One of the themes I seem to write about a lot is the value of competition. Competition in the market takes care of many problems. In general, the companies that do not treat customers well or who sit on their accomplishments and do not seem to improve their products or services are passed over as other companies with these commitments become apparent. For example, my support for an open Internet (net neutrality) stems from this value. For many of us, there are few or no options for how we connect to the Internet and no hence customer support and innovation suffer.
I think it is important to support competition when possible. When we lock our activity into a single service or product and do not constantly explore alternatives, we end up narrowing our own options and possibly the options available to others. I see this happening with browsers. I see this happening in my own behavior. I have the opportunity to use multiple hardware devices and we all have the opportunity to use the Internet in different ways, but I feel myself sliding into total reliance on Chrome. This may not seem like a significant issue to dwell on, but consider possible long term consequences. The different browsers associated with different companies are associated with different profit motives. Google is funded by ads. Ads are more valuable (to the provider) when targeted to users. Hence, Google benefits by knowing about you and using this information to its advantage. Apple seems more and more to have positioned Safari as the anti-Chrome. Apple makes money on hardware and I assume just maintains a quality browser as a hedge against domination of the Internet space by others. Since Apple is not dependent on ad revenue, the Safari browser can argue that it protects the privacy of users. However, because Apple is focused on its hardware, it is not as interested in creating software products that are cross platform.
This post was prompted by something I read about Firefox. Firefox was long my browser of choice, but then I found Chrome and kind of drifted away. I feel bad failing to live up to my own values. I am not certain of the existing connections between Firefox and Mozilla because this relationship seems to change with time, but the open source movement (Mozilla) has played such as a valuable role in the development of technology and I hope remains a constant hedge against total commercialization of the valuable resources we may take for granted. Hence, my suggestion for today – try a different browser over lunch.
