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Comment by v5v3 | Hacker News Reader

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v5v3

That you for your ongoing work Open Web Advocacy.

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Yes, Thank you! Someone has to do it, Apple is clearly dragging their feet as much as possible.

Just so you know, my post thanking you has 15 upvotes at present.

So 16 people are thanking you together.

17 now - great questions (I watched the YouTube clip https://youtu.be/_nRU9XUbnpM?si=ep1pHNCfWmQKVf5b)

I feel you could be more aggressive in the questions given that no follow-up seems to be allowed. Apple's "were doing all of this for security" is clearly just a cheap excuse. You're given only one shot and are up against professional deflectors (lawyers).

The lawyer's "I'm not discrediting you for who you do or don't get money from like Spotify" is just cheap rhetoric 101. He prefers to chip "You think You know better how to design our OS" rather than answer the question on how non-EU devs can test. Empty "we're engaging with Google/Mozilla...". That's not an answer!

Thanks so much! it’s been a four-year journey just to get this far, and none of it would have been possible without the volunteers who donate their time just for the belief in a better future for the web! Will be passing this comment on!

The open web requires browser diversity in order to remain healthy, far more than it needs individuals to have browser choice. The former is important for the health of open standards; the latter only matters if you believe the web is whatever Google implements in Chrome.

Without healthy browser diversity, the web might as well be renamed the Chrome Protocol and the "browser choice" you care about so much is gone.

Android already has all of the things being demanded of Apple and there is no dawn of a new age. No demand for web apps. No demand for alternative browser engines. All that's there is the Chrome desert with a near-total market share and a sprinkling of alternative app stores that few trust or use.

It's a form of regulatory capture, coopting legislation to rid the market of remaining competition.

Again, that's an argument for browser choice. What matters to me is browser diversity, even if it must come at the expense of browser choice. Apple forcing the use of WebKit on iOS is the last meaningful backstop against a Chrome monoculture.

That's a deeply fallacious argument.

https://infrequently.org/2022/06/apple-is-not-defending-brow...

It's not fallacious, that article is fallacious. By conflating choice and diversity, the article is poorly written and misrepresents the bigger picture. Browser diversity makes the internet better, while browser choice encourages developers to be lazy.

Developers exclusively targeting Chrome and forcing users to switch isn't browser choice, it just replaces one kind of non-choice with another kind of non-choice.

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