If the ecosystem is based on open source software, the community will fork it like it always does when someone tries to control it.
You’ll end up with a fork of Chromium/Blink that doesn’t have WEI. And it will be used to surf web sites. While the official browser from Google would be used to access sites that require WEI attestations. Just like the Bank of America app would.
Corporate power in pushing Chrome for everything can be limited if we have open source alternatives. Look at Firefox and what it did to M$IE, which had the full power of Micro$oft behind it. That only happened because Netscape chose to OPEN SOURCE their code base. They couldn’t beat IE on their own, but the open source community could.
Well, that and WebKit, which was basically adopted by Apple (Microsoft’s competitor) from another open source browser, Konqueror! And that led to Chrome, Chromium and Blink etc.
In short — open source is the best way we can check corporate power on the software side.
On the hardware side, it’s far more difficult, and if the vendors choose to ban any “unapproved” apps (eg requiring Safari WebView rendering engine in all apps on non-jailbroken iPhones) then the best tool we have is government antitrust laws. Maybe one day, in that area too, open source hardware will be the people’s best weapon. But not today :-/
Sure, but if netflix, your bank, your power and water service, and a chat app, where 80% of your contacts are only support chrome, what will you do? Many banks already require hardware attestation from google for mobile apps and mandatory 2FA via that app is a pain on a rooted phone and workarounds are painful.
I mean sure, you can just not-use those services and not chat with everyone else, but that's a bad solution.
I used to think this way and even made a browser extension to facilitate it (Browser Routr). Yet increasingly one must use Chrome or deal with random breakage and failed purchases because web devs cannot be bothered to try anything not Chrome. Sometimes even Safari is broken.
The problem is Blink might just be too big for what little community exists to feasibly maintain it. If it is just a Chrome that doesn't work an select asinine sites, it isn't in a great position to catch on. And perhaps most important; the point is to have something viable before that even needs to happen.
You’ll end up with a fork of Chromium/Blink that doesn’t have WEI. And it will be used to surf web sites. While the official browser from Google would be used to access sites that require WEI attestations. Just like the Bank of America app would.
Corporate power in pushing Chrome for everything can be limited if we have open source alternatives. Look at Firefox and what it did to M$IE, which had the full power of Micro$oft behind it. That only happened because Netscape chose to OPEN SOURCE their code base. They couldn’t beat IE on their own, but the open source community could.
Well, that and WebKit, which was basically adopted by Apple (Microsoft’s competitor) from another open source browser, Konqueror! And that led to Chrome, Chromium and Blink etc.
In short — open source is the best way we can check corporate power on the software side.
On the hardware side, it’s far more difficult, and if the vendors choose to ban any “unapproved” apps (eg requiring Safari WebView rendering engine in all apps on non-jailbroken iPhones) then the best tool we have is government antitrust laws. Maybe one day, in that area too, open source hardware will be the people’s best weapon. But not today :-/