It would be better to point out that Chrome is the only browser not getting rid of third party cookies. Chrome promised to, but then has reneged on that promise in favor of "user choice". I don't for a second think Chrome would have kept then around if they weren't tied to an advertising company.
That is certainly the excuse given, but that doesn't mean it's the reason.
> Adblockers can still block ads (as in not show them), but they can't throttle or block requests.
Note that this makes them less effective at blocking ads. And speaking as a former uMatrix user, filtering/blocking the network traffic is a lot of the point.
So Google has maneuvered into this position skillfully and then blamed the regulars for not continuing on a pro-privacy path, while conveniently that also makes them the most ad money...
They didn't, but other malicious extensions did.
https://x.com/jason_kint/status/1821558368659456399
And thats what they dared put into writing.
Without Google subsidizing Chrome, a real competitive market for browsers might emerge, with more vendors investing more effort into competing for users, without having to compete against one of the richest companies in the world that sees its browser as a loss-leader for its ad business, has the ability to dump infinite money into its product, and can advertise it on the one website that 90% of people regularly visit?
I don't think this is going to be the case. This seems like an extreme conclusion with virtually no precedent.
Since an ad browser is such an important piece of software, I imagine it will receive many donations. The reason Chrome doesn't is because it doesn't need them. I think that will change.
Also, I think it's possible you will pay for a browser at some point. Ultimately software costs money to make and we've become desensitized to that because we've exchanged that cost for advertising. But advertising sucks. For example, I pay double for HBO Max just so I don't see ads, and I'm not alone in that.
- integration to ad infrastructure
- integration to the vendor's other service infrastructure
- a cost of more than $0
Given that the market is full of people who will only bear $0, the likely conclusion is that a Chrome separated from the ability to integrate to vendor infrastructure will turn to integrating to someone's ad infrastructure (more poorly and less securely than Chrome currently integrates to Google's infra).
They're paying for that data, and then believe they're making more from consumers as a result. But no matter what, the cost of collecting that data, the infra, and then corp x or y buying it, comes out of the bottom line.
It's like points credit cards. Where does that cash back come from, magical fairies? It comes from retailers' bottom lines, eg from you.
Looking at your current user's post history, you've posted gibberish as comments (just random text). You then progressed to posting a personal history multiple times, where you lambasted the users of this forum, essentially calling everyone "mean" and implying foul intent. Attacks like this are against the guidelines, and really, I cannot imagine they'd go over well anywhere.
Most of your posts seem to be non-thoughtful posts (see the guidelines), which contribute little such as this one. We all go off the rails a bit from time to time, we all colour outside the lines occasionally, but it seems like most of your posts are outside of the lines.
If you really want to engage in thoughtful debate, at least on HN, I suggest you read the guidelines again, and at least attempt to post in the spirit much of the time. Again, no one is going to be perfect in this, but from what I see it doesn't seem like you really want to engage thoughtfully.
Good luck.
Especially in the modern ecosystem where costs have become divorced from income, people would (behavior observation strongly suggests) much rather pay with their information footprint (a resource they can't capitalize alone) than the dollars in their wallets. Otherwise... Where's the successful paid-for browser right now? Which one? Can we point to it?
Let's say widgets are $x. Now the widget manufacturer, as their competitors are advertising, decides to advertise too. They just hit magazines. Success!
But then comes targeted advertising. Now they must pay for profiled advertising, which means that someone colllected the data, archived it, continues to track, and provides uptime and an api you can poll.
Google had 300 billion in gross revenue, what of facebook and others? And there are more nuanced, more targeted providers too.
The entire tracking industry has got to be hundreds of trillions in revenue, and guess where that comes from?
The cost of everything you buy.
So you get a browser and gmail for supposedly free, but now steak costs 3% more. What a savings.
And yes, when people are tricked into thinking a browser is free, it will be hard for visibly paid competitors.
People complain about global warming, and "how did we get here?". Well, the same way we have no paid for browsers. No one cares past their own nose.
Advertising is driven by competition; in the absence of a browser-subsidy flow for that money, the ads will still be there and prices won't go down. The ads will flow through other channels. Then we get higher cost of goods and no zero-cost browser, which seems strictly worse?
However if everyone paid cash for browsers, browsers would also be quite cheap. If you sell 50M copies a year, even $1 goes a very long way.
Firefox seems to spend around $200M/year1 on 'software development', but they also have lots of side projects (pocket, proxies, other software like thunderbird, etc) so I bet $50M could easily fit the bill. And Firefox doesn't even use a shared render engine, or HTML/etc parsers, it's not a chromium based browser.
1. https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4387539/firefox-money-invest...
...in the current market, which was created by companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Google, who subsidized their browsers through other income.
The people have already spoken with their wallets on this topic.
This could, hypothetically, lead to a collapse of that ecosystem into an also-ran, in which case all Apple has to do is invest more in supporting their browser on OSs they don't own and we could end up with full browser hegemony... "If it doesn't work on Safari, it doesn't work on the Internet."
The market price for search is $0. And yet we have Kagi because Google is now so ad infested. Ads are now bad enough that there is money in killing them.
The market price for email is $0. And yet we have Fastmail.
The problem with Google is dumping. The cross-subsidization means that YouTube, Gmail, Chrome, etc. can run at a loss indefinitely and soak up huge chunks of the consumer base. Forcing those services to stand on their own doesn't solve all the problems, but it sure makes competing with them a hell of a lot easier.
(YouTube, on the other hand, should be sued into oblivion for not implementing identity checks for upload. The fact that any published video will wind up monetized on YouTube 20 seconds later is genuine theft.)
> YouTube, on the other hand, should be sued into oblivion for not implementing identity checks for upload
YouTube is probably actually too big to fail at this point. Breaking YouTube video links would have a massive impact on video on the Internet as a whole. Hosting video (efficiently and performantly) is still actually expensive, and YouTube is eating the cost of subsidizing most of the Internet's archive of videos.
A new dumper would have to compete with the split out Google Ad Company for ad resources in order to have enough money to cross subsidize. The Baby Bells reformed, but they never again reached "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company." levels (other companies took on that mantle).
> Hosting video (efficiently and performantly) is still actually expensive, and YouTube is eating the cost of subsidizing most of the Internet's archive of videos.
That's even more reason to crack them up immediately. Did Google not just shut down the DejaNews Usenet archive--something that had negligible storage cost?
Browsers offer incredible value. If there is need people will pony up the money. Many corporations have an business interest in keeping the web free and easily accessible so could serve as potential sponsors. Just like some newer programming language get baking from different companies and manage to stay independent. You just don't want to have one company having total influence.
Obviously things have evolved quite a bit since then, but I think the general pitch that Chrome is primarily a value-multiplier for the org at large, rather than a direct value generator is still broadly the case, and it's really not clear to me that it can exist as anything else without a fundamental reassessment of what it's trying to accomplish.
In theory Chrome could exist as an independent business if it were allowed to take bids for search default from google. But if the US govt broke up google they would likely also ban the sort of deal that would let Chrome be a viable business on its own.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the pseudo-control Chrome gives them over web standards. They can implement experimental APIs in Chrome and immediately use them in their webapps.
Chrome was a business risk mitigation move.
Without Chrome there will be only be Safari and Edge
So I think we can cross that off the list as well and conclude that in the short to medium term, if Chrome went away it would mean simple web hegemony for Apple.
Speaking from personal experience, I write my best code when I'm frustrated by the absence of something I need. I'm sure many others here are the same way. If a sufficient fire is lit under the community to make the web continue to work in the absence of the old guard, I'm pretty sure it'll happen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
But Edge will not be the only alternative; Firefox does still exist, and the Chromium project has forked into several other browsers besides Edge.
No, that's not possible. Google pays $20 billion to Safari to be the default search engine. Imagine how much they would pay an independent Chrome, which has many multiples of Safari's market share. That alone guarantees it would be an incredibly viable business model.
Some companies that want to be the default search (unless the gov bans that) or, some companies that want to be the default new tab page, would likely be the actual customers
An exception might be Chromebook users. It's not clear how that would break out. Especially in light of ChromeOS being cancelled for Android
I'm not sure it'd really make sense to split Chrome off on its own or not though. Maybe Chrome/ChromeOS/Android as a base software platform for consumers, businesses, and schools.
I think your example is completely wrong. Chrome has no source of funding. If separated from Google, they will have a massively magnified incentive to cater to the whims of advertisers because they would be completely subservient to them for funding.
My understanding is that Chrome provides value to Google through intangible means like brand association and thus Chrome does not have to 100% justify its existence by enabling ads for Google, meaning that it has some funding to just be a good browser for consumers.
That would be a paid service that the majority of people would not be okay with, and even if google search did an enshittification pass trying to create a crowd that would. Users would still jump ship to the next search that is still provided for free.
How is Chrome going to make money as a standalone company? I have no idea, but it probably aligns with your guess
Boeing used to own an oil company, engine manufacturer, airline, and airplane manufacturing. The US government broke them up because nobody can compete with that vertical integration.
This is a common issue addressed by strong anti-trust regulations.
If Google (or any online business) is prevented from owning a web browser then the browsers compete on merit. Consumers choose what is actually good for them.
Google has no incentive to make a good browser for consumers. They only have incentive to make one that is good enough for consumers to behave in Google’s interest. And if nobody can compete then that bar is low. Consumers don’t know what they are missing. Nobody does because we haven’t had a competitive browser market in close to three decades.
An easier example would be Microsoft and Office; you could spin off an application like that quite successfully, the same might apply to their ERP. But those examples only stem from the fact that they used to be isolated 'offline' products, and Microsoft is working hard to undo that.
Trying to draw parallels between that and Google Workspace, that is a technical nightmare considering the entire distributed nature means that half of workspace can't exist outside of Google. You'd have to copy Google to host it outside of it, and I'm not talking about GCP or Borg or anything like that, it's everything, from the GSLB to Zanzibar, from monorail to the custom hardware everything runs on. Perhaps a double-digit years long refactor could change that, but nobody wants to pay for that.
Given that monopoly-breakups are supposed to be in the public interest, it is a complicated argument to make in court that the public is advantaged by all those ancillary services getting killed. Now, I'm happy to declare that; I think the "culture of free" is corrosive, to probably an even greater degree than most other HN users. I'm outright willing to call it morally corrosive, for both the companies and the consumers. You, dear $READER, may not be inclined to go that far, especially perhaps on the consumer side. I'm just putting down my cards so that you can see that when I point out that in court that's going to be a difficult argument, it's an admission against my interests and biases.
Google is similar. They make money on ads and everything else is a distant second. Even search might have trouble standing on its own because it is funded on ad revenue; split them up that way and how is search getting funded? Google Cloud could certainly survive on its own for a time, but if it had to reduce investment it could go into an uncompetitive death spiral of having to match investment resources to profits over the years. Gmail could in principle make radically more money if they charged $5/month or something, but how many customers will do that?
And how on Earth would you even break up Android? You can't just hack it out as its own thing; it integrates with a lot of Google things and there's no way they'd all end up in the same entity.
I'm willing to just hack them to pieces and let the market figure it out. I think in the long term we'd come out stronger. But I'm arguing here in a relatively friendly forum for that and probably a lot of you still disagree with me. I'd hate to be arguing this in court.
With ads, by making deals with ad brokers. Its just that they will be able to shop around rather than using their own in house one
Whatever revenue is attributed to Search today is just the result of internal horse-trading, perhaps augmented with some accountant’s estimation of “fair market value” for ad space in search results. After the breakup anything is fair game. Maybe the ad broker keeps 95% of ad revenue.
And, if you believe that Google has been using its monopoly to raise ad prices, why shouldn’t prices fall?
If the search business worked with other ad networks to maximize their revenue, while the ad business worked with other search engines, we’d likely see higher quality search results, less confusion about what’s an ad versus a result, and better as rates for buyers.
That said I don’t support that remedy at all. Maybe ten or fifteen years ago, but now it’s too late and the market is evolving around Google. IMO a consent decree that they won’t pay anyone for exclusive search placement is sufficient.
I'm skeptical that search is viable as an independent business at scale. I know DDG is making a go of it, but the business only has to pay a single salary.
I just think it's a complete non-starter for any government to allow foreign governments to decide everything your citizens see. If they don't bow to your brand of censorship, you're going to pull out.
2. Why is everyone here so convinced that ad rates will go up with this structure? Isn’t part of the reason for Google’s conviction that they are charging too much for ads?
I don't know about you, but I remember the time before Google where search engines openly offered paid search listings.
Google's search quality has declines over the years, but I don't think we're at the point you're talking about yet.
My point being...of course it isn't viable right now given ... Google exists and has a stranglehold over that market...
The whole point of breaking Google up though is to make what isn't currently viable, viable.
Vimeo has tried a different approach, but it's hardly in the same league as YouTube.
One point to mention is that there are two different "Google Ads". Search ads are very different from page ads (DoubleClick). You could certainly take away the DoubleClick part, but separating Search Ads from Search is much harder.
I suspect the AT&T example may be more similar to the current situation than you're thinking. AT&T wasn't just the network, they also manufactured the phones themselves through subsidiary Western Electric. They leveraged their monopoly in phone service to drive customers toward leasing their phones, similarly (if more aggressively) to how Google drives customers from one product to another. Whether this remedy will be so far-reaching beyond search I don't know, but in the abstract there would be benefits to splitting up the conglomerate.
The hard part is turning that staggering amount of unstructured data into a useful search engine, and in particular fighting off black-hat SEO.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/14/technology/how-google-dom...
The AI goldrush also has sites scrambling to block any crawlers other than a short list of approved search engines. Even before this mess Googlebot running on Google IPs often received special treatment.
Search itself is still a hard problem but one that can be solved independently. Crawling on the other hand requires websites to cooperate and due to Google's size enough won't care to bother with anyone else.
Both are open source projects with "ungoogled" options available, but those options are nowhere near as successful as the Google flavors. Would they just forbid Google from offering their own flavor of Chromium?
Even though Android itself is open source, Google Play services really are what allow Google to have so much influence on the Android platform. So what happens to Google Play? Would they be forced to split that off with Android? Would they be forced to continue offering their services for free, but with no strings attached? Would Android have to offer a middleware that lets you choose which services to use a la carte? Would Android device manufacturers have to ship their devices with an open source alternative to Google Play like microG?
How do you separate Google from Android without driving everyone to the other side of the smartphone duopoly, iOS?
If a breakup does happen, it's going to be wild. I wish I had more faith in our government to come up with the best solution. But something has to be done.
Browsers need to be a utility.
Email needs to at least have an option that is a utility.
Arguably operating systems need to be a utility.
Adtech needs to either go back to what it was when Google started out (simple contextual ads, no targeting, no data collection, no flashing or popups or video or or or or...), or just die.[0]
The reason these things have all been operated entirely by for-profit entities up to this point is because they're too new for government to have caught up. All the parts of Google that I've named above as needing to be utilities are fundamental, necessary parts of the modern internet, and are basic requirements for the average person to operate in Western society.
> How would spinning off an individual business like Chrome, Android, or AdWords reduce their respective dominance?
As for this question, Google uses the profit from its dominance in adtech to fund its dominance in other businesses. That's the textbook definition of an abusive monopoly. Take away the ad money from the other parts of Google, and they'll no longer have an unfair advantage over potential competitors.
[0] Yes, this would mean that large parts of the internet that have been free-at-the-point-of-service will have to find new business models or dry up and blow away. No, I don't have a silver bullet solution to this. No, I'm not advocating for nuking adtech from orbit overnight with no replacement.
Maybe we do want to make everything a little worse for the average customer so that more businesses can compete in the marketplace. But I, for one, will miss being able to attach Drive content smoothly to my emails, or being able to use my voice to trigger map navigation on my phone.
For instances if Android phones were allowed to not make Google the default search engine, for Apple to ask each user which engine they want instead of there being a default, for query and click through data needing to be shared at cost with other search engine companies, Chrome not being allowed to default to Google but require user input, and so on. Lots of options and more than one remedy can be applied simultaneously.
Then if you add that Chrome enforces how browser experiences are designed and how tracking is done, you see the problem emerging.
- American Tobacco: Commodity
- Standard Oil: Commodity
- AT&T: Utility
- Northern Securities: Railroads
- Swift & Co: Meatpacking
- Kodak: Film
- Paramount: Movie Theaters
Google is more of a synergistic conglomerate. How would spinning off an individual business like Chrome, Android, or AdWords reduce their respective dominance?
I support this ruling and more across all industries, but I'm trying to square how a breakup should work that actually drives competition.