[shados]

> That's just not true

Its true enough: it keeps happening. Patch it out or resist all you want, it doesn't matter if you have to acknowledge and deal with its existence, if only because of the amount of energy it takes to push back against it. If it doesn't have a feature you want because they disagree, you can add it to your browser of choice, but it doesn't matter because you still won't be able to use it.

It's exactly what we're seeing with firefox. They could implement feature XYZ, but it would be irrelevant because no one (web developers) could use it.

[gridlockd]

You just moved from "market leader can dictate the standard" to "market leader can dictate what developers will want to target".

But with that premise, having a standard or not doesn't determine the outcome. Market share determines the outcome. The standards are just recommendations, nothing forces Google or anyone else to implement them.

[shados]

Fair enough, my wording was bad.

Let's just go with something simpler: Google having the control it has on the implementation (and thus, most everyone else because to make a useful browser you have to make it mostly compatible with Google's implementation that everyone will target) is bad.