[ohso4]

> Users don’t pay for Chrome. There aren’t ads in Chrome. There is no direct business model for Chrome. Unlike Safari and Firefox, nobody writes checks to Chrome to make a certain search engine the default.

They track you. There IS a business model for Chrome: monetizing user data.

[fiddlerwoaroof]

There isn’t a business model for a company whose product is just chrome, though. Unless it’s some kind of foundation or non-profit with a sufficient endowment to not need a business model.

I’m no fan of Google, but—unless people really want browser subscriptions—I don’t see how you can have a browser company today. They exist better as a byproduct of some other business model.

[CaffeineLD50]

Browsers aren't a product because massive companies give it away and destroy the market.

If any product was given away by massively rich companies there would be "no market" for it, because it was destroyed.

[protimewaster]

Massive companies give away operating systems, but there seems to still be a market for them, so I don't think this statement is universally true.

[fiddlerwoaroof]

Well, I for one don't want to pay $15/mo for my browser: I'm happy for it to be the complement of some company's product.

[dns_snek]

I'm so confused when I read takes like that. The only way advertising can be sustainable under capitalism is if every $1 spent on advertising generates >= $1 of profit for advertisers, keeping in mind that ad networks take a share of revenue, say 30%.

This means that you as a consumer have to spend at least $1 (likely more - profit not revenue) for every $0.70 of value you receive in "free" services. Being supportive of ad-supported services is therefore financially irrational.

[fooker]

Reminder than when you use seemingly impeccable logic and arrive at the wrong conclusion, it's the logic that is wrong somewhere because of a missed assumption.

No, people are not going to pay much for browsers and websites, that's why ad supported products and services exist. Otherwise someone would make better software and charge for it. The only way this works is government intervention, which is what's happening here.

[thfuran]

No, people mostly won't pay because ad-supported free alternatives exist.

[arccy]

They only need to make money in aggregate, they might make $0 out of you, but $2 out of someone else.

[consteval]

This is where tech arrogance comes in. We very much like to believe we’re the zero.

Judging by how much hyper-consumerist behavior I see in myself and my coworkers, we’re not. Everyone is constantly buying shit they don’t need and then justifying it.

[CaffeineLD50]

Yet you pay for Netflix and your internet and phone bill. But these could be given away by surveillance advertising firms to snoop your watching, surfing, and calling habits.

As the saying goes, if the product is free, YOU are the product.

[Jensson]

> Yet you pay for Netflix and your internet and phone bill. But these could be given away by surveillance advertising firms to snoop your watching, surfing, and calling habits.

You do know most of those companies do both charge you and sell your data? Almost the only companies that don't sell your data are big tech advertising companies.

"When you don't pay you are the product" doesn't mean "If you pay you aren't the product", you still are the product the company is just double dipping.

[thfuran]

Right. The ISPs and cellphone providers and TV manufacturers are all in on the data collection game.

[fiddlerwoaroof]

I think the saying is oversimplified (or else, chrome isn’t a product but a byproduct). It makes a company to make the complement of their product cheap or free so that people can use their product more effectively. Google Search and Ads rely on people having a browser. Similarly, Apple’s Phones and laptops are benefited by including a good first party browser. Imo, a lot of technologies are better as free byproducts of monetized technology than as being some company’s products: there are endless lists of great technologies that never found a market or disappeared post-acquisition.

[blfr]

I don't pay for Netflix and a rival good (like ISP infra) is completely different from some compiled computer code (like a browser).

[Mindwipe]

Your phone provider does sell your information.

The majority of Netflix users over the next few years will be advertising based users. That just doesn't bring in enough profit because people are not willing to pay enough subscription to cover what those things actually cost.

Your hypothesis has a bit of a gaping hole where "real world user behaviour" sits.

[adrr]

My ISP is selling my data as well. Netflix is snooping on what i watch for their ads. Chrome is free. Bigger fish to fry than my web browser snooping on me like your bank selling all credit card transactions your car snooping on your driving and your mobile carrier selling your location.

[dave4420]

Browsers shouldn’t be a product because any modern operating system that doesn’t come with a web browser is defective.

A browser is an operating system feature.

I mean, you can get alternative file manager programs. Pay for them, even. But most people will never bother.

[jen20]

> A browser is an operating system feature.

Microsoft fought and (largely speaking) lost an entire case about that assertion [1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....

[dave4420]

Yeah. I think that was the wrong decision. The problem was introducing features between IE and IIS and using that to extend their end user OS monopoly into a server OS monopoly. MS should have been blocked from the server OS market instead (or maybe some some of consent decree, I’m sceptical it would have been appropriately enforced though).

[tensility]

That's more or less also what Google does with Chrome in order to force folks to use it and only it. I know that well because I have Chromium installed for this reason alone.

[fooker]

> I think that was the wrong decision.

Could be. But this decision is why we even have other browsers.

[snowwrestler]

> There isn’t a business model for a company whose product is just chrome, though.

Yes there is, it is the same business model Chrome has now, but with overt pricing. In other words if you can understand why Chrome is valuable to Google now, then you can understand what Chrome-the-standalone-business would put a price tag on.

Google benefits from the data that Chrome collects. So Chrome-the-business would collect the same data and charge Google for it.

But it could also sell that data to other companies too. This would create competition which would lead to better pricing and more innovation. That is why it is a remedy for a monopoly.

The history of antitrust is full of stuff like this. Standard Oil used to own all the gas stations in the country. AT&T used to be the only company that sold telephones.

[the_other]

> There isn’t a business model for a company whose product is just chrome, though.

This isn’t relevant, from the perspective of the ruling.

It might be relevant from the perspective of Chrome-the-business and from Chrome-users’ perspectives.

[burnerthrow008]

It isn’t relevant that the thing you want to split off won’t be able to stand on its own two feet? Wouldn’t it be simpler to simply require Google to burn the source code?

And what is the point of the breakup if everyone (including consumers/users) is worse off? Is the point of government to make people better off, or just to maximize the number of paperclips produced?

[Jensson]

> And what is the point of the breakup if everyone (including consumers/users) is worse off? Is the point of government to make people better off, or just to maximize the number of paperclips produced?

In this case this is pushed by other tech companies that want to buy data from Chrome, or they want to move users from the web to their apps where they can be more user hostile.

This is what happens when the government is controlled by corporations.

[danaris]

If Chrome cannot succeed on its own, but under Google it is an oppressive force taking over the vast majority of web marketshare, that is a textbook case for antitrust action. That is Google using its dominance in one market (search, advertising) to expand into and dominate another market (web browsers).

If a hypothetical Chrome Corp. couldn't figure out how to use the exact same data Google is harvesting with the browser to at least move in the direction of profitability, then they're hypothetically idiots.

[Jensson]

> If a hypothetical Chrome Corp. couldn't figure out how to use the exact same data Google is harvesting with the browser to at least move in the direction of profitability, then they're hypothetically idiots.

Selling that data to the government and other corporations is user hostile though, and that is exactly what is going to happen when Google is forced to sell.

I can see why the government would love this though so it makes sense they pursue this hard now,

[danaris]

I'm genuinely unsure whether it's better or worse now, with Google having the exclusive rights to that data and using it for its own purposes.

(It's probably a bit better, assuming the hypothetical sale is to all comers, but still...)

[solardev]

I really do want a browser subscription or purchase, so that its incentives are aligned with mine and not the advertisers'.

Paid browsers used to be common in the past, and ones like Netcaptor gave us tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, etc. Opera was great too. Netscape itself used to be paid at first. It was big companies like Microsoft and Google tyring to EEE the web by giving away free browsers that killed the thriving browser marketplace and led to monopolies like the ones we have now.

There very much can be a browser market and business model IF antitrust were actually enforced.

Divest that shit yesterday.

[chneu]

I would like to point out that your perception of what a browser can/should be is based on what Google has turned browsers into.

What a browser is in 2025 is vastly different from what anyone thought they would ever be. There are major, major issues with the way web engines/web browsers function today and much of those issues stem from Google's near monopoly on browsers.

There was a lot of very interesting and good discussion around this in some of the Mozilla/Firefox threads recently. Mostly about how browsers turned into something they were never meant to be, which has changed the way the internet works and how we interact with it.

[amrocha]

What do browsers do that they weren’t meant to?

The only thing that comes to mind is password management. But I would also argue that’s a boon for normal users and trust in the web.

[light_hue_1]

Restrict extensions for "security" reasons. Which just killed most ad blockers in Chrome.

Speed up the web with AMP that gives one company control over everything.

[amrocha]

I think security is within the purview of a browser. Even if I disagree with the implementation.

And AMP is not a browser feature.

[darkwater]

> What do browsers do that they weren’t meant to?

For example, asking you straight on first launch to log into your Google account, for your "benefit".

[amrocha]

In a multi device world that makes sense though. If you save your passwords on your phone, you don’t want to lose them all if that phone breaks.

[chneu]

They're basically sandboxed OSes now. This was discussed at length in the recent Mozilla threads, especially in relation to waterfox and other forks of gecko.

[tim333]

I'm not sure I get tracked that much more by Google while using Chrome than using Firefox? I still google stuff there and don't bother with privacy things because honestly in ~30 years of using the web I've yet to find a reason to care about ad tracking.

[inetknght]

> nobody writes checks to Chrome to make a certain search engine the default

And some people wonder how Chrome could ever make money if it were divested from Google...

[andrewflnr]

Would that be a better world than we have now, though, if Chrome was nominally separate from Google but still only exists because Google pays for it? It seems like the same thing with extra steps.

[paulryanrogers]

If Chrome cannot be owned by Google (nor Alphabet) then that is an important separation. It means Chrome could auction off the rights. Much as Firefox offers non-Google search in certain markets, which happened in the US at least once.

[thewebguyd]

I believe the default search payments are also part of the antitrust case, so likely those payments will also become illegal, also affecting Firefox and Apple/Safari.

[paulryanrogers]

I don't think it's illegal for anyone to buy defaults. Rather, just for large players with outsized market share.

[phailhaus]

Can you clarify? Does Chrome track you, or do websites track you using cookies stored in Chrome?

[tgv]

By their own admission, "not only does Google collect your name and email address, Google also collects your physical address, your exact location, your contacts, advertising data, product interaction, search, and browsing history." [1] And that's Chrome (a Safari wrapper at that moment) on iOS. You may assume they collect at least as much on platforms they own.

[1] https://techstartups.com/2021/03/18/google-finally-revealed-...

[phailhaus]

But Chrome is not "collecting" this information secretly. Users are voluntarily giving this information to associate with their Google account. Chrome "collects" your physical address because it gives you the option of saving what "Home" is to your account, and a lot of people like that feature, so they use it.

[tgv]

That's not the point in this discussion, IMO.

Besides which, we probably differ a great deal about "voluntarily giving." To me, it sounds like the defense of the mob. "These people gave us their money voluntarily. Ask them!"

> Chrome "collects" your physical address because

Because it reads your IP address and Wifi access point, and can compare that to a list of known ip addresses and access points, which they collect with their Maps cars.

[consteval]

Voluntary is a tricky word. Choice isn’t binary, in fact it’s not even discrete.

They’re subtly, in millions of ways, most predating the Internet, manipulated into making that choice. And, more importantly, believing they willingly made that choice.

Consumer behavior is complex and is the result of hundreds of years of technology and economic growth. If I plop some hypothetical human who is on his first day on Earth, he probably wouldn’t make that choice.

[phailhaus]

At some point, the user has to take responsibility. If you ask Google to save your home address, you can't then turn around and go "Chrome is collecting my physical address!!"

[consteval]

The responsibility can, and should, be spread between all responsible parties, not just concentrated at the end-point.

This requires a reframing of how responsibility is thought about in the US, but we do think this way sometimes. We kneecapped many industries we’ve felt have influenced poor choices in individuals.

[csande17]

Why not both?

Chrome consistently pushes to make it easier for websites to track you -- by being the slowest browser to incorporate privacy protections like third-party cookie isolation, by eliminating extension APIs used by ad/tracker blockers, and by adding new features which expose more fingerprinting surface to websites. This disproportionately benefits Google because Google runs some of the largest web tracking networks (reCaptcha, Google Analytics, AdSense, etc). Even if Chrome was separate from Google, Google (along with other ad companies) could probably keep paying them to sabotage users' privacy.

Chrome also directly uploads a lot of data to Google. It's technically possible to use Chrome without syncing your browser history to your Google account, but a surprising number of people I know mysteriously managed to turn on sync without knowing it. Other Chrome data-collection initiatives, like Core Web Vitals, also provide a lot of value to Google's other businesses. Those are other products that Google could pay directly for.

[snackernews]

Is that a distinction without a difference from an end user perspective?

Chrome’s defaults are the main reason anybody is tracked by cross-site cookies any more, and that tracking massively and directly benefits Google’s business.