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It's pretty hard to tell whether many Google technologies would make it out of the starting gate without the heavy thumb that Google monopoly power places on the scale.
Ironically, Googlers all believe that their technologies are winning because they're better.
Ironically, Googlers all believe that their technologies are winning because they're better.
When Chrome first came out, every Google property, including Search, implored their users to install Chrome. Tons of Google products straight up didn't work outside of Chrome at all.
I captured this screenshot in 2014 because of how frustrated I was getting as a Firefox user.
I captured this screenshot in 2014 because of how frustrated I was getting as a Firefox user.
Eventually Chrome became very successful, but nobody on the Chrome team will ever be able to be sure that Chrome's technology justified its success. Free advertising on google.com dominates the analysis.
The same thing is true of other Google technologies like Polymer, web components and AMP. Nobody working on those technologies will ever know whether they're any good, because Google used its significant market position to push and push and push.
Google technologies like those also spend an extremely long time in obscurity, propped up by continued corporate investment, despite receiving huge help from Google Developer Relations megaphones.
Given those resources and the help these technologies get through the Google search monopoly, you'd expect them to be extraordinarily popular. But outside of the places where Google is putting its thumb on the scale the hardest, Google's pet technologies struggle and struggle.
If I were working on one of these projects, it would bother me that so many people are using them because they're forced to, because Google's market power is giving them no choice.
