> Arguably, Google divesting Chrome would be great for the web.
Because then Chrome would slowly rot since there's no one to fund development, leading us to WebKit being the only engine, as Firefox is also defunded. I don't see how that's better.
The new owner of Chrome can sell it to the manufacturers of Android devices. Royalties.
They can even make it closed source or enforce a not for commerce license. That would make manufacturers choose between paying those royalties, installing Firefox, investing in their own browser (a fork of Chrome or their very own tech.) Some of them will pay royalties.
That’s assuming the divested Chrome would then proceed to lose its gigantic market share and thus the mind-boggling proceeds from defaulting to Google as the search engine. They might even be able to afford a bigger development team, if need be.
But what makes you think the DoJ allow Google to continue paying Chrome to have Google as default? Google is already not allowed to pay Apple to be default.
As long as OS vendors are allowed to bundle browsers with their OS then any paid browsers is at a huge disadvantage. Most people are going to pay for a browser when their OS comes with a free one that is good enough. Thats how Microsoft killed Netscape Navigator.
Because then Chrome would slowly rot since there's no one to fund development, leading us to WebKit being the only engine, as Firefox is also defunded. I don't see how that's better.