As long as google gets to use its monopoly to push chrome-by-default on its platforms while breaking open safari, none of that matters. The council of neckbeards representing 2% of browser share is as relevant as polling slashdot opinions, in terms of actual effected change on the world.

When those neckbeards represent 50-60% of total web traffic their opinion might matter. Marketshare is power and in realpolitik power is all that matters. The tech world is littered with the remains of the companies that made principled stands, google and Microsoft are where they are for a reason and it’s not because of their overriding morals.

Right now google has >80% of traffic and now that they have pried safari open that number is gonna climb. Their opinion is literally the only one that matters - what are you gonna do, not use google products?

if google wants to fight they’ll win, have fun getting into your gmail account if they require attestation. What are you gonna do, not use email? Change your whole internet identity to not run on google? Gmail is effectively email, and small mailservers are fundamentally broken on the modern web. Even for things like outlook.com they could require that other mailservers provide the attestation used to send it and lock people out of gmail entirely, even just needing to gmail.

It’s game over, the apple sideloading case swept away the last resistance to chrome monoculture, and google already runs a supermajority of the other web services that matter. This is google flexing their muscles now that they know they’re utterly unopposed. But unfortunately the EU is way more concerned with outlawing the lightning port and mandating 2000s-vintage removable battery phone designs than actually fighting a monopoly using its monopoly power to leverage abusive behavior in related market segments to the detriment of consumers.

This is a classic useful-idiot situation where all the android fanboys waved their flags at their “team win” over “braindead” apple fans getting the app-review process neutered by sideloading. Because it’s not enough to have a popular brand which supports that too, you need to outlaw any alternative business models to your preferred brand. And despite warnings that exactly this chrome monoculture would be the outcome, people pushed for it anyway. Wait and see, they said, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it and if google starts to be a problem the EU will step in. It took literally a matter of weeks before google just went ahead and crossed that bridge. Extremely frustrating.

And yea, safari has some attestation features too. Not necessarily the same ones as google, and they don’t prevent Wipr or Adblock Plus extensions from working. But now you’ve gone and made sure there’s no alternative browsers that don’t, either. You pushed this on yourself. sideloading has locked in an unshakeable chrome monopoly marketshare, it’s going to be a massive uphill battle to sell people on Firefox when it doesn’t even work on almost any relevant web services because it doesn’t (by design) allow attestation.

Almost as if... most of Apple's iOS stances aren't just random/exploitative, but actually have some basis in security posture or app-review. And almost as if... Apple is still fundamentally trying to sell you a phone first and foremost, then icloud/apple music revenue, and then adtech is way down on the list, while google makes all its money from (a) ecosystem effect and the monopolistic behaviors it allows, and (b) direct revenue from adtech. People keep trying to push the "apple is the same thing!" and just like you can see from their attestation not caring about adblocking, it's really not.

I loathe that the brand wars have gotten to this place, "both sides are the same" but also they are different enough that you need to literally outlaw the business model of your competition and reduce choice in the market. Can't let some "brainless" apple fan make a different choice from you, you know best for everyone.