I had a misunderstanding with Google earth vs maps. I used Google maps in Firefox just fine, and that is what I meant earlier.
I was unaware even of the existence of a web based version of Earth. The last time I used Google earth was as a desktop client. That was back when I worked in the Air Force Weather Wing almost a year ago. Have they done away with the desktop client?
Starting over with whether or not this is anticompetitive; who are they repressing by giving away free software that runs on other free software? Does this software need to be used?
This all seems to hinge around this part of what you are saying:
> When you release software that only works on your platform that you aren't open to outside comments on, then you are forcing others to implement it, warts and all, or lose users.
The option to lose users here is huge. How is this different than microsoft making excel and only supporting it on windows? I choose not to use excel at least in part because it doesn't run on any platform I care to use. I feel I should clarify here, I don't condone this obnoxious behavior from microsoft or Google. I think it is wrong from the stance that all software should inter-operate smoothly and be open source, but it doesn't seem illegal or even unethical.
The answer for a users to both Earth and excel seems to be to use some other competing software. For mapping software something like openstreetmap or even some other Google software like Google maps (or even a pay for solution). For spreadsheets I use libreoffice.
Even if this is anti-competitive it seems so minor that it dilutes the meaning of the term. Lumping this in with things like the Dr DOS fiasco just doesn't seem right. For reference in the Dr DOS times there was a DOS competitor to microsoft's DOS. Dr DOS was a relatively bug free DOS and it worked fine with windows until the 3.0 release (I think). Until this specific version/patch started intermittently causing windows to not run if Dr DOS was detected even though it was advertised as working. The end result was Dr DOS being run out of business because it looked like a bug in Dr DOS and sometime ms even claimed such. The Dr DOS team was very overtly fucked by ms.
Nothing about most of the things brought up in this thread seems overt. No money is being paid for web browsers or this mapping software. Having users takes significant effort to monetize. It seems detached from web standards in any direct way (I agree it indirectly relates to webassembly, but not in a way that seems legally relevant). Most of it seems like engineers being engineers and fixing their own little slice of the world and hoping everyone works with their stuff because they don't want to change. Shortsighted and imperfect just like most humans.
Thank you for taking the time to explain (and listen) to me in a rational and level headed way. I won't be checking my messages here again until I start another build or boring process tomorrow. Have an upvote.