It's a really huge deferent from chromium reaching 90%+ browser share. So yes, it is in fact an anti-monopoly browser. iOS isn't even at majority market share in most places in the world.
It is not, because a random user is not able to use it.
A thing only affects a monopoly when it is a choice a consumer can make.
You could say that iphone is an anti-monopoly option vs android, but not that Safari is an anti-monopoly option vs Chrome.
Then on top of that, even for users that do happen to "live in Canada"(1) already, Safari isn't a choice, it's the only allowed option, and full octane firefox is also not available as a choice. (firfox as a front-end to safari is essentially meaningless)
(1) saying "you can use Safari, because you can switch to iphone" is the same as saying you can have something, just move to Canada", ie, invalid and likely disingenuous, because likely the speaker understood that perfectly well.
So, yeah "let's be real" indeed. There is no way to paint Safari as any sort of anti-monopoly.
This user choice argument isn’t what makes safari monopolist. It’s that for some countries iOS has majority share these days, and safari is pushed on users through it.
That’s why I was kinda trying to say it is anti-monopoly monopoly.
If Apple supported read+execute pages for third party applications, it might give users more choice but it would also have the consequence of ushering in the way for total browser domination by chromium. I’d argue that is an even worse scenario as far as monopoly is concerned.
I’m weighing two bad outcomes here. I think it’s a lot worse if there’s only one browser for the entire web than it is for there to be one browser for one singular platform.
