The mindset here is so alien to me. Do people think that the EU is willing to take action against Apple, and yet somehow unwilling to take action against Google?
It's currently happening. Try using YouTube or Google Search on the desktop with, for example, MS Edge. Google will tell you you should download Chrome to work better.
The only reason that's not the case on iOS devices is that they don't have that option.
MS Edge uses Blink under the hood, which is a Chrome fork. The monoculture is all but here, save for dwindling Firefox and Webkit. Everything else that's popular is effectively a Chrome skin, or if you like, Linux distributions packaging up stuff around the kernel (the rendering engine).
I didn't say Chrome would actually make it work better. The fact that MS decided not to maintain their version of Edge is a little frustrating, because more competition would be better. Indeed, that's why I want Safari to remain.
But even reskinned Chrome isn't safe from nag messages to switch to Chrome.
I do think it’s unlikely, or at least unlikely to happen before the damage is done and we’re stuck with a permanent browser engine monoculture.
If they were rolling out policy to quash anticompetitive behavior in the browser space along with requiring Apple to open iOS up I’d be much more comfortable. The two should go hand in hand. I don’t want Google to have any opportunity to entrench Chrome/Blink on iOS.
It’s pretty reasonable to believe whatever action it takes will be a long ways away, a period during which the user experience will suffer. You don’t have to believe they’ll never act; you just have to believe they’ll act slowly and poorly. For example, the proposal to force iMessage interoperability which makes little sense and introduces security risks.
