
Chrome, the perfect antitrust villain? - rargulati
https://alexdanco.com/2019/05/30/google-chrome-the-perfect-antitrust-villain/
======
DubiousPusher
The main problem I have with the predominant discussions around antitrust in
contemporary internet software is that they largely ignore one quality that
truly makes something a monopoply. That is, truly onerous monopolies don't
just own a vast majority of some market share. They hamper the ability to
switch to another product. Facebook, Google Search and Chrome, the most
discussed products in current antitrust discussions all have viable quality
alternatives.

Don't like Chrome? Pick up Firefox, it's quick and easy to change. And it's
the best product it's probably ever been.

Don't like Google search? There's Bing, there's DuckDuckGo and more.

Don't like Facebook? Try any of the bajillion other social networks. Hell,
quite social networks and call your grandma instead. It's better for ya.

Antitrust isn't supposed to be a bludgeon to knock whoever is on top off the
top. It's supposed to be a tool to break open markets where companies have
successfully closed off competition and made it impossible for opponents to
succeed. I just don't see that in the web right now. There is no conceivable
reason Facebook couldn't be replaced and there's ample research showing that
young people are already making that transition to other platforms.

Meanwhile, industries like internet service, cellular and in some places water
provision, leave consumers with essentially no alternative and no choice. I
see this wave of anti-web 2.0 furvor as people championing a good cause,
antitrust, in utterly the wrong place for our time.

~~~
vkou
> Facebook, Google Search and Chrome, the most discussed products in current
> antitrust discussions all have viable quality alternatives.

What is a quality alternative to Facebook? Diaspora was DOA, Mastodon is a
cesspit, Twitter is nothing like Facebook, and G+ is long-dead.

~~~
JoshMnem
> What is a quality alternative to Facebook?

Independent forums and self-hosted blogging. They are about content and real
connections with like-minded people. Instead of mindlessly posting little
updates throughout the day just for the sake of posting updates, people should
save it for when they actually have something to say.

In general: read books not timelines.

~~~
closeparen
Forums and blogging are for internet strangers; Facebook is for your real-life
community. While you of course accept some risk of Facebook content becoming
accidentally public, there is little to no intersection between the content I
would intentionally share on Facebook vs. HN or a blog.

At minimum, blogging would need a universal federated identity system with
reciprocal ACLs, which is already starting to sound a lot like Facebook.

More to the point on antitrust, the quality alternative to Facebook that most
of my peers are now using is Instagram, which Facebook conveniently purchased.

~~~
JoshMnem
For people who grew up before the Internet, the idea of needing to share
everything with everyone you know isn't a necessity. Some things were better
before the Internet. My real-world social life improved after I left Facebook.
The quality of the information that enters my mind on a daily basis also
improved. I don't read timelines or experience life by constantly thinking
about whether I should post the current moment online. There are other ways to
stay in touch with people.

I recommend _Digital Minimalism_.

[http://www.calnewport.com/books/digital-
minimalism/](http://www.calnewport.com/books/digital-minimalism/)

------
Havoc
>without Google Services and the Google Play Store, it’s a brick. They’ve
mastered separation of the strategic openness of Android with the accompanying
strategic closed-ness of everything that runs on it and makes it actually
worth something.

It's scary how true this is. Especially how it's only obvious in hindsight (to
me at least). Yet clearly this was orchestrated.

In both Chrome & Androids case it's the non-free tie-in that's the catch.
Either play store or DRM/codecs. hmm...who owns the biggest video site..ah
right.

~~~
Barrin92
_Amazon 's anti-trust paradox_ by Lina Khan hit the nail on the head a few
years ago. When anti-trust moved towards the chicago school logic of judging
merely based on price rather than taking market structure and power into
account, we really screwed ourselves over.

We've really only got ourselves to blame for elevating consumer satisfaction
above all else and losing sight of the long term.

~~~
ansmithz42
Yes, the original definition of monopoly that created the Sherman act was all
about control of the supply chain. In the late 1800s, the railroads pretty
much controlled everything from the coal mine to the hotels at every station.
Completed control of the supply chain, this is what Google, Facebook and
Amazon are doing right now on the internet. A monopoly isn't about consumer
it's about market control. We need to move off the "harm to the consumer"
metric as it is in this case too slow to identify the problem.

~~~
GoblinSlayer
Errmm, why people say that monopolies don't harm the consumer? They always
did, every time. How adblocking restriction in Chrome doesn't harm the
consumer? And it's only the most recent example, history is littered with
them.

------
writepub
I don't faintly see the logic in this!

The proof is in the pudding on Chrome's tangible open source impact:

1\. V8 is used in a multitude of projects, node being the most impact-ful. And
node has changed desktop (with electron and CLI apps), server and developer
workflow

2\. Brave, Edge, Opera are just some of the WideVine licensed Chromium based
browsers

On the contrary, iOS has banned almost every tenet of common sense general
purpose computing:

1\. Safari for iOS is purposefully crippled to drive devs and users to it's
app store

2\. App store has fluid, whimsical, retroactively applied approval laws, ahem
whims.

3\. It's a general purpose computer that you can own the hardware of, but need
the manufacturer's consent to run software on. You know, like needing your
fridge maker's approval for the groceries you stock in it.

4\. They purposefully stymie competition:

\- Spotify, Google-Maps, etc. are denied APIs that give competing Apple
offerings an edge.

\- 30% tax on external apps again gives Apple's competing offerings unfair
edge

\- Complete ban on Just-In-Time compiled code and alternate browser engines is
intentional - to stymie features and quality to a default of "below Apple's
competing offerings"

How one rationalizes Chrome to be more "anti-trust-y" is contrary to logic

~~~
MaxBarraclough
> Brave, Edge, Opera are just some of the WideVine licensed Chromium based
> browsers

Today I learned: the new Edge has both WideVine _and_ PlayReady. I figured
they'd just go with PlayReady and be done with it - does WideVine have any
real advantages?

[https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/chromium-
mic...](https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/chromium-microsoft-
edge-can-play-4k-netflix-video-unlike-chrome/)

[https://www.ghacks.net/2019/04/03/chromium-based-
microsoft-e...](https://www.ghacks.net/2019/04/03/chromium-based-microsoft-
edge-to-support-hd-and-4k-streams-netflix/)

~~~
vatueil
Microsoft PlayReady DRM still the only way to play Netflix in 4K on a PC,
correct?

I guess there's no reason not to include Widevine as well, but it's funny how
this means the new Microsoft Edge supports features no other Chromium-based
browser is allowed to use, including Google Chrome.

Getting rid of DRM in general is fine with me, but I don't understand why the
focus on Widevine in particular given that its availability is relatively less
restricted.

~~~
MaxBarraclough
> Microsoft PlayReady DRM still the only way to play Netflix in 4K on a PC,
> correct?

I believe so, yes. (The Win10 app is powered by PlayReady.)

Mandatory link to the netflix-1080p hack, enabling 1080p Netflix playback on
Chrome [0]. I don't think it does 4k though, and I believe it causes awful CPU
loads.

[0]
[https://github.com/truedread/netflix-1080p/blob/master/READM...](https://github.com/truedread/netflix-1080p/blob/master/README.md)

------
cromwellian
"But what’s completely correct here is that Chrome is, quite explicitly,
blocking users’ freedom to use their web browser the way they would expect
with a piece of open source software; "

No, what you expect from Open Source software is to be able to fork it, modify
it, recompile it, and use the modifications.

Open Source isn't about end-user features, it's about _development freedom_. A
completely open source piece of software could have a set of APIs and UX that
keeps you on the rails and doesn't let the end user do what they want. What
Open Source shouldn't do, is prevent you from modifying it to edit the app to
do what you want after a recompile, and ship and share your modifications with
others, that's the freedom open source provides.

Arguably the DRM binary blob angle results in Tivoization, but the idea that
this is some elaborate plot for Chrome lock-in by Google is ludicrous. Patent-
encumbered compression codecs also created similar headaches and Google went
out of their way to try break the MPEG-LA consortium monopoly. The DRM issue
is basically forced on the industry by the content publishing industry. If you
want to stop this particular issue from making open source browsers hard to
develop, you need to talk Netflix, Hulu, Disney, and all of the other players.

Or you just accept that you can't watch most Hollywood produced content in a
web browser and leave it up to native apps. Or, we could just mandate everyone
have to continue to support Adobe Flash players.

DRM isn't going to magically go away if Chrome were a separate company.

What no one has articulated in any of these conversations is any actual harm
that's been done to them. There's a lot of catastrophizing about theoretical
harms, but the Web and Mobile industries are far more vibrant than they were
in the 90s, and launching some device that includes a browser, mobile OS, or
embedded kernel is a fraction of the cost and effort it was in the 90s to do
something similar.

Things have gotten easier across the board. Someone launching a new IoT device
these days forks chromium, webkit, or android for the UI. This would have cost
you huge licensing fees a decade ago and a large engineering team.

How many successful startups are running off node (v8) now? Or Electron (e.g.
Discord, Slack, etc)?

~~~
f1refly
> No, what you expect from Open Source software is to be able to fork it,
> modify it, recompile it, and use the modifications.

Thats wrong. What you expect from open source software is to be able to see
the source. This source may be available without the right to modify or
redistribute it in any way whatsoever. You're looking for free software as
preferred by the fsf, not open source.

~~~
account42
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-
source_software](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software)

> Open-source software (OSS) is a type of computer software in which source
> code is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users
> the rights to study, change, and distribute the software to anyone and for
> any purpose.

The difference between open source and free software is only ideological - you
are probably thinking of shared source or source available.

------
snek
Honestly it would be pretty incredible for Chrome to be split out of Google,
and I for one would love to see that happen.

~~~
JoshTriplett
In what possible way would Chrome make money as a standalone company without
utterly alienating its userbase?

Chrome is subsidized by the rest of Google.

~~~
cm2187
By doing like firefox, making money out of making google the default search
engine. Which means their unique source of revenue (and client) would be
google. Full circle...

~~~
CharlesColeman
> By doing like firefox, making money out of making google the default search
> engine. Which means their unique source of revenue (and client) would be
> google. Full circle...

However, a Chrome-with-Google-revenue would be far more independent of Google
than Chrome-the-Google-Subsidiary. Mozilla/Firefox has shown that it's still
possible to advance privacy even within such an arrangement.

Also, its far from clear who would have the most power in such an arrangement.
Without a popular browser of its own, Google will be forced to pay the browser
vendors to stay the default, unless it wants to give a search engine
competitor a chance to unseat it.

~~~
whatshisface
It only seems like Mozilla is independent because they are the most
independent - a truly independent browser would probably do something
shocking, like bundling adblock.

~~~
CharlesColeman
Independence comes in degrees, and I'm not convinced a "truly independent"
browser would by truly better for consumers. It'd need a revenue model, and
its not clear to me what that would be besides bundling with a paid product or
displaying banner and text ads.

Essentially Mozilla is selling ads, but only to one advertiser (Google) which
is easy to disable.

~~~
antisthenes
Wait, hold on.

Why does a browser need a revenue model? Why can't a browser just be a piece
of software that's "finished", with the occasional security patch?

Chrome is incredibly overcomplex because it attempts to be more than just a
browser, and it is part of Google's strategy.

A regular browser doesn't have to be an OS in itself.

~~~
ajxs
Unfortunately keeping modern software secure is a full-time job. Internet
browsers are just one giant attack surface. This is especially complicated by
the speed at which the implementation of new features is required to keep a
general audience interested. Unfortunately, a user like my mother wouldn't
care how ideologically well-meaning a browser was if she couldn't use it for
watching online media. I recently went looking for a lightweight browser for
an older linux box, and it was hard to find anything that didn't either bundle
Chromium or just forego having Javascript at all. Keeping up with modern web
standards is pretty much an impossible job for a team of hobby developers on
the basis of features alone ( WebGL, WebAssembly, DRM etc ), let alone
security.

~~~
antisthenes
> This is especially complicated by the speed at which the implementation of
> new features is required to keep a general audience interested.

That may have been true 10 years ago, but now the feature set is so rich, that
any new ones are really solutions in search of a problem rather than an actual
user need. The average customer is pretty much using what Google dictates to
get to the internet (used to be MS)

Nothing would change if the current feature set were kept constant

(except lots of HN's would be out of a job and Google might struggle to find
new ways to show their ads)

~~~
JoshTriplett
> any new ones are really solutions in search of a problem rather than an
> actual user need

Not at all. App platforms aren't standing still, and one of the goals of web
browsers is to make them as capable as app platforms while retaining the
safety of the web sandbox.

That includes things like VR/AR, WebAssembly and extensions to it, Progressive
Web Apps (PWAs), adjusting pages to match the system theming, better video
formats, better authentication (Web Authentication), and a hundred other
things people actually want.

------
soniman
I had the same impression as the author. Google was tiptoeing up to the line
of antitrust scrutiny with its search dominance (95%), the Google Play Store
tax, and Youtube demonetizations, but when I saw it was banning ad blockers on
Chrome, I said, that's it. This is such an obvious exploitation of market
dominance that it really can't be ignored. You could explain the business
logic to a ten year old. It's not an accident that Microsoft's antitrust
problems started with browsers too. One of the funny things though is that ad
blockers are becoming increasingly useless. Nearly every site now makes you
deactivate the blocker so it's now more trouble than it's worth.

------
joshuamorton
This is an interesting, and relatively fair, article. There are two big issues
with it's reasoning though.

First, chrome isn't yet close to IEs peak dominance. Ie peaked at over 90%
market share.

Second, DRM isn't necessary for watching video, it's needed for watching
certain liscenced video. In practice, this means Netflix and streamed
televison. You can still watch YouTube just fine, minus YouTube red originals,
without widevine. Is a browser that keeps you off Netflix so bad for google?

~~~
CharlesColeman
> First, chrome isn't yet close to IEs peak dominance. Ie peaked at over 90%
> market share.

Waiting until it hits that to do something about it would be pretty
ridiculous. Based on some random stats website, Chrome is currently at 70%
share, and Chromium-based browsers are at 77%

~~~
clairity
further, you can dominate and control a market with a minority share of that
market (depending on market characteristics). google's many anti-consumer
actions with chrome show that 70%+ market share is more than enough already.

------
Phait
This whole antitrust debate around Google feels weird to me. People act like
Google is not a for-profit company, but some sort of philanthropic association
that is law-bound to provide good technology to the people.

Google has only one goal, which is selling advertisements. To do so, it
provides, FOR FREE, the best technology services of the planet, including what
is basically the entrance door to the internet and a piece of software to make
the experience of browsing pleasant. Nobody forces Google to do so. They could
easily make people pay for the services, and nobody could say a thing. And yet
they give this all for free, even allowing you to block the only stream of
revenue that they get from you (ads).

The antitrust controversy around Google is just a major case of wanting to
have the cake and eating it too. It's like we've had somebody giving us free
food for decades, and now we're suropriesd that the terms of a deal that is
extremely advantageous for us are changing. We've become accustomed to the
idea of fre Google, and we've forgot that Google could make us pay a fee for
their services, and we would all shut up and pay.

~~~
feanaro
> They could easily make people pay for the services, and nobody could say a
> thing.

I don't think people would pay for much of Google's products. Google is candy
served so that the target is complacent while it is being invisibly surveiled.

------
akarki15
People here seem to assume all monopolies are illegal. THAT'S NOT TRUE!

Source: [https://www.classlawgroup.com/antitrust/unlawful-
practices/m...](https://www.classlawgroup.com/antitrust/unlawful-
practices/monopoly/)

A monopoly is when a company has exclusive control over a good or service in a
particular market. Not all monopolies are illegal. For example, businesses
might legally corner their market if they produce a superior product or are
well managed. Antitrust law doesn’t penalize successful companies just for
being successful. Competitors may be at a legitimate disadvantage if their
product or service is inferior to the monopolist’s.

But monopolies are illegal if they are established or maintained through
improper conduct, such as exclusionary or predatory acts. This is known as
anticompetitive monopolization

------
jillesvangurp
There are plenty of opinions on what is or isn't a monopoly. What matters is
that the opinion that what the likes of Google, Facebook, Apple, and others
are doing amounts to being something that needs action from governments is
both popular and becoming a talking point for a lot of politicians in both the
EU and the US.

So, what matters less is whether they are right or wrong and what matters more
is what the before mentioned companies are doing about mitigating the risks of
being confronted with excessive fines, rulings, and other forms of damage. The
answer is, so far not a lot and that may become a problem as it seems pretty
clear there is wide spread support for action against them.

I'd say both Google and Apple are pretty far down the road where they will
have multi billion euro or dollar fines at some point. They are both highly
profitable as well so that in it self would not necessarily be that much of a
problem. What would be a problem is governments interfering with their
business models.

IMHO, some action here would be good. These companies are getting a bit
complacent about their position in the market and quite arrogant about
casually snuffing out competition when it suits them. In general, it's time
for a shake up in the mobile space. Google and Apple earned their position
with the work they did last decade but nothing is forever and I remember a
time when there were more credible options then just them.

------
headsoup
Couple of simple but perhaps naive questions:

Can Microsoft pay Google to have it recommend Edge on the Google search
homepage?

Should Chrome, rather than have Google.com as the default homepage, offer a
list of Search engines for the user to choose from?

Should Chrome be the default browser on Android or should the user choose from
a list?

~~~
gsnedders
Can Android OEMs who ship Google Play Store ship with a browser that isn't
Chrome as the default browser?

------
jiveturkey
Sorry, but this is a very weak article.

First, not having competition does not make one a monopoly. It's anti-
competitive (unfair) practices that make one a monopoly.

IE, now that had the form of a monopoly, in its day.

Then, he goes on to ignore WHATWG, which is the real authority, and is
comprised of Apple, Mozilla, Google, Microsoft. I don't follow closely enough,
but I'd be surprised to learn that Google has outsized power.

Lastly, to the extent that widevine is important, it isn't restricted to
Chrome.

~~~
tedivm
You're literally redefining monopoly in a way that's different than every
economist and most of society.

------
skybrian
It would be weird for a mustache-twirling villain to give most of their source
code to their competitors, hence allowing them to start out compatible with
nearly every website on the Internet.

(With a bit of DRM needed for video, so those competitors can't be pure open
source. But still, it's not going to stop Microsoft.)

The article admits to this, then kind of ignores it.

~~~
CharlesColeman
> It would be weird for a mustache-twirling villain to give most of their
> source code to their competitors, hence allowing them to start out
> compatible with nearly every website on the Internet.

No it wouldn't, if the mustache-twirling villain's indent was _control_. Those
competitors are following most if not all of Chrome's implementation
decisions, and economically they're highly incentivized follow whatever Google
does.

~~~
skybrian
Google didn't follow all of Safari's decisions, and eventually they forked
WebKit. Why shouldn't Microsoft do something similar when they have different
goals?

They'd likely remain mostly compatible because all browser vendors do try to
follow web standards nowadays. But maybe not more than Safari and Chrome are
compatible. And it helps maintain Microsoft's veto on web standards (like
Firefox has vetoed previous Chrome proposals).

~~~
pcwalton
> Why shouldn't Microsoft do something similar when they have different goals?

They explicitly said they wouldn't fork Chromium.

~~~
skybrian
Sure, for now, and maybe for years. Chrome upstreamed patches to WebKit for a
while.

But the point is, they _can_ fork, so that means Chrome doesn't have full
control.

~~~
anoncake
Microsoft couldn't maintain a Trident-based browser compatible with the
Google-controlled web. They won't be able to maintain one based on Blink
either.

------
jechamt
E) All of the above.

------
daodedickinson
All the other browsers have been complaining more and more recently about
patches and improvements they can't make because they can't get permission or
explanation from Chromium's overseers.

------
dustfinger
Let's not forget that Google has great influence over webRTC [1]. The source
code is kept in their repositories [2].

[1][https://webrtc.org/](https://webrtc.org/)

[2][https://webrtc.googlesource.com/](https://webrtc.googlesource.com/)

