What is stopping someone; say the FSF or some other group championing libre software from coming up with their own web engine completely different from the incumbent engines?
Building a browser engine is hard, especially when the target is moving at a rapid pace, and that target is controlled by Google. Like it or not, the web as it is today, is pretty much driven by Google (and to a lesser extent by Apple and Microsoft) these days. They can throw infinite resources into developing the browser engine and the browser itself. The closest competitor we have today is likely Servo, and they scrape by on pennies.
Developing something from scratch, with even less funding and expertise than Servo is a non-starter. It’s not going to happen. Sure, sure, there’s LadyBird and some other independent efforts, but I very highly doubt they’ll ever catch up to the three major engines.
To develop and maintain a browser, you need people, and they need to be paid. Paying open source developers is… quite a big problem in and of itself, even for things considerably easier and smaller in scale than a web browser.
surely if Web Devs tell them to go pound sand, or intentionally break the site when using Google Chrome, and put a message saying, “Go to Firefox / Safari for a better experience”, that will make Google backtrack.
They would not, because for every developer who would do this, there’s 100 who would not, because their livelihood depends on people with Google browsers being able to use their stuff. Google is in a position of power here: they are the #1 search engine, they are the #1 browser, they’re pretty well positioned on the mobile phone market too. The vast majority of businesses (companies or individuals, doesn’t matter) simply can’t afford to go against Google.
If the vast majority would, then yeah, Google would backtrack. But that would require a coordinated effort, from the vast majority of the internet. Likely multiple months of protest. That’s not going to happen, people can’t afford it.
Building a browser engine is hard, especially when the target is moving at a rapid pace, and that target is controlled by Google. Like it or not, the web as it is today, is pretty much driven by Google (and to a lesser extent by Apple and Microsoft) these days. They can throw infinite resources into developing the browser engine and the browser itself. The closest competitor we have today is likely Servo, and they scrape by on pennies.
Developing something from scratch, with even less funding and expertise than Servo is a non-starter. It’s not going to happen. Sure, sure, there’s LadyBird and some other independent efforts, but I very highly doubt they’ll ever catch up to the three major engines.
To develop and maintain a browser, you need people, and they need to be paid. Paying open source developers is… quite a big problem in and of itself, even for things considerably easier and smaller in scale than a web browser.
They would not, because for every developer who would do this, there’s 100 who would not, because their livelihood depends on people with Google browsers being able to use their stuff. Google is in a position of power here: they are the #1 search engine, they are the #1 browser, they’re pretty well positioned on the mobile phone market too. The vast majority of businesses (companies or individuals, doesn’t matter) simply can’t afford to go against Google.
If the vast majority would, then yeah, Google would backtrack. But that would require a coordinated effort, from the vast majority of the internet. Likely multiple months of protest. That’s not going to happen, people can’t afford it.