Chrome shouldn’t be worth more than an IMAP client. If it is, then the web should be torn down and built anew.
Chrome is worth around $50 billion, DuckDuckGo CEO guesstimates
Submitted 3 weeks ago by Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.techspot.com/news/107677-chrome-worth-around-50-billion-duckduckgo-ceo-guesstimates.html
Comments
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
taladar@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
IMAP
Speaking of something that needs tearing down and building anew, email is a good candidate for that.
grue@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That’s how you get monetized spying enshittified email. Do you want monetized spying enshittified email?
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Speaking of such things, an email client or an email server are never as monopolistic as Chrome.
So maybe email is a good candidate for something that should be torn down and built anew right after the Web.
Also email doesn’t have to be destroyed entirely, it’s very modular.
Where they had UUCP paths, and now have addresses in some services, just need to have John Doe <3cec7f8c438fa578dbd3a1557b822df469490a12>, with 3cec7f8c438fa578dbd3a1557b822df469490a12 being a hash of “johndoe” here and a hash of his pubkey in reality, and his pubkey can be retrieved from some public directory.
And have the letter signed by it (and encrypted possibly, though this of course would hurt server-side solutions of spam problem).
Frankly they can have a common replacement, in my humble opinion. When separating identities from servers, one can do the same with websites. How is a newsgroup fundamentally different from a replicated website collaboratively edited? If a letter can have a universal identifier, what prevents one to put a hyperlink to it? If we need scripts, what prevents us from having them in a letter’s content? If we need to reach a server by hostname and IP, what prevents us from doing just that from a letter, just the letter being the primary point of entry?
I just think that the old “vector hypertext Fidonet” joke is not so dumb, if you think what it could literally mean.
calcopiritus@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
IMAP is an incredibly simple protocol compared to the sum of all the protocols that are needed to implement a web browser.
A web browser also has to be way more performant.
Both an IMAP client and a web browser have to be reliable and secure. However achieving so in a system as complex as a web browser is incredibly expensive.
Web browsers are almost as complex as operating systems.
Complexity, performance, reliability and security on that level are expensive. You would be delusional to think a web browser should be worth as much as an IMAP client.
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
You would be delusional to think a web browser should be worth as much as an IMAP client.
This is a problem with web browsers and that set of protocols, not with my comparison.
You still ultimately run networked sandboxed applications in a web browser and view hypertext, it’s an unholy hybrid between two things that should be separated.
And it was so 20 years ago.
For the former Java applets and Flash were used a lot, as everyone remembers. The idea of a plugin was good. The reality was kinda not so much because of security and Flash being proprietary, but still better than today. For the latter no, you don’t need something radically more complex than an IMAP client.
I think Sun and Netscape etc made a mistake with JavaScript. Should have made plugins the main way to script pages.
REDACTED@infosec.pub 2 weeks ago
You’re not really buying the code, you’re buying userbase, rights and patents (if any)
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yes, as a part of userbase I don’t want to be on sale, thank you very much. Hence the comment above.
lightnegative@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I can make up numbers too!
Olap@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Given the core of the product is open source (see chromium) I find it really hard to believe that the brand is worth that. Google could sell it for an amount and release Android Internet and it will do almost exactly the same thing. And users I suspect won’t care. Google needs broken up for sure, but the browser brand makes little sense to me being separate
Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s not only about the brand, it’s about the installed base. You have hundreds of millions (billion plus?) of users who use your application every day for a wide variety of tasks.
Olap@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
And if you start fucking with them then they will all go to Google’s new browser. Just like the old one. Not all, but you get the picture. Chrome isn’t worth $50bn to anyone but Google
webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
I am opposite to this.
Present day Google IS chrome and as much as i am disgusted by them and want them broken up forcing a sale of chrome does not make sense and could actually spiral into the collapse of the company. (Don’t threaten me with a good time)
All internet platforms want a… well platform to have users on. An interface/environment that in its most profitable form can be plastered with ads.
For the google of old this used to be its search engine website.
But it sucks now, the web has kept growing and most people only need a different tiny fraction of it.
Yes its dominant, but its getting increasingly bad and will get increasingly useless as we start using smarter ai to filter (not re-generate) the web to our needs.
This is why openai wants to buy chrome, they want to replace all that google was with themselves.
Google also have their workspace platforms but there are no standalone apps. They are inherently designed for in browser use.
All of this means it makes a lot of sense they have a clear incentive to want to control the browser. Because its the frame that contains almost everything they do.
Compare that with microsoft, who owns the majority of operating systems, the entire office platform, and is also still competing with a search engine. And they still get keep bing?
Burn both these corpos but the logic applied here makes no sense.
I am purposely ignoring all the other projects, robotics, Because honestly half of them never get to product and they don’t really effect the identity of theirs business as much.
If anything it would make more to sell these other projects like autonomous cars, you know they are just going to try take over taxi services first and delivery services second if they get to keep that.
barnaclebutt@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Chrome is worth 51 Billion, this asshole on the internet guesstimates.
commander@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It’s value is tied to being a part of Google and pushing google products. Take away from google and it’s Mozilla looking for ways to be well funded
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Less CEO “wages”
frankgrimeszz@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Only if they monetise the hell out of it and sell people’s data.
besselj@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Of the companies that might buy Chrome, I hope DuckDuckGo gets it.
reddig33@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I hope no one gets it. It should be its own separate company.
wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
*It’s should be its own separate non-profit.
FTFY
Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Weinberg described his estimate as a “back-of-the-envelope” calculation, based on Chrome’s vast user base and global reach – a figure that far exceeds previous estimates, such as the $20 billion valuation offered by Bloomberg analyst Mandeep Singh last November. Weinberg added that such a price tag would be well beyond DuckDuckGo’s financial capabilities, remarking, “That’s out of DuckDuckGo’s price range.”
LodeMike@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
Ah yes, the most original article headline:
ryannathans@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
All business and product valuations are basically guesstimates
taladar@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Not all of them, some are averages of many people’s guesstimates.