This was a brutal read. It's as if someone wrote a simple thesis and ran it through an LLM to make it so pretentiously over the top it's unreadable. I suspect almost no one who actually upvoted this read the content, but instead just like the title and hit the arrow.
"Apple has poisoned the well through a monopoly on influence which it has parleyed into suppression of browser choice. This is an existential threat to the web, but also renders web and internet standards moot."
This is patently ridiculous, and sounds like the sort of tired nonsense that was the norm maybe a decade ago. Now, in 2025, to still be railing this off?
Apple's influence on the web hasn't been lower in two decades. This is ridiculous. It's one of those "no one likes my PWA, and somehow Apple is to blame" busted logic breaks we see on HN daily.
"Apple alone must be on the hook to implement any and every web platform feature shipped by any and every other engine."
I get that this is rhetorical bombast to try to make Apple eat crow for their Safari/webkit monopoly on iOS, but it falls apart given how laughably silly of an idea it is.
Apple absolutely should be forced to allow alternate browser engines, presuming those browser engines are not Chromium/Blink based. Firefox should have their engine. Anyone else who actually makes an engine should be able to deploy it to iOS.
Chromium/Blink? Absolutely no way. And anyone who doesn't understand why has absolutely no idea how Apple's malicious greed has paradoxically protected the web from a "Made For Chrome" world.
Someone elsewhere on this page posted some details of the author's bio. They worked on Chrome/Blink for years. So of course they're upset Apple kept them from being the only browser anybody targets, and any crap they tried to push on us from being instantly adopted nearly everywhere. I'm sure that was frustrating, that they weren't able to capture the entire market, just nearly all of it.
Monopolies suck, but since regulators are asleep at the wheel and have been my entire (no longer brief) life, Apple's my chosen kaiju to fight the other kaiju on my behalf. Sure it might smash Tokyo sometimes, but the others are trying to smash Tokyo and then some, so, I wish it well (while also wishing we didn't have kaiju at all)
Like how you'd rather not have any giant monsters around, but when a really bad one shows up, you're glad Godzilla's there anyway.
> Apple absolutely should be forced to allow alternate browser engines, presuming those browser engines are not Chromium/Blink based.
The last phrase still lets Apple gatekeep, and offer only the selected “fig leaf” alternatives it chooses.
Tuned:
Apple absolutely should be forced to allow users to choose alternate browser engines, and alternate apps in any category, by not using its App Store to gatekeep alternate implementations.
Or, if Apple chooses to continue curating choices on its app store, by allowing alternate app stores not under Apple curation to exist.
And any API that Apple uses for its own app implantations, must be available for alternate implementations.
It isn’t ridiculous it’s true. 2 billion devices can’t run anything but Safari or skinned Safari. if Apple chooses not to support a standard then it’s effectively not a standard. This is only possible because they disallow other browser engines. Allow them and people would switch, forcing Safari to compete to keep users
You’re ignoring their point about the greater harm if Blink can spread its tentacles into iOS and complete its own monopoly- a true monoculture would harm every platform and user.
The TL;DR at the top is what made me decide to not read the rest of it. It's clearly overwrought writing, designed to sound sophisticated without getting down to the root of the issue as clearly as I would like. Plain language is better when discussing topics like this, I think.
Agreed, this post is overly verbose for no real purpose and makes several claims that are laughable. It reads like a the position of someone inside the tempest in a teapot.
"Apple has poisoned the well through a monopoly on influence which it has parleyed into suppression of browser choice. This is an existential threat to the web, but also renders web and internet standards moot."
This is patently ridiculous, and sounds like the sort of tired nonsense that was the norm maybe a decade ago. Now, in 2025, to still be railing this off?
Apple's influence on the web hasn't been lower in two decades. This is ridiculous. It's one of those "no one likes my PWA, and somehow Apple is to blame" busted logic breaks we see on HN daily.
"Apple alone must be on the hook to implement any and every web platform feature shipped by any and every other engine."
I get that this is rhetorical bombast to try to make Apple eat crow for their Safari/webkit monopoly on iOS, but it falls apart given how laughably silly of an idea it is.
Apple absolutely should be forced to allow alternate browser engines, presuming those browser engines are not Chromium/Blink based. Firefox should have their engine. Anyone else who actually makes an engine should be able to deploy it to iOS.
Chromium/Blink? Absolutely no way. And anyone who doesn't understand why has absolutely no idea how Apple's malicious greed has paradoxically protected the web from a "Made For Chrome" world.