You wrote:
> The fact that both Brave and Vivaldi were able to disable Google's FlOC within a very short period of time
Okay, they disabled some stuff. That isn’t a fundamental divergence from the upstream project.
The original argument was that Google wouldn’t control the web in a Chromium monoculture because anybody can just fork it.
I disagree. My argument has two prongs:
1. A Chromium fork can only sever itself from Google’s control if it is not taking patches from upstream (ie, Google). I’m particularly thinking about the most consequential pieces: web APIs, not Google ad tech. That’s going to require an army of developers who now are immediately thrust onto the web API treadmill.
2. If a Chromium fork’s market share is tiny, how is it going to displace Google’s influence on the direction of the web? It isn’t. Everybody will still be coding against Google’s Chromium.
It's generally far easier to turn APIs off than add new things. Keeping a fork up to date with upstream while maintaining a list of Chromium platform additions that are disabled is exactly what we're talking about here, no?
They created a new ad model where users are paid for their attention.
Of course market share has to be part of the discussion. But the way in which you used it seems tautological. Also, market share affects alternative browser engines just as much as Chromium based browsers.
>The original argument was that Google wouldn’t control the web in a Chromium monoculture because anybody can just fork it.
That wasn't my argument though. I don't know if Google wouldn't control the web in a Chromium monoculture. It very well might. My argument was that the IE era does not serve as a valid historical precedent because the fact that Chromium is open source changes the situation in very significant ways.
>A Chromium fork can only sever itself from Google’s control if it is not taking patches from upstream (ie, Google)
I don't think Chromium based browsers can completely extricate themselves from Google's control. But this is not a black and white question. Alternative browser engines cannot do that either.
You make a good point that web APIs are a better test for Google's control than ad tech. But this kind of control affects independent browser engines just as much as Chromium based ones. If Chrome doesn't implement a particular web API then the API is dead in the water. That's where market share matters.
Because market share can change. Its a statement of the past when we are talking about the future.
Put another way, would Google have had an easier time building Chrome and Chromium if IE had been 100% open source when Chrome was started?
Remember, it wasn't that long ago that IE dominated, and MS still has many of the same advantages now that they had back then.