Rf
Those are not fundamentals, more like bells and whistles. Fundamentals are strictly dictated by what Google want in the Chrome and its clones and will never change, at least with current trends when even MS switched to Chrome.

>>Yizahi+pm
The point is that Google can't dictate what browser behavior the forks ('clones') choose to enable.

>>vanvie+9q
The point is they can make the forks useless, unless sufficiently many users choose to use forks, which isn't a very likely scenario.

>>turmin+ks
They can make some specific features of any forks useless, not all of them as the FlOC situation has demonstrated. But the same is true for features of alternative browser engines that don't gain enough market share.

>>fauige+Rv
This stuff isn’t that big of a deal in the overall scope. Not when compared to seeing how Google controls Android which has a longer history of others trying to get away from it. It didn’t work. Android is even more entrenched in most of the world sans China.

These sorts of arguments probably help cement Google’s power. By giving the guise that the open source part of the equation can be the key to usurping Google’s power. Instead of it mostly being the other way around.

It would not be surprising if Google loves these tiny changes from Chrome and Android. So the discussions and sentiment never get close to how bad it got for IE or other monopolies and dangers of power.