[roenxi]

> So, say you want to create a new web standard...

This and the following image have a misguided understanding of the market. We know how this situation plays out because we ran exactly that experiment in the 2000s with Firefox and IE6. Those market share numbers are contingent on Google doing the best possible job as curators insofar as the userbase can tell.

If there are browser features that users want (like tabs) or web standards that enable Cool New Stuff (like modern JS) then users will go out of their way to install browsers that support them. Firefox got all the way to around 20-30% of the market before MS's control of the web collapsed and we entered the current era.

The "problem" that competitors of Google face is that Google is a rather competent steward of web standards. Their browser engine is hard to compete with because it is very good, their web standards are hard to compete with because they are largely appropriate.

Although I stand by a prediction I have that the next wave will be when a Brave-like model takes hold and the price of browsing the web drops from free to negative. With crypto we are surely getting to spitting distance of advertisers paying users directly to look at ads instead of paying Google to organise the web such that users look at ads.

[1vuio0pswjnm7]

"If there are browser features that users want (like tabs) or webs standards that enable Cool Stuff (like modern JS) then users will go out of their way to install browser that support them."

Pretty sure that tabs were introduced by a software developer without any prior request from any user.

Same goes for "Cool Stuff". Few users even know what JS means, except that if they do not use it or disable it, they will constantly be met with pages instructing them, even commanding them, to enable it or use a browser that supports it. These were introduced by software developers on their own initiative. Users will go out of their way to try to make stuff work. If a page instructs them to install some software, then, generally, they will follow the instructioins.

Once users become familiar with something then they will expect it. That is quite different from users asking for something that does not exist. (Usually such requests for features are never filled as they would go against advertisers' interests in web browsers. Users want a web free of ads. Software developers depend on a web full ads. In this regard, users do not get what they want. Software developers do.)

Users have little control over web browsers. Software developers at the advertising companies, e.g., Google, and their business partners, e.g. Mozilla, have the control. The companies serve their own interests and the interests of their customers who purchase online advertising service. Those customers are advertisers, not users.

For example, browsers like Firefox and Chrome have at times hidden the full URL from the user in the address bar. No user ever requested that. Nor were any users asked if they wanted it. Chrome introduced a feature called FLoC. No user ever requested that. Nor was any user asked if they wanted it. The list of "features" like this is ridiculously long.

Users do not get features because they "want" them. They get the features that software developers decide to give them, without prior consultation.

Whether they want the features or not, they generally are stuck with them.

[Gormo]

> Pretty sure that tabs were introduced by a software developer without any prior request from any user.

I'm sure many, many features were introduced by software developers without any prior request from users. Users then selected what software to use based on which of those features they like the best.

This is how most product design works -- features are developed prior to being marketed, and users subsequently validate them or not -- which is analogous to how new biological phenotypes develop from random genetic mutations prior to being filtered through selection pressures.

> Few users even know what JS means, except that if they do not use it or disable it, they will constantly be met with pages instructing them, even commanding them, to enable it or use a browser that supports it. These were introduced by software developers on their own initiative.

And then users validated those introductions of new features and they became standard. This happened with JavaScript, because JavaScript enabled websites to do things users wanted to do. Conversely, the market didn't largely validate Web VBScript, Java applets, and a wide variety of other now-forgotten solutions for adding dynamic content to websites.

> Software developers at the advertising companies, e.g., Google, and their business partners, e.g. Mozilla, have the control.

No, that's very, very incorrect. Vendors can only introduce products and features -- whether or not they stick around and develop further is up to the market, via the complex interplay of end users and site authors.

[bigfudge]

Chromes replacement of Firefox had more to do with aggressive marketing and deliberate poor performance of their web properties like gmail on non-Google browsers. Not sure how much consumer self direction was involved.

[sdwr]

As a user at the time, Chrome just looked better than FF. It was fresh and clean. The logo was brighter, the UI was rounder and clearer.

FF looked like a Windows 98 settings menu by comparison. Tiny, fiddly, cramped controls.

[paulryanrogers]

Also a user at the time. Chrome was barren, empty, and used too much memory. It used tricks to feel faster yet wasn't significantly better for the sites I used. Chrome was also less customizable.

[Gormo]

> Not sure how much consumer self direction was involved.

It was entirely consumer self-direction, as neither browser was preinstalled by default on any platform, and all usage of either was initiated by a deliberate end-user choice.

"Aggressive marketing" indeed only has its effect through "consumer self-direction" as its whole purpose is to persuade end users to make a purposeful decision.

[hobs]

There were huge campaigns where google was paying per install, many of these installs were surreptitious. When you create standards that only play well in your garden then the only people making decisions are you and the devs writing them, the users either play along or cant use CORPORATE_WEB_APP - hence why IE is STILL around today.

[Talanes]

You can do all that, but if you have a noticeable gap in parity on features that users actually care you'll just be the secondary utility browser. Like Internet Explorer traditionally was.

[Gormo]

And yet the current dominance of Chrome, having decisively displaced IE in all use cases except entrenched legacy ones with high switching costs, conclusively disproves the very point you are making: nearly everyone did switch away from IE despite Microsoft doing the exact things you are describing.

[hobs]

The monopoly of Chrome over the marketplace suggests you are wrong, with enough money to move around you can implement AMP for instance, nobody wanted it but everyone wanted the money, so they played along.

[Gormo]

> The monopoly of Chrome over the marketplace suggests you are wrong

It would seem to suggest the exact opposite, since the "monopoly" (sic; actually dominance in a competitive space) you are referring to is the product entirely of user adoption at scale.

[marginalia_nu]

> If there are browser features that users want (like tabs) [...] then users will go out of their way to install browsers that support them.

The prerequisite of this is that such a web browser exists, which is not a given. I'd sacrifice an arm for a web browser that has non-disappearing natively themed scroll bars since due to accessibility issues I struggle with scroll wheels.

This is not a big technical ask, yet to date, the only one I've found that offers this is Falkon, which unfortunately stuck on an old version of qt's webkit port meaning a bunch of websites break with it.

You have a lot of choices but almost all of them are the same, or suck; or both.

[severine]

I'd sacrifice an arm for a web browser that has non-disappearing natively themed scroll bars since due to accessibility issues I struggle with scroll wheels.

Doesn't Firefox work at this?

1.Go to about:preferences or open the Firefox preferences via the UI

2.Scroll down until you get to a section titled "Browsing", or search for "scroll"

3.Check the setting "Always show scrollbars"

ref: https://superuser.com/questions/1720362/firefox-scroll-bar-d...

Go Marginalia!

[marginalia_nu]

Problem is that it's too narrow, makes it hard to click. That's why I'm specifically looking for a native widget.

[tutipop]

In about:config

  widget.non-native-theme.scrollbar.size.override 20 
  widget.non-native-theme.scrollbar.style  4
  widget.gtk.overlay-scrollbars.enabled   false

I even use a custom gtk.css to improve things further:

  scrollbar, scrollbar button, scrollbar slider {
    -GtkScrollbar-has-backward-stepper: true;
    -GtkScrollbar-has-secondary-forward-stepper: true;
    -GtkScrollbar-has-forward-stepper: true;
    min-width: 20px;
    min-height: 20px;
    border-radius: 0;
  }

It's a shame we have to resort to this to get decent scrollbar behavior.

[kwhitefoot]

Thank you! How the hell is anyone supposed to discover things like this?

[zzo38computer]

Software should include documentation, which should mention all of the commands used there, so that you can know how to do it. Unfortunately, many of the settings are not very well documented, and the document is hard to find.

[Vinnl]

Good luck designing a UI that includes settings for scrollbar width and other settings of that granularity in which any of those settings are discoverable...

[Zambyte]

> Their browser engine is hard to compete with because it is very good, their web standards are hard to compete with because they are largely appropriate.

Can you elaborate on what you mean when you say "good" and "appropriate"? Good for whom? Appropriate why?

[Terr_]

Not OP, but the subtext I got was that Google--as a browser vendor--doesn't usually push features/standards so obviously broken/harmful that the rest of the ecosystem rebels.

[Zambyte]

Not usually, but here is one fairly recent and high profile counter example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Environment_Integrity

[JimDabell]

They’ve done this repeatedly – WebUSB, Web Bluetooth, WebMIDI, and AMP, off the top of my head. Time and time again, Google have pushed a spec that both Mozilla and Apple reject on privacy or security grounds.

[marcosdumay]

I agree it looks like what the OP is saying. And I do agree with the siblings, in that it's completely wrong.

You could have said the same about IE during most of the time it lead, with the exact same rationale.

[GoblinSlayer]

Usually it's salesmen who want Slow New Stuff, users want fast interoperable software. And to force them install one electron app per site they need to be nagged by "we don't like your browser" error pages.

[darreninthenet]

This is coming around full circle to the early days of the internet when people had toolbars installed on their browser that displayed adverts and they slowly earned pennies for the time they spent browsing (and seeing the toolbar adverts).

[meristohm]

Won't the price then be the electricity to prove work (if that's the variety of crypto used, and that question may reveal my ignorance on the subject)?

[Hasu]

> With crypto we are surely getting to spitting distance of advertisers paying users directly to look at ads instead of paying Google to organise the web such that users look at ads.

Who would take that deal? Getting paid $.02 in some cryptocurrency to look at an ad? So that I can then maybe spend more money on the product being advertised? Why would I ever agree to that? It's a bad deal for me. Why would the ad agency do that? It's a bad deal for them versus paying for captive eyeballs.

[roenxi]

> Why would I ever agree to that?

You're already looking at the ad. $0.02 > $0.00, so the situation is a strict improvement.

[Hasu]

No, it isn't. I use AdBlock and generally when I allow ads it's because I have no other way to pay someone who made something I appreciate.

I am happy to pay money to remove ads, but it would take a lot more money paid to me to add them in! Certainly not an amount that would be worth advertisers to pay me.

[roenxi]

Well, ok then this feature isn't for you. But you have an extra option if you want to make $0.02.

But in practice we know there is large group of people working to fund the internet, and I reckon the fair split might turn out to be that all of them (ad viewer, ad placer and content provider) get a slice instead of just the last 2. Think of it as the ad viewer's subsidy for supporting people who use ad blockers.

[digging]

> So that I can then maybe spend more money on the product being advertised?

You can spend it on anything you like, actually.