[thelist] MSN locks out non IE browsers

[Daniel J. Cody]

Jon Hall wrote:


> To illustrate why, I'll ask who are the people who still have msn.com as
> their home page?


Irrelevant. The fact is they are knowlingly shutting out competing 
browsers from their website. Millions of people do have msn.com as their 
homepage, granted. Many people that don't use IE still rely on msn.com 
as their 'internet homepage'.

 
> The ability to assume IE4+ and NS6+ for every web site is a great burden off
> of our shoulders as I am sure everyone here knows. Microsoft probably has
> gotten more people to upgrade in one day than the WASP people have in 6
> months.


this does *not* make web developers lives easier. its *JUST* as easy to 
serve the page from msn.com and have it display in any browser. further, 
is the purpose of msn.com to *make* people upgrade their browser or to 
serve content? if the former, its a great example of MS extending and 
embracing. if it was the latter, they wouldn't be shutting out competing 
browsers.


> Now if Yahoo would only do the same thing...


if yahoo ever did the same thing, they'd lose 10-20% of their audience 
within a day. period.

 
> jon
> 
> p.s. This is the same reason why .Net subscription schemes are a good thing
> for us as developers. Microsoft might just be looking to get richer, but it
> ends up saving developers time too.


a good thing? why is it a good thing other than MS telling you 'its a 
good thing'? is it a good thing for you to have to pay 3 cents every 
time you send an email through hotmail? is it a good thing for 
developers to have to pay a couple thousand dollars just to have the 
'priviledge' to hook into passport?

theres nothing good about locking people into a subscription scheme 
because they're comfortable with the application.

.djc.