Google AMP - A 70% drop in our conversion rate. - Rockstar Coders

Why Safari does not need any protection from Chromium – Niels Leenheer

Safari is very opinionated about which features they will support and which they won’t. And that is fine for their browser. But I don’t want the Safari team to choose for all browsers on the iOS platform.

A terrific piece from Niels pushing back on the ridiculous assertion that Apple’s ban on rival rendering engines in iOS is somehow a noble battle against a monopoly (rather than the abuse of monopoly power it actually is). If there were any truth to the idea that Apple’s browser ban is the only thing stopping everyone from switching to Chrome, then nobody would be using Safari on MacOS where users are free to choose whichever rendering engine they want.

The Safari team is capable enough not to let their browser become irrelevant. And Apple has enough money to support the Safari team to take on other browsers. It does not need some artificial App Store rule to protect it from the competition.

WebKit-only proponents are worried about losing control and Google becoming too powerful. And they feel preventing Google from controlling the web is more important than giving more power to users. They believe they are protecting users against themselves. But that is misguided.

Users need to be in control because if you take power away from users, you are creating the future you want to prevent, where one company sets the rules for everybody else. It is just somebody else who is pulling the strings.

Using Google Fonts Breaches GDPR – Interdependent Thoughts

Remember when I said you should avoid third-party dependencies?

Stay alert - DEV Community 👩‍💻👨‍💻

It’s not just a story about unloved APIs, it’s a story about power, standards design, and who owns the platform — and it makes me afraid for the future of the web.

A thoughtful, considered post by Rich Harris on the whole ballyhoo with alert and its ilk:

For all its flaws, the web is generally agreed to be a stable platform, where investments made today will stand the test of time. A world in which websites are treated as inherently transient objects, where APIs we commonly rely on today could be cast aside as unwanted baggage by tomorrow’s spec wranglers, is a world in which the web has already lost.

Choice Words about the Upcoming Deprecation of JavaScript Dialogs | CSS-Tricks

Believe it or not, I generally am a fan of Google and think they do a good job of pushing the web forward. I also think it’s appropriate to waggle fingers when I see problems and request they do better. “Better” here means way more developer and user outreach to spell out the situation, way more conversation about the potential implications and transition ideas, and way more openness to bending the course ahead.

Google vs. the web | Go Make Things

With any changes to the platform, but especially breaking ones, communication and feedback on how this will impact people who actually build things with the web is super important, and that was not done here.

Chris has written a thoughtful reflection on last week’s brouhaha around confirm, prompt, and alert being deprecated in Chrome. The way that the “developer relations” folks at Google handled feedback was less than ideal.

I reached out to one of the Google Chrome developer advocates I know to see if I could learn more. It did not go well.