The DOJ wants to take Google Chrome away, Rob Kenedi wants to decelerate tech | BetaKit

For weeks, The BetaKit Podcast has been crisscrossing the country, podcasting live from Elevate in Toronto, ALL IN in Montréal, SAAS NORTH in Ottawa, and our very own Town Hall in Vancouver. It has been one hell of a roadshow, and we hope you’ve enjoyed our recordings from the field.

But I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you it’s good to be back. All of the stage performances have left little time to talk directly to you, dear listener. It has also left Rob and I little time to talk with each other about the latest tech news or the results of our own stage conversations. So as we downshift into End of The Year mode, for this episode we dabble in a little bit of everything.

“Browsers aren’t a business. Browsers don’t make money. These are loss leaders for other connected experiences because no one wants to pay for the window to the web.”

In an effortless bit of navel-gazing, we react to the reaction of our recent conversation about company failure with ex-Sampler CEO Marie Chevrier Schwartz, recorded live at SAAS NORTH. Failure has not been a common topic of public conversation in Canadian tech, but the tide seems to be turning. Why now? We have a few theories.

Speaking of failure, we pay respects to the short-lived Arc browser before wondering how The Browser Company’s next product might be any different (or any more popular).

It’s an interesting time for The Browser Company to be killing its radical approach to web browsing to build a new, more radical approach to web browsing, given the future of the dominant market leader is very much in question. You see, the United States Department of Justice wants Google to sell the Chrome web browser as a solution to the company’s search monopoly. That the DOJ would target Google’s popular portal to its search tool (and everywhere else on the web) rather than the search tool itself tells you a lot about the state of the internet. 

While a sale would certainly kneecap Google, would it actually change the state of play? How many tech companies not also being sued by the DOJ for antitrust exist as possible buyers? And isn’t AI angling to disrupt both search engines and web browsers anyway?

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We recorded the podcast a day before Canada’s Competition Bureau decided to follow the lead of our southern neighbours and sue Google as well. Recently on The BetaKit Podcast, ex-Googler Rory Capern speculated that Canada did not have the leverage to effectively regulate Big Tech. Commissioner of Competition Matthew Boswell is about to test that theory.

Perhaps the biggest news we discuss is that longtime brother-in-pod Rob Kenedi has launched a new show called Decelerator. This episode features thoughtful insights from Rob on why a near-quinquagenarian, legacy audio podcaster has suddenly launched a video format show and what it says about the state of media and distribution, product and audience, and ‘how to build things’ as we approach the hump year of this decade. But you can also just watch the first episode and get a feel for it yourself. 

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The BetaKit Podcast is hosted by Douglas Soltys & Rob Kenedi. Produced & edited by Darian MacDonald. Feature image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.