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echelon10/11/20241 replyview on HN

This is why we need to break up Google.

Google is a de facto monopoly. They own the entire web. The gateway, the browser, the protocols, advertising, discovery.

Google is too big.


Replies

ragnese10/11/2024

Sure, but we saw this coming a mile away (as in, people have been saying this about Chrome for about a decade). People--especially tech nerds--didn't have to switch to the closed source, conflict-of-interest, browser. But, everyone did, and this is what we get for it. We now have proprietary DRM built in to the web standards, and all kinds of other bullshit, because a bunch of people decided to not learn any lessons at all from Microsoft and Internet Explorer.

But, every time Mozilla does something slightly abrasive, HN users pile on about how Mozilla is ruining their privacy-respecting reputation, and then go back to using Chrome... The double-standard is really something else.

Maybe instead of getting someone else to break up Google for us, we could just... stop using their shit? I'm typing this from Firefox, I use Proton Mail (and pay for it!) for email, and I mostly search with DuckDuckGo (I know that's not perfect, either). I certainly don't feel like I'm living like a caveman...

/rant

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