> Most browser extensions by weight are Google Chrome extensions. Google Chrome is unambiguously demonstrating that no API is safe in its quest to juice revenues. Anybody who builds extensions using Chrome's APIs should be very aware that they're quite possibly putting effort into something a juggernaut will stomp away without a second thought.
How unlike developing for literally any other environment.
I don't know if you're being sarcastic. There's a spectrum between developing for Lua (juggernaut is super friendly), Python (juggernaut is mostly friendly, even if 2->3 caused a lot of casualties), Go (in spite of the corporate backer, quite careful about not stomping) and Chrome.
Yes, there's always a counter-party. My point is it saves a lot of later grief to consider up front the counter-party you're entering into a relationship with. Their incentives and track record.
Google has removed capabilities for certain categories and it's pretty easy to figure out what's going to be risky.
But I use a set of very useful extensions, none of which present any problem to Google, all of which are extremely useful, and all of which I expect to stick around.
You and I lack the imagination to see how those APIs might be hindering revenues. Are you really willing to bet Google will not find a way in the future? I'm not. The need for revenue doesn't just stop. Eventually they'll return to squeeze water from these stones.
Quite right. Google and other commercial platforms may cut features or make breaking changes out of greed, while open source projects do it because they chase shiny things and can't be arsed to do legacy support. The end result is the same.
How unlike developing for literally any other environment.