[paulryanrogers]

In the early 2010s a ballot appeared for new users on Windows [0], though the legal requirement expired only a few years later.

It helped other browsers gain market share. Sadly it's not enough alone. Major web players can promote their own browser and sabotage others, even if only by neglecting to test them. IMO a permanent ballot law is needed alongside restrictions from major web vendors pushing their own browser's and relying on their own browsers non-standard features.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrowserChoice.eu

[zamadatix]

Do you perhaps mean to argue you think it helped other browsers lose users slower than they otherwise might have? From your link:

> Competing browsers saw their traffic increase,[16] suggesting that these smaller competing developers were gaining users. However, long-term trends show browsers such as Opera and Firefox losing market share in Europe, calling into question the usefulness of the browser choice screen.[1]

Opera is the smaller competitor referred to in both halves and it lost user share in Europe while this was in effect. About the only thing the ballot can claim is a loss in users of the 1st party browser IE but that effect was already occurring prior to the ballot anyways.

[paulryanrogers]

On the whole it did only slow the tide. Yet it wasn't enough alone, limited to one OS, in one market, for only ~4 years, at a time when Google was pushing its own from some of the world's most popular services. Still, every victory is worth celebrating.

Moping every time a (modestly successful) approach is brought up isn't going to move the needle.

Dominant browsers rely on many tricks to gain and hold their position. It will take more than one approach to restore a balance.

[zamadatix]

I appreciate you consider it key but that several others are disagreeing whether something was successful is not them simply moping it was successful but not enough :). Keep in mind this all started out with this being the only way to get people on other browsers like how it had already worked in the EU so that's going to have steered more disagreement in the conversation than you might expect.

I think the browser ballot style thing may have hurt more than it helped in the long run. E.g. users clicking things they don't understand during the initial setup of their computer (while a whole lot of other things they don't really deal with often are going on too) may have actually resulted in some extra short term download hits that immediately scared those users away from spending time trying other browsers out once they realize what their selection meant in terms of change. How many users that clicked on Maxthon and were confused/disappointed with a (then) Trident based browser that wasn't quite IE? Hard to say but the data isn't jumping out to show the opposite.

I agree it would take more than one approach to restore the balance but I disagree that means all approaches are inherently helpful to roll out, let alone inherently key. The ballot initiative didn't result in any measurable change, even against the tide when compared to other regions, and simultaneously focuses both people and discussion away from major issues like the tricks dominant players actually use to gain market share. E.g. Microsoft had IE (and later Edge) bundled as the default choice after the ballot and share continued to decline up until they used these other working tactics which have resulted in it becoming the 2nd most used desktop browser again.