What does that even mean? They're sparing a potential competitor the entire R&D cost of a modern, cross-platform browser. I don't think Google developed Chrome out of sheer altruism but it's probably cheaper now to compete in the browser space than ever. It's unlikely to be profitable, though, in itself.
it's probably cheaper now to compete in the browser space than ever
In the browser space, yes. In the API and platform space, no. Every other browser has already resigned to just "do what Chrome does" instead of expecting Chrome to confirm to the standards as written.
Do you not see how this is a huge hedge for Google? You control the platform and APIs, you rule the world.
Microsoft used to understand this very well.
On top of that, if you have to compete in the browser space by forking off of Google's rendering engine and web platform, you're always going to be behind.
Do you not see how this is a huge hedge for Google? You control the platform and APIs, you rule the world.
Why do you think I don't see that?
On top of that, if you have to compete in the browser space by forking off of Google's rendering engine and web platform, you're always going to be behind.
Why? That's certainly not what happened with Google's browser.
Why? That's certainly not what happened with Google's browser.
Because they can outspend you in engineering resources to push forward, and working with someone elses stack is a burden, not a blessing, if the other side moves more quickly (and forces you to rebase).
I don't remember arguing that developing a modern browser is cheap - I'm responding to the strange notion that the availability of a full open source browser from Google somehow makes things harder for competitors. It doesn't. And, again, as to forking - Apple created a competitive browser by forking an opensource project, Google created another one forking Apple's. This is demonstrably a viable and arguably more effective way of developing a browser.
That means Chrome is a very important strategic asset for Google, perhaps their most important one that end users can run. Imagine there was no Chrome and say FF held 70% of the browser market share.
They'd would hold Google by the balls, and could do stuff like: Nag the user to use their search engine/mail suite, have bugs that kill Google products, delay features that'd be very important to Google (e.g. webm),...
I don't think that addresses my question. How did Google developing Chrome 'monopolize the market' or make it 'very expensive for competitors', the claims the person I'm replying to was making (if I understood them right, which I wasn't entirely sure of to begin with)
Features built into the browser that, currently, you use Google services for, which you wouldn't have to go through them for any more if they're built in?
What if, for example, a browser came out with orders of magnitude better ad-blocking built in? That browser could run Blink, benefiting from Google's engine, but directly undercut their business.
In fact, isn't that exactly what Brave[1] is? A Blink based browser that blocks ads and trackers, and includes their own payments platform for micropayments. I see at least a couple conflicts with Google there.
Or, hell, even just a Blink based browser that defaults to Bing search.
