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.
doodpants · 5m ago
It made me feel dumb when I couldn't even understand the tl;dr at the top.
jajuuka · 29m ago
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.
lapcat · 1h ago
> Market competition underlies the enterprise of standards. It creates the only functional test of designs and functions as a pressure release valve that enables standards-based ecosystems route around single-vendor damage. Without competition, standards bodies have no purpose, and neither they, nor the ecosystems they support, can retain relevance.
This is a strange rant about Apple specifically, because Apple, Google (the author's former employer), and Microsoft (the author's current employer) collectively monopolize both web browser market share and consumer OS market share on desktop and mobile. There is no competition, there are no web standards anymore except what the monopolistic browser vendors decide, and indeed the WHATWG successfully executed a coup d'état against the W3C standards body. Worldwide, Android has higher market share than iOS, Windows higher than macOS. I'm not trying to defend Apple, but I do think the author neglects to mention the essential role of his employers in this monopoly, destruction of competition, and assault on standards.
The author calls WebKit a "sham" of an open source project, not mentioning that Google used to participate in WebKit but then abandoned it, forking into a Google-controlled browser engine. Google's dominance of the web is so complete that even Microsoft was forced to abandon its own browser engine and adopt Google's. And we've seen the results of that: websites that only work in Chromium—thereby forcing browser vendors to adopt Chromium, furthering Google's monopolization—and worse, the debilitation of web browser extensions via the deprecation of Manifest V2. And if Apple doesn't happen to implement whatever Google decides, the author complains about it; why doesn't the author complain about how Google is driving all of the so-called "standards"? Why is the author not complaining about the lack of diversity in web browser engines? And even Firefox is ultimately beholden to Google, ironically arguing in court to preserve Google's monopoly so that Firefox can continue to receive Google money, Mozilla's main source of financing, even while Google continues to monopolize and force browser engines other than its own into obscurity. Firefox is a shell of its former self.
Again, this is not a defense of Apple. But Google and Microsoft are equally bad. Apple is at worst a duopolist, so how about talking about the other side of the duopoly?
The author seems to think that Apple is specifically targeting the web, trying to undermine it, but as a Mac user and developer for almost 2 decades, I don't think this is specific to the web or Safari. Whether it's malice or incompetence, Apple has been undermining the Mac too. Their software quality overall is now atrocious. And their UI is becoming atrocious too with "Liquid Glass", on all of Apple's platforms. If you focus only on Safari and WebKit, you're missing the forest for the trees.
leoc · 15m ago
> There is no competition, there are no web standards anymore except what the monopolistic browser vendors decide, and indeed the WHATWG successfully executed a coup d'état against the W3C standards body.
The remarkable thing is how the WHATWG gang successfully got lots of observers to cheer this on as a good thing. (Relatedly, are there any archived copies of the old, disappeared "Last Week in HTML5" blog floating around out there?)
Overall the Web is a classic (probably by now the classic) example of Too Big To Fork https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6810259 : as the size and interconnectedness of a piece of software or a protocol go up, the power of incumbents and those with deep pockets over it increases, effectively nullifying more and more any legal open-source or open-standard status it has. The glass-half-full implication is that this is a to a large extent a technical problem: it can be ameliorated by making the Web more modular and/or easier to independently reimplement. The glass-half-empty implications are that this is a difficult technical problem—it's not straightforwardly obvious how this can be done even starting with a clean slate, let alone how to get there from here—and that without technical improvements, any attempts to solve this with regulation, antitrust action, consumer activism or whatever is going to be unsatisfactory in one way or another.
Steltek · 35m ago
That's a long response that boils down to whatabout-ism. Both Apple and Google can be guilty of anti-competitive and anti-freedom behavior.
Apple's lockdown of the iOS platform is pretty egregious. Not to get too FSF here but it legitimized the total corporate control of a user's own device. You'll run only the apps WE approve of. You will share your personal data that WE want. You don't get a choice.
Because of Apple's behavior, it's seen as totally acceptable for corporations to dictate what I do with my own stuff and Android is caving to the pressure to follow suit more and more every day. Want to pay with your phone? Oops, sorry, not with a custom Android you won't!
lapcat · 21m ago
> Both Apple and Google can be guilty of anti-competitive and anti-freedom behavior.
I said as much. I mentioned twice that I wasn't trying to defend Apple.
The article is nominally about web standards, but the WHATWG—whose steering committee includes Google and Microsoft—hijacked web standards. The article is painting a picture where Apple is largely acting alone, but that's not even remotely true.
> Android is caving to the pressure to follow suit more and more every day.
Pressure? What pressure? Are you claiming that Apple is somehow pressuring Google into locking down Android?
jajuuka · 22m ago
This is all true if you only look at 1-2 countries. However taking the rest of world into account and this quickly falls apart. In China for example you can use a custom rom and still use digital payments like Alipay no problem.
alehlopeh · 22m ago
So you’re saying Apple legitimized some bad behavior, and now Google does it too, but we should only blame Apple, but Google does it too. You’re seriously blaming Apple for Google locking down Google pay on android?
coliveira · 25m ago
Apple's lockdown of the iOS platform is exactly why people buy Apple products. The day iOS is dominated by Google and MS, is the day I stop buying it.
Steltek · 7m ago
This is a nonsequitor. You fear a loss of control (someone will force you to install Google and MS apps) so you choose iOS because it has less control.
1over137 · 22m ago
> Apple's lockdown of the iOS platform is exactly why people buy Apple products.
Citation? My impression is people find Apple hardware better, and suffer through the OS.
IAmBroom · 1h ago
Duopolist => triopolist
MBCook · 33m ago
Is it really a triopoly? Yeah MS has Egde, but they ditched their own engine and are now yet another Chromium browser.
Plus Edge isn’t exactly a force in the market right?
So I’m not sure they have the power to count.
boxed · 22m ago
Maybe they mean firefox?
MBCook · 8m ago
Oh thank you, that would make sense. Since the GP comment had been talking about Google/Apple/MS that was the three I was thinking of.
FF fits way better.
MangoToupe · 26m ago
> Their software quality overall is now atrocious.
People have been saying this for a while, and maybe there is a degradation of performance and UI consistency, but I'm a little confused when people describe it this way. What are you referring to?
"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.
This is a strange rant about Apple specifically, because Apple, Google (the author's former employer), and Microsoft (the author's current employer) collectively monopolize both web browser market share and consumer OS market share on desktop and mobile. There is no competition, there are no web standards anymore except what the monopolistic browser vendors decide, and indeed the WHATWG successfully executed a coup d'état against the W3C standards body. Worldwide, Android has higher market share than iOS, Windows higher than macOS. I'm not trying to defend Apple, but I do think the author neglects to mention the essential role of his employers in this monopoly, destruction of competition, and assault on standards.
The author calls WebKit a "sham" of an open source project, not mentioning that Google used to participate in WebKit but then abandoned it, forking into a Google-controlled browser engine. Google's dominance of the web is so complete that even Microsoft was forced to abandon its own browser engine and adopt Google's. And we've seen the results of that: websites that only work in Chromium—thereby forcing browser vendors to adopt Chromium, furthering Google's monopolization—and worse, the debilitation of web browser extensions via the deprecation of Manifest V2. And if Apple doesn't happen to implement whatever Google decides, the author complains about it; why doesn't the author complain about how Google is driving all of the so-called "standards"? Why is the author not complaining about the lack of diversity in web browser engines? And even Firefox is ultimately beholden to Google, ironically arguing in court to preserve Google's monopoly so that Firefox can continue to receive Google money, Mozilla's main source of financing, even while Google continues to monopolize and force browser engines other than its own into obscurity. Firefox is a shell of its former self.
Again, this is not a defense of Apple. But Google and Microsoft are equally bad. Apple is at worst a duopolist, so how about talking about the other side of the duopoly?
The author seems to think that Apple is specifically targeting the web, trying to undermine it, but as a Mac user and developer for almost 2 decades, I don't think this is specific to the web or Safari. Whether it's malice or incompetence, Apple has been undermining the Mac too. Their software quality overall is now atrocious. And their UI is becoming atrocious too with "Liquid Glass", on all of Apple's platforms. If you focus only on Safari and WebKit, you're missing the forest for the trees.
The remarkable thing is how the WHATWG gang successfully got lots of observers to cheer this on as a good thing. (Relatedly, are there any archived copies of the old, disappeared "Last Week in HTML5" blog floating around out there?)
Overall the Web is a classic (probably by now the classic) example of Too Big To Fork https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6810259 : as the size and interconnectedness of a piece of software or a protocol go up, the power of incumbents and those with deep pockets over it increases, effectively nullifying more and more any legal open-source or open-standard status it has. The glass-half-full implication is that this is a to a large extent a technical problem: it can be ameliorated by making the Web more modular and/or easier to independently reimplement. The glass-half-empty implications are that this is a difficult technical problem—it's not straightforwardly obvious how this can be done even starting with a clean slate, let alone how to get there from here—and that without technical improvements, any attempts to solve this with regulation, antitrust action, consumer activism or whatever is going to be unsatisfactory in one way or another.
Apple's lockdown of the iOS platform is pretty egregious. Not to get too FSF here but it legitimized the total corporate control of a user's own device. You'll run only the apps WE approve of. You will share your personal data that WE want. You don't get a choice.
Because of Apple's behavior, it's seen as totally acceptable for corporations to dictate what I do with my own stuff and Android is caving to the pressure to follow suit more and more every day. Want to pay with your phone? Oops, sorry, not with a custom Android you won't!
I said as much. I mentioned twice that I wasn't trying to defend Apple.
The article is nominally about web standards, but the WHATWG—whose steering committee includes Google and Microsoft—hijacked web standards. The article is painting a picture where Apple is largely acting alone, but that's not even remotely true.
> Android is caving to the pressure to follow suit more and more every day.
Pressure? What pressure? Are you claiming that Apple is somehow pressuring Google into locking down Android?
Citation? My impression is people find Apple hardware better, and suffer through the OS.
Plus Edge isn’t exactly a force in the market right?
So I’m not sure they have the power to count.
FF fits way better.
People have been saying this for a while, and maybe there is a degradation of performance and UI consistency, but I'm a little confused when people describe it this way. What are you referring to?