zlacker

I wouldn't necessarily view it as malice from the beginning. It's entirely likely that early Chrome was really trying to solve usability problems in hosting complex applications like GMail. A goal that was attempted throughout history, as seen from the days of ActiveX, Java Web Applets, Flash, etc.

But capitalism does what it does best, and will happily take advantage of (and try to prolong) a natural monopoly situation even if the origins were genuine.

In fact this is why there are regulations around "utilities". They are also an area where a natural monopoly is the optimal, so they shouldn't be treated as a free market.

(Food for thought: Perhaps the Internet infrastructure should be a utility too? Browser makers could be forced to be non-profit, which would mean companies need to divest themselves of the "Internet business" if they want to do "business _over_ the Internet")

>>jabban+(OP)
> I wouldn't necessarily view it as malice from the beginning. It's entirely likely that early Chrome was really trying to solve usability problems in hosting complex applications like GMail. A goal that was attempted throughout history, as seen from the days of ActiveX, Java Web Applets, Flash, etc.

I would say that the actual goal early Chrome was really trying to solve, was to prevent the browser monopoly of the day from being used against Google. It's similar to how Valve invested on Steam OS, as insurance in case Microsoft used its operating system monopoly to degrade the Steam experience relative to Microsoft's application store.

>>cesarb+L3
That's a fair take. Which kind of begs the question: How much innovation in tech is actually just people getting around limitations imposed by monopoly/high influence players?

I'd guess not an insignificant amount.