Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski Expresses Interest in Buying Google Chrome | Hacker News Reader

Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski Expresses Interest in Buying Google Chrome

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Rumble's entire market cap is $1.6B - seems like they would have to take on an onerous debt burden to cover the (Bloomberg estimated) $15B - $20B valuation of Chrome.

How is Chrome valued at $15-20 billion? The chromium part is free; and the added value of chrome that's not chromium, AFAICT, is mainly "integrates with Google products"—i.e., the parts that would get nuked in an antitrust action.

> How is Chrome valued at $15-20 billion?

Chrome has 3.45 billion users worldwide.

As the gatekeeper between the user and the web, there's no shortage of to ways burn the good reputation of Chrome for one-time financial gains.

How is the software that decides the first thing most people see or do when they turn on their computers to go online worth a lot of money, you're asking?

Peter thiel could probably make that happen since he's a major investor in Rumble. Most of their money comes from ads, this could be massive influx for them.

Now imagine how they can scale that up with such a ubiquitous platform like Chrome... I'm shivering (and they're drooling)

> Rumble's entire market cap is $1.6B

That sounds ideal to me. Every other big corporation (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft) would otherwise have their agenda to push.

Otherwise some kind of foundation might be created, similar to the mozilla foundation, with various companies chipping in some money to fund development.

Given how Google has taken over Web standards, and now we're stuck with massive moat barriers to implementing current standards, with most competition dependent on Google (for implementation, or even funding)...

Maybe at this point Chrome has to be taken over by some organization in the public interest, like a government/coalition or a non-profit.

A problem is how do you support the huge cost of current developers who are accustomed to Google compensation.

Or maybe Chrome doesn't need a lot of development at this point, or isn't the best starting point. Maybe some kind of public interest effort can focus on public interest goals, instead of a shiny adtech and surveillance platform?

> Maybe at this point Chrome has to be taken over by some organization in the public interest, like a government/coalition or a non-profit.

Sounds like the mozilla foundation, but there would be a clear conflict of interest.

Maybe a chrome foundation?

The onion is trying to buy Infowars, Rumble wants to buy Chrome. What's next? Will Exxon look to purchase Tesla?

That's... not as far fetched as it may seem. They certainly have the cash to do it.

Not far-fetched at all. Plenty of history of companies buying companies that threaten their position, rather than innovating.

Your comment also reminded me of Tim Wu's book "The Master Switch" about incumbent technologies suppressing emerging technologies that threaten the incumbents market dominance.

On a similar note, if anyone has a mansion for sale in the bay area, I will buy it for $100,000.

Safari is what needs to be separated from Apple ... They are handicapping the web so they get 30% of app revenue

Former Safari engineer here.

There is not one iota of truth to that statement.

Why has indexedDb been handicapped for so long?

Said more neutrally, Safari is far behind all the other major web browsers in standards implementation and dev friendliness. As an outsider, I also assumed this was to preserve app store revenue. If it's not, could you share some insight on why it happens?

“Far behind” is perhaps an overstatement, especially today. Things have rapidly improved in recent years, with a _lot_ of time and energy being spent on spec compliance and interop (see https://wpt.fyi/interop-2024).

Don’t believe ones lying eyes eh? There is plenty of reason to believe this may be the case and your refutation offers nothing to make anyone think otherwise. I am willing to listen if you’re willing to speak?

I certainly hope it's not true. But I can also understand how it's hard not to be a little salty. After a decade of development experience, it certainly feels like IOS Safari has consistently made life more difficult when developing web apps.

They aren’t handicapping the web. They are just deliberately handicapping their own ecosystem to prop up their App Store revenue. There is a lot in Safari that is disabled behind flags on iOS.

I would like to see the viewport isolated from the rest of the project. I love developing for the DOM for localhost projects but otherwise loathe all remaining aspects of the web.

This is an interesting topic, but this company does not warrant any free attention/marketing. This is like a D-list rapper trying to start a beef with Jay-Z.

This is basically a daydream or empty political statement. I hereby express interest in going on a date with Marisa Tomei.

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