[ZeroGravitas]

On desktop the only browsers that use Webkit are Chrome (about 1/3 of the market), Safari (about 1/10) and now Opera (currently unreleased). So roughly two thirds of the market are on non-webkit engines which I think contradicts your argument as there's still competition there.

However, on mobile (a market which Chrome has only just entered) you could say that webkit is dominant and that we can already see problems there. To be honest though, I think that's misleading. Mobile Safari has been ridiculously dominant compared with other webkits, in mind and marketshare, and it's that monoculture causing the problems we currently see.

Serious new contenders like Chrome and Opera entering the mobile market with webkit renderers will, I think, actually help that situation to some degree by actually competing with Mobile Safari and not being half-hearted also-rans.

[Turing_Machine]

According to Statcounter.com's current numbers, Chrome is 36.9%, Safari is 8.57%, and Opera is 1.2% = 46.67%, leaving 53.3% for everything else. That's not "roughly two thirds".

Also, Safari and Chrome are both trending upwards, everything else is trending downwards.

http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-monthly-200807-201302

[eterm]

When it comes to mobile, "everything else" is the android default which is also webkit.

[bsimpson]

iOS browsers have to use WebCore for rendering/JS, but WebKit has always been optional but default on Android, WebOS, Bada, etc.

Once you consider that mobile != iOS, it seems silly to say Mobile Safari is the ridiculously dominant platform.

[etherealG]

i think you're forgetting opera's massive use in the far east. aren't they overall more used than ios on mobile if you count global stats?