• @DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    0•11 months ago

    I don’t understand.

    There’s loads of people for whom 3 or 4 sites make up 99% of “the web”, and those sites will just stop working for people using browsers without WEI support.

    I just don’t really see how a browser could be viable in the future without WEI support.

    • @mrmanager@lemmy.todayOPEnglish
      1•11 months ago

      And that’s exactly the point. WEI makes it a world where big tech decides if they are going to support a competing browser, a competing operating system like Linux, or plugins against ads. They can also force you to have any number of plugins installed, from their choosing.

      It destroys the free web completely.

    • MattEnglish
      0•11 months ago

      This is my take too - Google Search and YouTube especially which are owned by Google.

      Even if Chrome had like 5% market share, surely they could just push this anyway? While the Chromium monopoly is partially to blame for this, I’d argue the centralisation of the web is as well.

      Sure, “Google Search is useless now, you can’t find what you want!”, but the vast, vast majority of people still and continue to use it, and nothing will change that most likely.

      • @kava@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1•11 months ago

        Google search isn’t useless. It’s getting worse but still Google is the best search. For a lot of general searches, Duckduckgo and Kagi have been sufficient for me. “What year did WW2 end” “what is the population of Crimea” “north Korean famine 1990s”

        But for example I had a picture of a specific motor an employee sent me that I had to find a replacement for online. It’s a niche motor we use for a large air compressor. All I had was some model / serial numbers. I tried plugging in different variations of the numbers and “motor” into both Duckduckgo and Kagi with no luck.

        On Google, the first result was a PDF of a Honda motor guide that had every single niche Honda motor and I was able to find the model name of the exact motor I needed, which allowed me to find a viable replacement on Ebay.

        It hurts me to say it, but the other web searches still haven’t reached total parity with Google. I use Duckduckgo as my primary and then when it doesn’t find me what I need, I go to Google.

        I would use Kagi but after it couldn’t find me the engine, I stopped paying my monthly subscription. Until then I was happy with it, but if I’m paying for a service and it isn’t any better than the free options…