# Apple's Influence on Browser Choice and Internet Standards

DevFeed: [Apple's Influence on Browser Choice and Internet Standards](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/apple-s-assault-on-standards-26557.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://infrequently.org/2025/09/apples-crimes-against-the-internet-community/>)

Author: Alex Russell

Published: 2025-09-02T00:00:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Alex Russell](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/alex-russell.md>)

Topics: [interoperability](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/interoperability.md>), [Internet](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/internet.md>), [Web](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/web.md>), [browser](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/browser.md>), [Software](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/software.md>)

Tags: [browser](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/browser.md>), [browsers](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/browsers.md>), [competition](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/competition.md>), [internet](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/internet.md>), [interoperability](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/interoperability.md>), [standards](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/standards.md>), [web](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/web.md>), [webdev](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/webdev.md>)

## AI overview

The article argues that competition and interoperability are foundational to internet standards because they limit vendor power and enable users to switch software. It contends that Apple's control over hardware and software has restricted browser choice, weakened interoperability, and undermined the role of internet standards.

## Source excerpt

TL;DR: Market competition underlies the enterprise of standards. It creates the only functional test of designs and lets standards-based ecosystems route around single-vendor damage. Without competition, standards bodies have no purpose, and neither they, nor the ecosystems they support, can retain relevance. Apple has poisoned the well through a monopoly on influence, which it has parleyed into suppression of browser choice. This is an existential threat to the web, but also renders web and internet standards moot. Internet standards bodies should recognise the threat and respond. Contents The Power of Interoperability Voluntary Adoption Is Foundational to Internet Standards Apple's Unique Monopoly How Apple Uses Its Monopoly to Centralise and Enclose Apple's Transgressions Against Voluntary Adoption Unilateral Off-Ramps How Apples Crimes Differ From Prior Episodes Necessary, Proportional Responses Why Now? Do Standards Matter? Internet enthusiasts of the previous century sometimes expressed the power of code by declaring the sovereignty of cyberspace, or that "code is law." As odd as these claims sound today, they hit a deep truth: end-users, and even governments, lack power to re-litigate choices embodied in software. Software vendors, therefore, have power. Backed by deeply embedded control chokepoints, and without a proportional response from other interests, this control is akin to state power. Both fear and fervour about these properties developed against a backdrop of libertarian1 attitudes toward regulation and competition. Attenuating vendor power through interoperability was, among other values, a shared foundation of collaboration for internet pioneers. The most fervent commitment of this strain was faith in markets to sort out information distribution problems through pricing signals,2 and that view became embedded deeply into the internet's governance mechanisms.3 If competition does not function, neither do standards. The internet's most consequential