[maxclark]

First I don't believe this is an effective remedy to break up a Google monopoly, but I have no influence on the DOJ.

I'm curious though, if Google can no longer pay browsers for search engine traffic what is the business model that will sustain development and advancement in the space?

How does a non Google owned Chrome support itself and continue development?

What happens to all the applications that rely on Chrome extensions?

As much as I dislike Google behavior, I don't see this as being a good thing.

[cavisne]

Chrome could probably make a huge amount of money by doing what people assume Google does but actually doesn't - selling users browsing history.

Google uses a complex anonymization/privacy framework to collect some aggregate signals from website visits, but they don't use it directly.

Regulators don't understand this, and technologists who do tend to distrust Google anyway and think they might secretly be using it.

There are all sort so other sketchy things, like what Edge does injecting itself into websites so Microsoft collects affiliate revenue.

There are countries where this wouldn't be allowed, but Google is largely self regulating in its biggest market.

All this would lose Chrome some market share but they are starting from a very dominant position, and for the general public it wouldnt be a big deal - people are already convinced that iOS and android devices are listening to them at all times for ad targeting!

[xvector]

> All this would lose Chrome some market share but they are starting from a very dominant position, and for the general public it wouldnt be a big deal - people are already convinced that iOS and android devices are listening to them at all times for ad targeting!

IMO, journalists are to blame for this perception. All the journalists that pushed this false narrative should be banned from the field. This is what happens when an "anything for clicks" mentality takes over and directly harms society.

[owebmaster]

> Google does but actually doesn't - selling users browsing history

Doing that would make Google lose money, not make money. It is much more useful to be sole owner of this data.

[hysan]

> How does a non Google owned Chrome support itself and continue development?

Possibly by trying to find a business model that can support Chrome development just like all other Chromium (and non-Chromium) based browsers?

As much as I loved Chrome when it first came out, I’ve also been well aware that Google’s backing of Chrome (and Chromium) has given it undue advantages in the browser market by effectively making everyone else compete with a loss leader. If Chrome itself cannot sustain its pace of development or even stay alive without the unlimited funding by Google, then I think that is a good thing and proof that it acting as a monopoly. Forcing Chrome to balance product velocity with revenue constraints evens the field amongst all browsers.

(edit: If Google killing competition by injecting unlimited funding into a project without needing to make a profit sounds familiar, it’s because they’ve done this for a long time. The often cited example being Google Reader.)

[Ferret7446]

> Possibly by trying to find a business model that can support Chrome development just like all other Chromium (and non-Chromium) based browsers?

There is no such business model. Chromium development is almost entirely funded by Google. Other Chromium based browser rely on this humonguous investment of development resources; they would not have a "business model" without this "free handout", except perhaps Microsoft and Edge, who might be able to fund it by doing basically what Google is doing.

[Spivak]

Good? I think sucking the air out of the browser ecosystem might be a good thing so they slow their roll. The breakneck speed Chrome adds features and devs adopt them is part of what makes it so damn expensive to keep up.

[leetnewb]

I think this could be a double edged sword. Slowing down new browser feature/"standards" could allow browser competition, yes. On the other hand, people don't explicitly need a web browser in 2025 like they did in 2015 - many operate mobile-only. Let's say browser features additions fall drastically behind native mobile, and content publishers progressively limit access to native clients only. The web browser market might be more free/open/competitive, but it doesn't mean much if the market just moves beyond the web.

Does the concept of an interoperable world wide web fade into obscurity? In other words, does separating Chrome from Google make the web better, or is Google's investment in the web holding back the death of the web?

[hysan]

Not sure how Chromium development relates to the order of divesting *Chrome* from Google. AFAICT, Google can continue pouring resources into Chromium. Was this an unintentional mixup in your comment?

[soerxpso]

Why would Google pour resources into Chromium if they don't profit off of it anymore?

[hysan]

Great question and one that I hope people would put more thought into. Here are two possible reasons off the top of my head:

- pushing for web ecosystem features that would help their own products (ex: Gmail, docs, etc)

- pushing for web enhancements that back SEO metrics that matter to them (ex: core web vitals)

I don’t think it’s as simple as - no more Chrome == no more investment into Chromium because Chrome/Chromium has been their strongest lever for getting web features that Google wants standardized. Stopping investment in that area cedes control of the web to other players who may have opposing goals to Google.

[ramses0]

When google hit 51%+ of market share in search/mail (back in like 2005) they began to just fund "internet access" in general. They assumed that new users would put more money into googles pockets than other peoples pockets. Virtuous revenue circle.

Nowadays (post Omni-bar), one could argue that "the internet" is really a captive portal from g-browser, g-omnibar, g-search results, g-renderer with "content" being significantly funded by g-ads (of which a significant portion of _that_ is returned to google for search placement).

Take away "any browser at all" and does google then ship "Google Electron, powered by Google" that strips the Omni-bar and is a desktop client / portal into g-search, g-docs, etc... and then close off access to Google apps unless through the Google client?

You can't book uber without the uber client, why are you able to use Google without the google client?

Provide a read-only HTML4.0 version to plebes with lots of popovers and banners saying: "for the best experience..."

It's an interesting thought experiment, letting "the internet" lie fallow as each proprietary database attempts to accrue more content...

[cvhc]

> Possibly by trying to find a business model that can support Chrome development just like all other Chromium (and non-Chromium) based browsers?

What would this business model be like, if, say, Google Chrome is eliminated?

As a reference, in China, very few people use Chrome because Google services are blocked. There are tons of third-party or vendor preinstalled browsers that bundles with bloatwares, put ads/clickbaits on every new tab, and spy on users. I'm pretty sure they are more sustainable than Firefox, former Opera, etc. But that's certainly a privacy dystopia :)

[rootsudo]

That's how it used to be, or did everyone forget Google Toolbar? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Toolbar It sucked in IE days.

But, it also goes back to browsers being built by the operating system, that was also a no-no, e.g. MSFT / IE.

Browsers then shouldn't be a profit center, but ironically google starting chrome made it one and then defined web standards. IE afaik wasn't a profit center, and MSFT hedged outsourcing all dev costs to practically google and forking it offically to Edge, lol.

[bluebarbet]

In China, the vast majority of people are exclusively on mobile, where they use neither browsers nor even Android apps but rather manifold applets that are installed on top of a handful of nightmare spyware super-apps like WeChat.

[bsoft16385]

Incidentally, WeChat mini apps (and the equivalents in AliPay and other services) are essentially specialized websites.

WeChat itself on Android bundles a Chromium-based engine to run these mini apps.

Most people in China are using Chromium frequently, even if they don't think of it as a browser.

[cowl]

we will end up again with edge being dominant just because it's the default one installed by Windows.

what you say is nice in theory but you already have the Microsoft backed Edge and Apple backed Safari that are not hamppered by the "need to find a support model" and "not be a loss leader"

And I am not looking forward again to a world where Microsoft disctates web development because for all privacy problems peaople have or think to have with Google, Microsoft ha proven that does way worse and doesn't even care for the image.

All in All Chrome being a loss leader backed by Google has been a good thing for all involved. Developers, Users and 3-rd parties. without it you woudn't have all those 3rd party chrome based browsers.

[philistine]

The point is simple: Google has a monopoly in search and has used its control of Chrome to maintain that monopoly. There is no monopoly in browsers, and the DOJ has evaluated that selling off Chrome will not adversely affect the browser market. If we go from Chrome having 66% market share to Edge having 66%, but in the interim the search market has seen more entrants competing fairly, wouldn't that be a benefit?

[3vidence]

Then a year later Microsoft will be sued for anti competitive practices involving edge.

If we just keep selling the browser market to the next trillion dollar company that's not going to fix anything

[philistine]

The DOJ logic is its going to fix the search market! Are you seriously believing that it will take a year for people to give Microsoft a monopoly position in browsers (which Google still hasn't achieved) when Google divest itself from Chrome?

Get real, the DOJ forcing Google to get rid of Chrome is one of the best tech news in years!

[TZubiri]

But isn't edge built on chromium?

[nfw2]

Most of these business models you refer to rely on some combination of:

1. funding from Google (Firefox)

2. engineering from Google (Chromium)

3. tech giant bundling (Safari, Edge)

[hysan]

I’m a bit confused by this comment. I didn’t mention any of those and didn’t callout any specific business models for browsers. Just that Chrome would need to figure out how to monetize itself like how other browsers are trying to do. Diving into the different business models that other browsers are trying is a very different conversation that needs nuance. For example, how would Brave and Orion fit into your remark?

[3vidence]

Brave is built on chromium and thus is being subsidized by Google https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser)

I think they used to have their own engine but like everyone else found it unprofitable to maintain.

[notpushkin]

Similarly, Orion is built on WebKit.

Ladybird might be onto something with the sponsorship model, but we’ll have to see how it goes in the next couple of years.

[hysan]

I think this viewpoint is too simplistic in that the assumption is that if Google has to divest Chrome, then there is no benefit to investing in Chromium. I think that is too black and white (see my other comment on why - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43306985).

Let’s do a thought experiment - If Google truly felt that Chromium has no benefit, then smaller players will drive the project and, as others have pointed out, new feature proposals/implementations will slow down. That isn’t a bad thing in my opinion because it allows other engines to not be stuck in catchup mode. The field will start to even out and innovations will start to come from alternative engines. With an even playing field, what was once an unprofitable endeavor can become a differentiator in the browser ecosystem.

[jpc0]

If Google is still paying the maintainers of chromium what would change in your example?

The real question is what happens when Google stops paying Mozilla and Apple unthinkable amounts of money for Google search to be the default on their browsers?

It seems clear that Mozilla intends to just become an ad company themselves and who knows what Apple's response will be, I doubt it's going to be to increase the amount of development on Safari vs where they currently are.

So if Google has to effectively divest from Chromium but still supports it's development but now isn't paying the only two current competitors what is the expected outcome there? Whoever now owns Chromium becomes even more of a monopoly, and Google doesn't even need to pay them to make Google the default for it to be implied they are to be the default or the developers go away.

Maybe in the actual long term we will see an improvement from this decision, but all I see in the short - midterm is more invasive user tracking in all current browsers that isn't Safari, which you can only use on Apple devices anyway.

[cheriot]

> like how other browsers are trying to do

Who is the unsubsidized web browser?

[robotnikman]

At the same time though, being developed under a company which derives most of its revenue from ads seems to be a big conflict of interest to a free and open web. We have already seen this conflict of interest with Manifest V3, which takes away freedom from the users, and almost with remote web attestation before Google held off it's development due to the backlash (but I can see them trying to implement it again while Chrome is still under control of Google/Alphabet.) It also doesn't help that Chrome and the underlying browser engine powers just about every major browser other than Firefox, which is struggling.

So what will sustain the development of browsers like Chrome or Firefox? Well that's the big question... Maybe they will downsize and become a non-profit similar to the Linux Foundation, and receive funding similar to how they do? I can see this have the affect of greatly slowing down the development of various web standards, but would that be such a bad thing?

[colinplamondon]

- Google pays Firefox ~$500M/year for 2.5% market share, 65% market share should get a healthy annual payout for default search status.

- A pure focus on web browser monetization could lead to some interesting enterprise options. Presumably there'll be a lot of attempts to leverage Chromium, and an aggressive fork at some point.

- As AI proliferates, can they pull additional revenue by getting revshare from subscription AI products, alongside SEM? Or even revshare on the SEM clicks themselves?

This could also change the calculus for Apple building a search engine. If they could get an independent Chrome to sign on, with some data sharing provisions to help with development, they'd have a huge leg-up.

Alternatively, maybe they try to create a fusion of search results and AI from a variety of providers, so they can monetize SERPs themselves.

My question would be whether they could get back to aggressive product execution, given the size of the codebase. Acquiring the Browser Company would make a lot of sense.

[burnerthrow008]

Ok, but if Google is not allowed to pay Apple for search referrals, how exactly will it be legal for Google to pay not-Google-Chrome for search referrals?

Chrome's non-iOS market share is probably larger than Safari's market share, so any monopoly considerations about Safari apply equally to Chrome.

[3vidence]

Quick answer it won't be. Google will be barred from paying to be default.

[burnerthrow008]

Yea, that’s what I thought. So let’s take this one step further. If google can’t pay Chrome, how does Chrome hire developers to continue the product?

[NoahZuniga]

> Google pays Firefox ~$500M/year for 2.5% market share, 65% market share should get a healthy annual payout for default search status.

Google gets other value with this besides being the default search engine. Keeping Firefox alive makes it so that Chrome is less of a monopoly.

> and an aggressive fork at some point

Maintaining a browser engine is a lot of work. With no clear upside, no one would invest the work in maintaining a fork. Related to this, Microsoft gave up maintaining a (partially) separate browser engine for Edge, and now just uses Chromium

[surajrmal]

Get ready for having your data sold to everyone. Rather than just a few major players having access, anyone willing to pay will get the raw data rather than something obfuscated through an ads platform.

[AJ007]

There are companies who have actually done this, like the whole Avast Jumpshot debacle. They aren't the only ones.

[colinplamondon]

- Google pays Firefox ~$500M/year for 2.5% market share, 65% market share should get a healthy annual payout for default search status.

- A pure focus on web browser monetization could lead to some interesting enterprise options. Presumably there'll be a lot of attempts to leverage Chromium, and an aggressive fork at some point.

- As AI proliferates, can they pull additional revenue by getting revshare from subscription AI products, alongside SEM? Or even revshare?

This could also change the calculus for Apple building a search engine. If they could get an independent Chrome to sign on, with some data sharing provisions to help with development, they'd have a huge leg-up.

Alternatively, maybe they try to create a fusion of search results and AI from a variety of providers, so they can monetize SERPs themselves.

My question would be whether they could get back to aggressive product execution, given the size of the codebase. Acq

[j16sdiz]

> - Google pays Firefox ~$500M/year for 2.5% market share, 65% market share should get a healthy annual payout for default search status.

Actually, this is hardly healthy. Firefox feel this single source of can be deprived anytime that they tried many other alternative -- like VPN, partnership with pockets, some sponsor ad on tab selection, and even selling some data

Other browsers go even further..

[BearOso]

> Google pays Firefox ~$500M/year for 2.5% market share, 65% market share should get a healthy annual payout for default search status

I'm thinking 500M/year is enough to pay for a lot more developers than they currently have. Even half that should be enough to do more than they are. Where is all this money going?

[Ferret7446]

It's going towards a lot of controversial things unrelated to Firefox development or any open source software development by any reasonable standard. Here's one attempt at breaking down their finances: https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4387539/firefox-money-invest...

[oaththrowaway]

That was fascinating. Thanks for posting that

[magicalist]

> That was fascinating

No it wasn't? They itemized some budget items worth less than a million dollars in total, and then, for each entity getting part of that money they admitted they had no idea who they were or what they did for Mozilla (but one of them had abortion rights mentioned on their blog!)

Incredibly lazy "expose" trying to be a twitter files.

[oaththrowaway]

Why is a company that relies on donations and Google to prop them up pay hundreds of thousands of dollars on that? That's not interesting to you at all?

[notatoad]

in a simple world, a web browser is a tool that is used by an end-user, and so end-users should be the ones paying for it.

whether that's directly as paid software, or indirectly as part of purchasing a device that has the software installed on it.

[john_the_writer]

gha.. Another subscription based app. I can see it now: 2.99/month.

Also we already have browsers pre-installed. Safari and IE(or what ever it's called these days)

There's no call to advance these though. Chrome has profiles. That alone makes it a winner for my use case.

[adrianmonk]

I don't want another subscription-based app, but out of all the software that brings me actual significant value on a daily basis, a web browser is very near the top of the list.

Even though getting it free (as I do right now) is nice, $36/year seems justifiable.

[criddell]

I'm always a little surprised how we (HN readers) are so against paying for software. If any group understands the work that goes into major software packages and the value we derive from it, it should be us.

Who do you think should pay for it? What is the value to them? Do their incentives align well with yours?

[jasode]

>I'm always a little surprised how we (HN readers) are so against paying for software.

I talked about paying $29 for Opera for web browser software before : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16090235

I switched to the free Chrome because it was a better browser. Just because I was paying for software doesn't mean it's a good situation for me.

>Who do you think should pay for it? [...] Do their incentives align well with yours?

Even if I (the customer) directly pay for software instead of ads indirectly paying, it still doesn't mean it's the optimal solution.

I paid $80 for a text editor but after being frustrated with bugs in the latest version, I took a serious look at the free VS Code. I realized that the editor I was paying for had really stagnated and lacking modern features. I should have quit funding them a long time ago.

Another example is Quicken home finance software. Kept paying $60+ annual renewal fee every year and yet the software keeps getting worse. Downloads of credit-card and bank transactions randomly quit working. The ledger balances on my desktop don't match the balances shown online. I had used the software for almost 30 years since the DOS floppy disk days and just finally gave up. I look at the 1-star reviews of Quicken on Amazon and browse the Quicken help forums and everybody complains about the same defects.

Often, what happens is companies don't respect their paying customers because they know they're locked in because of inertia or sunk costs. They just treat their repeat customers as ATM machines and barely improve the software. (E.g. They make superficial cosmetic changes to UI instead of fixing core engine bugs.)

I'm not convinced paying a subscription for a web browser will give me a better browser. Maybe it will. But I doubt it.

[burnerthrow008]

I’m convinced subscription software actively makes this problem worse: with the old model, the developer had to include enough new features and improvements to convince you to open your wallet for a large purchase. With subscription the developer has no incentive to fix anything because the product goes away if you stop paying for it.

[pca006132]

I would argue that subscription is the only sensible model for browser (if payment is needed). For browsers you do want to keep up to date with security patches as well as new features, that is pretty critical for both usability and security.

For normal software you can buy and use some fixed version without too much issues, for browsers you probably need the updates.

Security-wise maybe something like buying a ESR version may be possible, but it will not be cheap and you may miss the new features when some webpage you visit breaks.

[sethammons]

I loath chrome profiles. I use two accounts at the same time in the same window, different tabs. I don't want two windows. Every.F*cking.Day: "which profile do you want to load?". Neither! Leave me alone!

[notatoad]

The alternative to paying for things is that giant megacorporations who have interests in opposition to yours are the ones paying for things…

[wyre]

Safari also has profiles…

[nuker]

> what is the business model that will sustain [Chrome] development

Separate Search + Google Ads platform as company A, Android + Chrome + Gmail as company B.

It will choke the user-data flow that Google Ads platform is feeding on. This opens doors to new competing search engines!

Android + Chrome + Gmail needs to be bundled with hardware purchases, licensed by HW vendors. Like Apple does with Safari + iCloud. This will create incentive to make them actually privacy focused, and could be its selling point.

[geor9e]

You call them Chrome extensions, but they're really Chromium extensions that work on Edge, Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, Arc, etc. Those teams contribute code to the Chromium open source project too. Sure, whoever takes over Chrome won't have Googles juggernaut team pushing Chromium development forward, and maybe that will lead to degradation over time, but it's not like it would cause immediate ecosystem collapse. For all my psychic prediction powers know, getting rid of the monopoly could lead to a renaissance in browser tech via stronger competition. This could go either way.

[nfw2]

In the past, too many competing browsers resulted in a frustrating experience for web application developers.

Does Google have undue influence now? Sure. But I’m not so sanguine about the alternatives either.

[MyOutfitIsVague]

It was more than just too many competing browsers, from what I understand. It was a few competing browsers that interpreted standards completely different, and a standards body that was slow enough to be completely ineffective.

I'd argue that the main problem was not too much competition, but effective anti-competitive behavior (and simple laziness) from Microsoft in particular. The frustrating experience was primarily caused by Internet Explorer.

[Jensson]

We will move back to a worse version of that when Microsoft buys Chrome, since now Google aren't allowed to compete in this space.

[xdennis]

> How does a non Google owned Chrome support itself and continue development?

You're literally pointing out the unfair advantage. The better question is how can all of the competitors manage? The answer is they can't very well because of the unfair advantage which Chrome has. If Chrome was split from Google (and Edge from Microsoft) browsers would be on a more equal playing field.

[fny]

They should have split up ads. Going after Chrome does near nothing especially when it’s already open source.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

> what is the business model that will sustain development and advancement in the space?

Imagine buying a browser

[john_the_writer]

I imagine paying a monthly subscription to a browser company. Browser365 anyone?

[grishka]

Unironically, the world be better off if the "advancement" in the space of web browsers comes to an end. This ever-expanding scope of what a web browser is "supposed" to do and be is good for no one. When it's finite, it's much easier to build a new browser engine from scratch. Which is something we should be doing much more as a society. To that end, I'm really excited about Ladybird.

So, like, let's pick a set of criteria where web standards are considered complete, and move towards that. And when we do reach it, just stop.

[ls612]

The same way Linux does. By being an independent nonprofit that all the big players in the web space fund because it is in all of their interests to do so. Whether such a model can work without a man like Linus Torvalds though is an open question.

[stainablesteel]

is there a better way of breaking up the google monopoly?

[paulryanrogers]

First I'd separate Google Search from everything else. Then the ad marketplace business. Then YouTube. The others are weak enough they could coexist in one organization IMO.

[bagels]

Ads!

[EE84M3i]

Google already monitizes Chrome with chrome enterprise (premium) and similar offerings for education where Chrome OS is used extensively. Schools and enterprises have little choice but to buy these to use chrome securely, and they could easily move even more of the management features behind these paid plans.

They also already charge to be an extension developer and could easily charge much more.

[ok123456]

Chrome for Enterprise is an add-on for Google Workspaces. How does that work if the companies are separate?

[EE84M3i]

That's true but most of the features are for the chrome management panel or client side, which would all presumably be separated from workspace and inherited by the new company. They could then move features from the free tier into the premium tier to put pressure on enterprises and schools to pay.

There are some cross-cutting server side features for context aware access for google workspace and google cloud, which were inherited from beyondcorp enterprise, so those would presumably stay with the real google of course.