smeg ,

It's concerning to see how much power Google really holds over small websites

"I understand that Google doesn't owe us or anyone else traffic," says Navarro, of HouseFresh. "But Google controls the roads. If tomorrow they decide the roads won't go to an entire town, that town dies. It's too much power to just shrug and say, 'Oh well, it's just the free market,'" she says.

As we've seen so many times, they got their foot in the door by actually being the best, but now only really keep that position by paying to be the default on most devices. Given how Microsoft were forced to offer browser choices on Windows, is there hope that Google are forced to offer choices on Android and Chrome?

jarfil ,
@jarfil@beehaw.org avatar

Google controls one set of roads, people choose which roads to use.

On Android, you're free to install any browser and search engine you wish. For example, "Bing for Android" is already a thing.

smeg ,

Just because there is a choice doesn't mean that the casual user is aware of it. You could always chose to install Firefox on Windows, but Microsoft still got done for pushing IE as the default.

jarfil ,
@jarfil@beehaw.org avatar

MS got dinged because they claimed Windows couldn't work without MSIE, which was a lie... and they had a large market share.

Nowadays Apple forces everyone to use Safari on iOS, and nobody bats an eye.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • [email protected]
  • kbinchat
  • All magazines