I wrote about the possibility that Google will have to sell Chrome, and the larger fact that the big browsers are so sleepy. They feel like obligations, not the vibrant tapestries of innovation they could be. https://www.fastcompany.com/91231751/google-chrome-sale-department-of-justice-browser-war
I'm not sure how much innovation in a browser I'd really like. I feel like many of the additional capabilities they've been given have been detrimental to privacy.
Only thing I want from a browser is anonymity, adherence to web standards, and speed.
@jonathanbuys @harrymccracken Definitely such a thing as bad innovation!
@harrymccracken
I think of browsers as a commodity. Everyone needs _a_ browser, but any browser displaying websites will do, so folks are going to go with cheapest one they can find - and there were always free options available. That pricing race to the bottom also made it hard to create viable businesses around browsers, which further deincentivizes creating new ones.
@harrymccracken Safari was *hugely* influential in the 2000s/2010s, and Chrome wouldn't even exist without Safari (as it was essentially just a fork of WebKit at the start). Safari is still the #1 competitor to Chrome. Strange there was no mention of it in your article (apologies if I missed it).
In an ideal world, we'd have a variety of browsers all of which use one of several engines (WebKit, Blink, Gecko, hopefully Servo soon, and others). The reason we don't is $$$. That's basically it.
@jaredwhite @harrymccracken Safari is mentioned briefly in other contexts, but yeah, there’s a lot of ground I didn’t attempt to cover, including the importance and influence of WebKit, without which there might be no Chrome at all. I’m interested in this stuff, so I’d like to come back to it!