This has already been discussed extensively in prior threads, but the biggest question is, how does a spun-off Chrome get funded?
Chrome/Firefox/Safari all cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year to maintain. Currently, Safari and Firefox both make essentially all their revenue through default search agreements. Chrome, Edge, and now Brave are produced by companies that also own the search engines, so they're essentially a loss-generating product, that exist because they cancel out distribution costs that Google and Microsoft would otherwise have to pay other browsers.
But the DOJ order is also asking to ban payments between search engines and browser makers:
> As detailed in Section IV, the PFJ prohibits Google from providing third parties something of value (including financial payments) in order to make Google the default general search engine or otherwise discouraging those third parties from offering competing search products
With that revenue gone, the only real options to fund a browser are:
* Directly charge users for it. This is effectively a non-starter, because the vast majority of people aren't willing to pay for it.
* Insert ads or sell user data - users also hate this, it's probably not legal in the EU, and it may not be legal in most of the US in the future either.
* Use the browser as a platform to push some product that does make money - a non-Google search engine? A social network? An LLM interface?
Alternatively, a narrow reading of the proposed order is that this only applies to Google. In that case, perhaps Bing or OpenAI takes over all the distribution agreements and becomes the top search engine. Whether that's better for consumers seems fairly questionable.
> Alternatively, a narrow reading of the proposed order is that this only applies to Google.
That doesn't seem like a narrow reading, but the only possible one. How could the order be applying to deals strictly between companies neither of which was the party of the lawsuit? That doesn't seem like anything that could possibly be within the court's powers.
> Currently, Safari and Firefox both make essentially all their revenue through default search agreements.
Safari is funded by Apple's hardware sales. It can afford to develop its own browser because it's table stakes for devices and gives Apple the ability to do deeper integrations and targeted performance optimizations. The search revenue is the cherry on top.
The most likely answer is that it will take the Linux model, with a foundation put together to fund Chrome's development. Then all of the parties interested in people having access to the Web, including Google, will have an incentive to fund this without requiring it to push their specific products.
Chrome currently has far more paid full time engineers than the linux kernel does. I struggle to see how they get paid - except again, by charging search engines to be the default browser or something.
Chrome does a lot of things. I know there are downsides and many people don't agree, but I think overall the browser/internet experience would benefit from simpler browsers that don't move so fast.
Right, those would have the biggest incentive. But I'm sure good fundraisers will be bale to even get some large companies that aren't engaging in the standards at any level to throw some money to support a standard web browser, if they can convince everyone that without this there won't be a good way for people to access their web sites.
There's always the Opera model: attempt to sell inserted ads, fail, sell it to a Chinese holding company, and have future development funded by the Russians. What could possibly go wrong?
> Chrome/Firefox/Safari all cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year to maintain.
The reason? Infinite[1] complexity. To Google that is a feature: as long as they can outspend competitors, they can control the complexity in their favor.
The question should not be "how do we fund development of operating system in a trench coat?", but rather "how much do we actually need to fetch and render HTML?" and the answer is in the ballpark of single digit FTEs.
In theory, we should expect browser complexity to converge on available funding, with the upside that webpages created two hours ago would continue working. In reality, some foundation, funded by majority chromium supporters, will be set up and distribute compensation for Google employees working on open-source Chromium "totally on their free time, mr. prosecutor".
Parity with other application platforms demands more than just showing static HTML. Imagine the world with no XMLHTTPRequest because Microsoft wasn't allowed to innovate on the web.
> Directly charge users for it. This is effectively a non-starter, because the vast majority of people aren't willing to pay for it.
I would gladly pay for Firefox, but I only found a way to donate to Mozilla, which also finances many other things that I am not interested in.
> Insert ads or sell user data - users also hate this, it's probably not legal in the EU, and it may not be legal in most of the US in the future either.
Adds are legal, but "selling user data" is more tricky. Many news websites are currently paywalling access to their website unless a monthly fee is paid. As far as I know, there has been no ruling yet whether that is legal.
> Use the browser as a platform to push some product that does make money - a non-Google search engine? A social network? An LLM interface?
Firefox tried to sell a VPN product that way, but it was not priced competitively.
Just like scraping the entire Web for AI training is totally fair use? Enjoy ten years of lawsuits to prove it. Web sites would never tolerate ads being inserted that don't pay them.
* Only operating system vendors can ship web browsers. (But not Google.)
The USG in general seems to love giving Apple more monopoly power. This will effectively constrain browser development to just Apple and Microsoft, since as you note, the DOJ is also trying to regulate Firefox out of existence; and Apple has huge incentives to simply pause browser feature development (and has been dragging its feet on Safari for years).
Incredibly, this will also hamstring Android even further, since its parent company can't even make a web browser for it anymore! Only Apple, the Biden administration's favorite company, can do that kind of thing.
Seriously, first Apple's App Store is declared not a monopoly while the Play Store is, despite Android allowing alternative stores while iOS doesn't. Now Google is forbidden from developing web browsers while Apple is free to continue monopolizing browser engines on iOS and holding back the web from competing with native apps?
Page 12 is also very interesting to me personally, as it contains orders mandating the opening of Google’s search index to their competitors. I had been wondering if that would make it in there and am happy to see it land.
Of course these are things they'll say publicly. And they'll point out all the bad results and none of the good ones. None of what they wrote should be surprising, but also it's not particularly novel/interesting. (Also they're framing a few good things as if they're bad for the users...)
I'm quite weirded out about the part about sharing google's data with other companies to allow competition. Yes, sharing my data allows other companies to advertise to me and to monetize my interests. No, I don't want that. I don't even want google to do that.
Technically he can't run again so he doesn't need any money for his own campaign. However, he might reward donations to his friends in the MAGA Cinematic Universe.
The US constitution would allow him to "run" ( usually it's coast ) as Vice President to the next POTUS .. and that would also allow him one day less than two years as POTUS should the VP be required to take over for the sitting President.
Realistically Trump most likely lacks any interest once his various and sundry pending felony and other charges have been quashed or voided by immunity grants, etc.
I can't say for certain, I'm Australian and don't work with the US political admin (ie no inside line) but there's certainly been US insiders that have strongly hinted dodging massive mounting legal trouble was a major motivation for Trump to run again.
To be clear they may have been deadly serious, seriously joking, or both at the same time .. it's just that good a fit as a theory.
It's all part of an ecosystem. Chrome is a vehicle in which users are roped into their search engine and ads. And their search engine and ads also push users into Chrome. It's all cyclical.
Breaking off any chunk weakens the link between them and locks users into their ecosystem less. Rome wasn't built in a day, and monopolies aren't destroyed in one either.
Apple's VP literally said that no amount of money would make them choose Bing over Google because Google is the best search engine...
Lets be real, no one needs to be "roped into" using Google search. People have Bing and Edge shoved down their throats and still use Chrome and Google...
A company that operates a monopoly having massive advantages against competitors isn't the argument you think it is. Courts in every developed country on earth see your statement and say "That's precisely why we're breaking this company up."
Every single time a monopoly forms, people say "It's not a monopoly. They're just better than the others and nobody wants the competition." They never realize that's the textbook example of a monopoly.
So what advantages does Google have over Bing apart from simply being a better product?
Microsoft is worth almost double what Google/Alphabet is, has larger desktop operating market share than Chrome has browser market share, forces Edge and Bing down their users throats leveraging their operating system yet has far less traction. Surely MS should be able to outspend and outcompete because they're bigger and a monopolist as well, right?
Because MS and Apple ran a bunch of ads painting Google as untrustworthy custodians of user data and that unsubstantiated claim stuck with certain segments of the population?
- All Google consumer devices and products (Pixel, Chrome, Android, Nest)
- Search
- Ads
- YouTube
Search, Ads and YouTube could all survive and prosper on their own and then the Google devices company can pursue a similar strategy to Apple, have devices pay for software.
The way you write this implies that it is somehow an intrinsic fault of the DoJ and not the fault of monopolists like Google with the massive resources to slow walk these kinds of things, or the effective lobbying of the Obama administration followed by four chaotic years of Trump.
Never forget that corruption is always to blame for these failures, not the noble people who try and fix these things with flawed institutions.
> Never forget that corruption is always to blame for these failures, not the noble people who try and fix these things with flawed institutions.
This is dogmatism. You're implying that those working for the government are inherently more noble than the rest, and that only private enterprise is flawed. To the contrary, I am implying nothing, just pointing out that the DOJ is late to the game. This would have meant something a decade ago when Google absolutely dominated. But they're being nipped at by a thousand different companies right now.
The solution should just be to force browsers to support profile migration from one browser to another.
And generally, they should just pass laws that enforce interoperability in the software world, from OS to social networks, users should always be allowed to easily migrate.
Here's a bet: they are offloading a legal liability. Within 12 months someone reverse engineers the binaries and show that they were siphoning out all keystroke data, or it has an official remote backdoor or something equally horrendous.
This has already been discussed extensively in prior threads, but the biggest question is, how does a spun-off Chrome get funded?
Chrome/Firefox/Safari all cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year to maintain. Currently, Safari and Firefox both make essentially all their revenue through default search agreements. Chrome, Edge, and now Brave are produced by companies that also own the search engines, so they're essentially a loss-generating product, that exist because they cancel out distribution costs that Google and Microsoft would otherwise have to pay other browsers.
But the DOJ order is also asking to ban payments between search engines and browser makers: > As detailed in Section IV, the PFJ prohibits Google from providing third parties something of value (including financial payments) in order to make Google the default general search engine or otherwise discouraging those third parties from offering competing search products
With that revenue gone, the only real options to fund a browser are:
* Directly charge users for it. This is effectively a non-starter, because the vast majority of people aren't willing to pay for it.
* Insert ads or sell user data - users also hate this, it's probably not legal in the EU, and it may not be legal in most of the US in the future either.
* Use the browser as a platform to push some product that does make money - a non-Google search engine? A social network? An LLM interface?
Alternatively, a narrow reading of the proposed order is that this only applies to Google. In that case, perhaps Bing or OpenAI takes over all the distribution agreements and becomes the top search engine. Whether that's better for consumers seems fairly questionable.
> Alternatively, a narrow reading of the proposed order is that this only applies to Google.
That doesn't seem like a narrow reading, but the only possible one. How could the order be applying to deals strictly between companies neither of which was the party of the lawsuit? That doesn't seem like anything that could possibly be within the court's powers.
> Currently, Safari and Firefox both make essentially all their revenue through default search agreements.
Safari is funded by Apple's hardware sales. It can afford to develop its own browser because it's table stakes for devices and gives Apple the ability to do deeper integrations and targeted performance optimizations. The search revenue is the cherry on top.
The most likely answer is that it will take the Linux model, with a foundation put together to fund Chrome's development. Then all of the parties interested in people having access to the Web, including Google, will have an incentive to fund this without requiring it to push their specific products.
Chrome currently has far more paid full time engineers than the linux kernel does. I struggle to see how they get paid - except again, by charging search engines to be the default browser or something.
Chrome does a lot of things. I know there are downsides and many people don't agree, but I think overall the browser/internet experience would benefit from simpler browsers that don't move so fast.
Google can keep engineers working on Chrome employed without having control over Chrome.
But why would they if they're forbidden from getting any benefit from Chrome?
A huge amount of their products require browser access, having a good UX to access them off in their best interest.
Why does everyone contribute to Linux?
One minor nit, it will be all parties interested in influence over future web standards and their eventual implementation.
Right, those would have the biggest incentive. But I'm sure good fundraisers will be bale to even get some large companies that aren't engaging in the standards at any level to throw some money to support a standard web browser, if they can convince everyone that without this there won't be a good way for people to access their web sites.
There's always the Opera model: attempt to sell inserted ads, fail, sell it to a Chinese holding company, and have future development funded by the Russians. What could possibly go wrong?
Can you please share a details about the part related to Russians? I used to be big fan of Opera browser, but don't follow theirs recent news
> This has already been discussed extensively in prior threads, but the biggest question is, how does a spun-off Chrome get funded?
How about... just don't fund them and let it "die"?
Everybody is using Chromium -- Microsoft, Google, Opera, Electron, etc.. Some of them will step up and fork chromium.
Or just don't fork Chromium at all and Google can make the upstream their recommended browser.
> Chrome/Firefox/Safari all cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year to maintain.
The reason? Infinite[1] complexity. To Google that is a feature: as long as they can outspend competitors, they can control the complexity in their favor.
The question should not be "how do we fund development of operating system in a trench coat?", but rather "how much do we actually need to fetch and render HTML?" and the answer is in the ballpark of single digit FTEs.
In theory, we should expect browser complexity to converge on available funding, with the upside that webpages created two hours ago would continue working. In reality, some foundation, funded by majority chromium supporters, will be set up and distribute compensation for Google employees working on open-source Chromium "totally on their free time, mr. prosecutor".
[1]: https://xkcd.com/285/
Parity with other application platforms demands more than just showing static HTML. Imagine the world with no XMLHTTPRequest because Microsoft wasn't allowed to innovate on the web.
> Directly charge users for it. This is effectively a non-starter, because the vast majority of people aren't willing to pay for it.
I would gladly pay for Firefox, but I only found a way to donate to Mozilla, which also finances many other things that I am not interested in.
> Insert ads or sell user data - users also hate this, it's probably not legal in the EU, and it may not be legal in most of the US in the future either.
Adds are legal, but "selling user data" is more tricky. Many news websites are currently paywalling access to their website unless a monthly fee is paid. As far as I know, there has been no ruling yet whether that is legal.
> Use the browser as a platform to push some product that does make money - a non-Google search engine? A social network? An LLM interface?
Firefox tried to sell a VPN product that way, but it was not priced competitively.
Display ad insertion would be legal and there are definitely ways to do it all client side.
Just like scraping the entire Web for AI training is totally fair use? Enjoy ten years of lawsuits to prove it. Web sites would never tolerate ads being inserted that don't pay them.
Unfortunately the real answer is:
* Only operating system vendors can ship web browsers. (But not Google.)
The USG in general seems to love giving Apple more monopoly power. This will effectively constrain browser development to just Apple and Microsoft, since as you note, the DOJ is also trying to regulate Firefox out of existence; and Apple has huge incentives to simply pause browser feature development (and has been dragging its feet on Safari for years).
Incredibly, this will also hamstring Android even further, since its parent company can't even make a web browser for it anymore! Only Apple, the Biden administration's favorite company, can do that kind of thing.
Seriously, first Apple's App Store is declared not a monopoly while the Play Store is, despite Android allowing alternative stores while iOS doesn't. Now Google is forbidden from developing web browsers while Apple is free to continue monopolizing browser engines on iOS and holding back the web from competing with native apps?
Page 12 is also very interesting to me personally, as it contains orders mandating the opening of Google’s search index to their competitors. I had been wondering if that would make it in there and am happy to see it land.
Google's response: "DOJ’s staggering proposal would hurt consumers and America’s global technological leadership" https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/public-policy/doj-s...
Of course these are things they'll say publicly. And they'll point out all the bad results and none of the good ones. None of what they wrote should be surprising, but also it's not particularly novel/interesting. (Also they're framing a few good things as if they're bad for the users...)
I wholeheartedly agree. What the hell is the DOJ thinking?
I'm quite weirded out about the part about sharing google's data with other companies to allow competition. Yes, sharing my data allows other companies to advertise to me and to monetize my interests. No, I don't want that. I don't even want google to do that.
This will quietly die off after Jan 20. Nothing to see here.
Yep. Even if there were a case, it would be litigated in the courts for years.
They need to pay their tithe/donation to the administration first.
Trump is a lame duck. Donating to his campaign is useless.
They have one path for political redemption, and it’s to acquire Trump annd his allies’ companies and/or invest in their funds.
I wonder if a big enough ad spend at X would be enough.
How is he a lame duck?
Technically he can't run again so he doesn't need any money for his own campaign. However, he might reward donations to his friends in the MAGA Cinematic Universe.
The past 8 years have been a nonstop stream of "he can't" and "that'll cause a civil war."
I'm not sure why people are still expecting normalcy.
I’m sure the constitution will be changed to allow Trump to remain President, one way or the other way.
Almost certainly not. If he runs it will be by ignoring the Constitution, and at that point we’re legitimately in civil war territory.
Exactly. He is not going to and he will not.
By the next election and after his second term ends, we'll see that all the extremely wild claims of:
"Trump is ending the constitution!"
"This will be the last election if Trump wins!"
"Trump will be a dictator!"
"Civil war is going to happen under Trump!"
All of this repeated ad-nauseam, will be forgotten and dismissed as complete hysterical nonsense.
The US constitution would allow him to "run" ( usually it's coast ) as Vice President to the next POTUS .. and that would also allow him one day less than two years as POTUS should the VP be required to take over for the sitting President.
Realistically Trump most likely lacks any interest once his various and sundry pending felony and other charges have been quashed or voided by immunity grants, etc.
Does this mean he wouldn't have run this time if it weren't for his legal troubles?
I can't say for certain, I'm Australian and don't work with the US political admin (ie no inside line) but there's certainly been US insiders that have strongly hinted dodging massive mounting legal trouble was a major motivation for Trump to run again.
To be clear they may have been deadly serious, seriously joking, or both at the same time .. it's just that good a fit as a theory.
Many people are saying.
Chrome is not the problem. Chrome is not even a symptom.
The problem is that the world's largest search engine is also the world's largest ad distributor.
Chopping off tentacles like Android or Chrome does nothing to slay the two-headed beast.
It's all part of an ecosystem. Chrome is a vehicle in which users are roped into their search engine and ads. And their search engine and ads also push users into Chrome. It's all cyclical.
Breaking off any chunk weakens the link between them and locks users into their ecosystem less. Rome wasn't built in a day, and monopolies aren't destroyed in one either.
Apple's VP literally said that no amount of money would make them choose Bing over Google because Google is the best search engine...
Lets be real, no one needs to be "roped into" using Google search. People have Bing and Edge shoved down their throats and still use Chrome and Google...
A company that operates a monopoly having massive advantages against competitors isn't the argument you think it is. Courts in every developed country on earth see your statement and say "That's precisely why we're breaking this company up."
Every single time a monopoly forms, people say "It's not a monopoly. They're just better than the others and nobody wants the competition." They never realize that's the textbook example of a monopoly.
So what advantages does Google have over Bing apart from simply being a better product?
Microsoft is worth almost double what Google/Alphabet is, has larger desktop operating market share than Chrome has browser market share, forces Edge and Bing down their users throats leveraging their operating system yet has far less traction. Surely MS should be able to outspend and outcompete because they're bigger and a monopolist as well, right?
There's a bunch of other stuff in there about syndicating data (which admittedly I don't understand) that takes aim at the heart of search and ads.
Why would I want to slay one of our greatest technological companies?
Because MS and Apple ran a bunch of ads painting Google as untrustworthy custodians of user data and that unsubstantiated claim stuck with certain segments of the population?
To ask the judge to force Google to spin off Chrome.
The judge still has to agree to it.
Discussion (1171 points, 2 days ago, 1387 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42177767
A much better split would be:
Chrome + Display Ads Android + Playstore + App Ads
IMO the best split would be:
- All Google consumer devices and products (Pixel, Chrome, Android, Nest)
- Search
- Ads
- YouTube
Search, Ads and YouTube could all survive and prosper on their own and then the Google devices company can pursue a similar strategy to Apple, have devices pay for software.
I wonder what’s going to happen to ChromeOS
If ChromeOS and Android end up in different companies it might prevent them from merging and thus lead to greater OS diversity.
As usual DOJ is late to the party. Google is already facing competition and as it falters, the doj will use this as 'evidence' it was effective.
The way you write this implies that it is somehow an intrinsic fault of the DoJ and not the fault of monopolists like Google with the massive resources to slow walk these kinds of things, or the effective lobbying of the Obama administration followed by four chaotic years of Trump.
Never forget that corruption is always to blame for these failures, not the noble people who try and fix these things with flawed institutions.
> Never forget that corruption is always to blame for these failures, not the noble people who try and fix these things with flawed institutions.
This is dogmatism. You're implying that those working for the government are inherently more noble than the rest, and that only private enterprise is flawed. To the contrary, I am implying nothing, just pointing out that the DOJ is late to the game. This would have meant something a decade ago when Google absolutely dominated. But they're being nipped at by a thousand different companies right now.
The solution should just be to force browsers to support profile migration from one browser to another.
And generally, they should just pass laws that enforce interoperability in the software world, from OS to social networks, users should always be allowed to easily migrate.
Weird that a Biden DOJ would do this.
Here's a bet: they are offloading a legal liability. Within 12 months someone reverse engineers the binaries and show that they were siphoning out all keystroke data, or it has an official remote backdoor or something equally horrendous.