Chrome Memes

Google: "Let's create a new image format that saves 30% file size!" Frontend devs: "Great, but does it work everywhere?" Google: "It works in Chrome!" And that's how we got stuck with WebP, the format that somehow manages to make images look like they were compressed with a potato while also breaking compatibility with half the tools you need. Nothing says "modern web development" like converting files back and forth between formats just to upload them to a CMS that will reject them anyway.

The modern browser innovation pipeline in a nutshell! Why reinvent the wheel when you can just repaint it? Every "new" browser these days is essentially Chromium with a fresh coat of paint and marketing buzzwords. Brave, Edge, Opera—they're all just Chrome wearing different Halloween costumes. The Chromium monoculture is basically the JavaScript framework situation but for browsers: everyone forking the same codebase while pretending they've created something revolutionary. "Look ma, we added a built-in VPN that slows everything down by 30%!" Meanwhile, Mozilla Firefox sits in the corner, the last bastion of browser engine diversity, wondering where it all went wrong.