Hobson's Browser: How Apple, Facebook and Google broke the mobile browser market

Re:Hobson's Browser: How Apple, Facebook and Google broke th... by gjsman-1000 on Saturday July 24, 2021 @10:16PM (#27946110)

Perhaps it's because, to the user and the government, the "chrome" around the browser (bookmarks, experience, branding) is more important than the engineering details underneath, which most users don't care about. And governments, seeing other browsers are allowed but they have to use some similar plumbing, don't really care as the branding and sync and all that is different.

To them, it's the same reason why Apple might say you have to use the system Button instead of making your own Button, or use the system way of handling Graphics instead of making your own way of handling Graphics, use the system WebKit instead of rolling your own WebKit. That's a harder nut to define.

I honestly don't think more than 5% of users give a rip on what their browser internals are, if not less.

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Re:Hobson's Browser: How Apple, Facebook and Google broke th... by makeitdouble on Sunday July 25, 2021 @12:23AM (#27946702)

If we are going by that analogy, to governments the “chrome” is important when the “pipes” underneath are a common resource it regulates.

I don’t think govs regulating the implementation of anything in the OS is a good idea, but we could at least expect some wrist snapping to unlock the situation.

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