And there's nothing preventing Google from leveraging Youtube/Gmail/Search to push out other browsers which have tracking protection. Youtube already plays less well with Firefox. Gmail isn't exactly snappy on Safari either.
In most other cases I could agree there may have been nefarious intent, but as someone who's followed web components for a while I think YouTube just made a bad technology bet -- that being rewriting their front-end in Polymer v1, which was based on Web Components v0. Jumping the gun on an unratified standard is risky, and this example shows why.
Mozilla's financial dependence on Google is still a major challenge, which they'll hopefully be able to fix before push comes to shove.
Microsoft unfortunately did not seem to be able to financially justify the maintenance of their own engine - though then again, their bet appears to be on Windows integration rather than tracking protection.
Plus @icloud.com email service
> Mozilla's financial dependence on Google is still a major challenge, which they'll hopefully be able to fix
I honestly do not see how. Sticking to Safari for now.
Their approach relies on acquisitions (Pocket) or partnerships/experiments (Scroll).
The language used by them when referring to Google has changed quite a lot in the past year or so.
The only ones I'd pay for is email hosting, search engine and paid clean browser app in iOS and Mac stores. Neither exists. Ahh, and paid uBlock Origin for Safari :)
Nothing except antitrust laws...