As the ball of mud that is web standards grows, the less likely that it becomes that things can “sort themselves out”. Even as things are you need a literal army of developers to build and maintain a modern standards compliant browser, making any real threat to Chromium dominance unlikely, and that only intensifies as Google rolls ever more crap into the katamari. If users can then be harassed into switching to Chromium based browsers it’s likely that it will never be toppled short of some new technology superseding the web entirely.
If Google abusing it’s dominant position in web browsers is a problem then the solution is legislation and anti trust action. Letting Apple abuse its own position because it currently provides benefit is not a good approach.
Same thing played out with ads and tracking a few years ago, and now look at the ads situation in the App Store.
Are you talking about Google or Apple? Because Apple is being sued by the DOJ for monopolistic and anticompetitive behavior. There are numerous examples of it spelled out in the lawsuit:
Both of them. To the extent that Google uses their position with chrome to give themselves in another domain they should be sued. Likewise, Apple refusing to allow consumers to install whatever applications they want on their own devices is so egregiously anticompetitive.
In their wildest of wet dreams Microsoft didn’t imagine they could get away with what Apple is getting away with.
I can do neither, actually. I can merely observe reality as it is and look at which forces affect the direction of the world. And right now, I observe a reality where one of the most significant forces which counteract a completely Chromium dominated web is Apple's user-hostile insistence on preventing browser engine competition on iOS.
I have very little faith in a legislative solution here since I believe politicians care about browsers, not browser engines. They see Chrome, Brave, Vivaldi, Edge and Opera and see a diverse marketplace with sufficient browser competition. They don't seem to care about the technical monoculture behind it all.
Apple doesn't even make Safari for the world's dominant platforms - Windows and Android, yet they continue to hold back progress in web browsers on all platforms to protect their own profit on their walled-garden platform.
They need to wrap up the DOJ lawsuit against Apple, but I fear the current administration will look the other way because "Tim Apple" gave the guy in charge a golden trophy. I wish I were joking.
