Comment by techrat | Hacker News Reader

Comment by techrat | Hacker News Reader

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Funny how you say 'we old timers' when you remind me exactly of the same sniveling types who whined about everything "Micro$uck" etc... on Slashdot back in the day... It's tiresome and doesn't contribute one bit when you defeat any points you may legitimately have with all that griping. What's the point in tossing out the age card here? Being smug is a sign of immaturity, not wisdom. So you may call yourself an old timer here but it seems you haven't grown up, either.

A company putting an ad on their own website for their own product isn't an abuse of market position. That's the falsehood I'm referring to.

Everything else that you keep tossing back in as "do you mean..." is an attempt to evade that point that I made and to put words in my mouth.

Don't trust Google? Don't like Chrome? Don't use it. It's not like we've only got one bundled browser to work with these days. Even if it's crypotrash mining and referral link hijacking software like Brave. That's better, right? Or Apple's stagnant Safari. Or... Perhaps you'd be more comfortable in Lynx or Mosaic. They work as well now as they used to then.

So. Yeah. Chrome has market share because it continues to remain better than the alternatives. Not really that difficult of a concept, methinks.

The difference between then (IE/Windows Bundling) and now (Chrome/Google Advertising Might) is that we still get everything Google releases as open source. Use de-Googled Chromium and move then fuck on with your life.

Get off my lawn, punk.

> A company putting an ad on their own website for their own product isn't an abuse of market position. That's the falsehood I'm referring to.

In that case bundling IE with Windows definitely isn't abuse of market power either.

> It's tiresome and doesn't contribute one bit when you defeat any points you may legitimately have with all that griping. What's the point in tossing out the age card here?

First time I've heard anyone at HN indicating age is an advantage.

I put that there for humorous effect, a self depreciating joke in between the serious comparison of two abusing monopolies.

> Everything else that you keep tossing back in as "do you mean..." is an attempt to evade that point that I made and to put words in my mouth.

So tell me what you mean then.

> So tell me what you mean then.

I already have.

Being disingenuous is all you have left, apparently.

> The difference between then (IE/Windows Bundling) and now (Chrome/Google Advertising Might) is that we still get everything Google releases as open source. Use de-Googled Chromium and move then fuck on with your life.

Except that having only one implementation of the web will make it into a closed ecosystem. The current few (partial) implementations are a very weak state and firefox should be kept alive for this reason alone.

And with the grossly huge scope of web browsers, creating a new one is basically impossible to even large players.

So now we have the Whiny Nerd Paradox.

Google is evil because they took over the web with Chrome.

But they're still evil because they're singlehandedly keeping Mozilla alive with funding.

Yes. Especially evil for keeping distant competition alive.

And really evil for enforcing web standards with a browser engine that works.

And also evil because they open source everything.

Grr. Google bad, of course.

Mostly agree in fact, and there are many good people at Google.

But can you see that a company can be both good and bad at the same time?

And that in cases like this with huge companies (both in brain mass and economic impact) the negative sides has extreme effects on the surroundings?

One nitpick:

> And really evil for enforcing web standards with a browser engine that works.

One of the problems with Chrome and IE was that they don't enforce web standards: you get away not only with behavior that others hasn't implemented yet, but also with certain shortcuts that aren't in any standard.

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