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A comment on All four major web browsers are about to lose 80% of their funding. Parent comment

Re:All four major web browsers are about to lose 80% of thei... by firecall on Thursday May 01, 2025 @05:16AM (#43855299)
"A cartel is a group of independent market participants who collude with each other as well as agreeing not to compete with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market. A cartel is an organization formed by producers to limit competition and increase prices by creating artificial shortages through low production quotas, stockpiling, and marketing quotas. Jurisdictions frequently consider cartelization to be anti-competitive behavior, leading them to outlaw cartel practices."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartel

I don't agree that the current situation in the browser market fits the definition of a Cartel, as I understand it! :-)

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:All four major web browsers are about to lose 80% of thei... by xg15 on Thursday May 01, 2025 @08:01AM (#43856542)
If the article is true, it would be worse than a cartel, it would be effectively a monopoly with a few sockpuppet competitors.

In an actual cartel or oligopoly, you'd expect at least the cartel members be relatively equal in power. But if the article is right, the Google has basically all the power to decide the course of web tech going forward, as the other browsers devs can't meaningfully deviate from whatever vision Google has for the web, without risking their funding.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:All four major web browsers are about to lose 80% of thei... by Tarq0n on Thursday May 01, 2025 @06:57AM (#43856054)
The more appropriate term is an oligopoly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopoly
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Re:All four major web browsers are about to lose 80% of thei... by popcorncowboy on Thursday May 01, 2025 @07:56AM (#43856505)
Or perhaps even racketeering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeering
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Re:All four major web browsers are about to lose 80% of thei... by dijit on Thursday May 01, 2025 @05:20AM (#43855329)
Not sure I agree. The “price fixing” aspect could be about ads, after all- and none of the major browsers are neutral in this.

Manifest v3 for example, and various standards that make fingerprinting easier.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:All four major web browsers are about to lose 80% of thei... by CPLX on Thursday May 01, 2025 @08:22AM (#43856744)
Of course it’s a cartel. They agree not to compete with each other in online search advertising, one company collects the monopoly profits and then distributes them to the other cartel members.

It’s textbook.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:All four major web browsers are about to lose 80% of thei... by f33d5173 on Friday May 02, 2025 @02:43AM (#43866852)
They don't agree to that though. Firefox took a deal from yahoo some years ago. They usually make deals with google because google pays the best.
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