> "OpenAI decided to build its own browser, rather than simply a "plug-in" on top of another company's browser, in order to have more control over the data it can collect, one source said."
Edit: I forgot iOS Safari can install extensions. Android users can install Firefox and then install extensions, but this is a big ask for the typical user.
Probably still a good estimate that <0.5% of mobile users have ever installed an extension.
Chrome on Android does not support extensions (maybe in the future with manifest v3?), but Firefox does.
> OpenAI decided to build its own browser, rather than simply a “plug-in” on top of another company’s browser, in order to have more control over the data it can collect, one source said.
KHTML to Blink is species evolution.
How about agents canceling services I no longer want? Or agents figuring out what choices I have to make to get my return picked up rather than have to take it to a drop off or pay?
There was the open web, with lots of rich api's... All of that got killed for the sake of profit and market consolidation. Are those same players going to be tolerant of agents cutting into their bottom line, of agents that cant be upsold, that dont misclick?
IF we ever get a solid agenic tooling I suspect that it will be murdered in its crib by industry.
I'll probably give it a spin when they release it. It's just a Chromium fork and they can afford to make it good, if the AI integration is subtle and actually useful and there are robust controls on how my data is used (and it supports high quality adblock), I could see myself using it regularly.
Open AI doesn't want to own and maintain a browser for the next 20 years! They'll give up in like two years when they realize it's actually quite hard and they have no particular committment to it
I would urge you to reflect on your atitude. As the majority 'thinks how they think'. As we are right.
It's clear that they envy Google's position of owning a web browser (that everyone uses). But a play like this that involves entering a highly competitive market with openly vicious level of scrutiny... Like, what would you say if Facebook announced that they were announcing that they would be starting their first hospital? That's a hypothetical, but IRL Amazon tried to convince people that they wanted to be operating a chain of hair salons. My point is that it was easy to tell from the outside that this was corporate whim and they weren't going to be very willing to put up with it for long if it turned out to be genuinely hard, because there just wasn't enough alignment with the mission.
So yeah, I've no trouble understanding why they want to own a browser in theory. And since they can print money and want to hoover up talent anyway, why not just hire some engs. It looks good for the company's future growth prospects if people do believe you're serious. But it just seems to me that thus far they've shown no real hard commitment, no philosophical alignment, and no appreciation for the reasons what they're doing is difficult: it's a social problem not just a hiring one
I get that everyone wants to be a platform and to live where the user is all day, but getting folks to switch browsers is nearly impossible and, on Apple, fully impossible as only Safari-based browsers are permitted and those are highly restricted.
Looking at my own usage patterns, Google's ad business should have be long gone now, but then again I've been running adblockers since forever so maybe I just don't understand the dynamics here. Google has to recapture the perceived (or actual) lead in the AI market before its made obsolete and OpenAI has to keep Google on the defense otherwise it will just be commoditized away (I think this is more about good old market share here and no one waits around for AGI to unlock a spectacular economic value, they want each other's money now).
This is the second step in just a month or so where OpenAI directly encroaches on Google territory (first was with the recruitment of Johnny Ive to sidestep established mobile platforms and now going straight for Google's jugular).
It would be really interesting once OpenAI gets into the ad business, because right now Google has its share of ad revenue on hard allocation, and once in-stream AI advertising opens up it would surely divert some of that money.
coffeebeqn•7mo ago
WJW•7mo ago
ethan_smith•7mo ago
conartist6•7mo ago
Every line of code costs something to own. Forking a few million lines is free now, but the more time passes the more you will pay to own those lines.