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Comment by PaulHoule | Hacker News Reader

Google has been degrading YouTube in Firefox for me for about six months. Where are the antitrust enforcers when you need them?

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We are supposed to believe Google hires some of the most brilliant minds on the planet, but I've yet to see evidence of this. YouTube has been unusable for years and is only getting worse. When one of your flagship products is unusable for both technical people and novices alike, in my mind you have failed as a company. The front end is what the user sees and what matters. YouTube was a better product 10 years ago and they know it.

They have billions of monthly active users, many of whom are literally toddlers. I think "unusable" is a bit too much hyperbole.

While diminishing return products from hyper rich mega corporations is an issue, being as hyperbolically critical as possible only muddies the water and allows the slide to keep happening.

"Youtube has been unusable for years and is only getting worse." I only use FF on a work laptop, and I only use brave at home. No issues, ever. In fact, YTP is the one sub service i've paid for uninterrupted over my adult life. (shill post over.)

How can I help you get back to using youtube, and what about is getting worse that I can keep an eye on?

Can you say what in particular? Maybe you’re using it in a different way than me. tI never seem to have any issues with YouTube, albeit I’m not a heavy user, and I never post videos and I use block origin to block ads; I just consume video content. The DMCA limitations on high Rez stuff is annoying but that’s a licensing issue. It’s not exactly the fastest website on the planet, but it works fine

Google may yet be forced to divest from Chrome as a result of the recent judgement.

How so? The parent comment is about Chrome separating from Google, not YouTube.

YouTube would be fine without Chrome.

why? yt as standalone service does not need specific browser to exist... or at least it should not need one, just good business plan

Forests must burn so that new life can thrive.

Would that force them not to give Chrome preferential treatment? Even if Chrome becomes independent, it will still likely be the most used browser. Google could just do what other companies already do, and never test on Firefox anyway.

It would remove any incentive to intentionally worsen the non-Chrome(ium) experience. Relevant if you suspect they are deliberately sabotaging Firefox. (That would be a foolish move to make while they are in the middle of multiple antitrust cases and already lost one, but companies aren't immune to acting like idiots)

Depends on how the ownership works. If the same individuals own both google and an independent Chrome, it won't remove anything. If it's legal for google to pay firefox a half-billion a year to be the default search engine for a 5% marketshare, why wouldn't it be legal for google to pay an independent Chrome 9.5B for the same right?

The ruling I referred to above was in fact that it is not legal to purchase the default search engine as this is de-facto anti-competitive behavior for a clear monopoly (which is, itself, not illegal—sometimes products dominate markets because they're genuinely better). Interestingly this means that what they've paid out (something on the order of a hundred billion, I think, all things told) is likely the floor for whatever is necessary to remediate the anti-competitive behavior.

There's also a possibility the DOJ will fumble this and make them offer alternative engines in a more aggressive manner and fine them, which will change nothing. I think the judge indicated such, so hopefully they take this opportunity seriously.

Have you reported it to them? I have nothing but praise for the EC on the way they have handled the few complaints I have registered regarding such things.

I thought support from Google was "talk to the hand"; all the time I see posts where people got no satisfaction from Google make it to the HN front page.

I'm pretty sure GP was not suggesting reporting it to Google.

I was referring to reporting to the European Commission - an example of the “antitrust enforcers” you were looking for. They need to know of issues to investigate them. The more reports they get the more likely it will be raised for investigation quickly.

I am in the US, I don't think I can report to the European Commission but I did find

https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/report-antitrust-violation

which I will do right now. Thanks!

I complained about Chrome Web Store but they said it's not a gateekeper even though everything applies... They aren't very competent it seems

I wholeheartedly disagree. Just because you think they meet the criteria doesn't make it true. What are the metrics on chrome web store usage that make you believe it meets the criteria? The figures I can see mentioned online would reflect only a minority of chrome users even using plugins.

I dont disagree with your thoughts on the chrome web store being unfair and anticompetitive, but the DMA is VERY specific in its reach. You can still approach them with complaints unrelated to the DMA of course - but if your complaint was "they should be a gatekeeper", then you will likely be out of luck.

Chrome is a gatekeeper and for that gatekeeper they have another gatekeeping service where they gatekeep what add-ons are allowed and which are removed (as happened with AdNauseam). There are no seperate distribution channels for users. If this is not a gatekeeper, then the App Store can't also be a gatekeeper.

Well, um, er.

As a matter of fact the antitrust enforcers just won their case against Google.

They are in the remedy phase now. Figuring out what Google's punishment is going to be.

Google no longer being allowed to pay Firefox for its default search placement is most certainly in play as part of the possible remedies.

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/boom-judge-rules-google-i...

If you follow the money the idea that Google would sabotage Firefox doesn't make a lot of sense.

It's more likely that Google kept Firefox on life support so they could plausibly deny that they had a browser monopoly. Firefox blew that by mismanaging its market share into oblivion though.

AFAIU that case is about Google's search engine monopoly, not about their browser engine monopoly, so I'm not sure how it's relevant.

(Except that it might dry up Firefox's funding if Google won't pay Mozilla to be the default browser engine anymore...)

I'm always hearing that, but I've yet to see a single video load slow enough to notice. And I'm using YouTube quite a lot.

Happens to me all the time. I switched to Chrome just due to the way Firefox sucks with YouTube. This is on Linux, 5k display, YT premium, highest quality available.

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