I could count on one hand the jurisdictions in which a publicly-funded browser wouldn’t eventually cause a voter backlash. Unless it—and the rest of the government—are run perfectly, paying for something most people get for free sounds like corruption.
I don't think you could do it as a direct "fund browsers" law. You'd have to do it as a "technology research fund". Something we already somewhat have in the US with the National Laboratories. But those budgets are pretty limited. The NSA gets a whole lot more money to pay for it's research.
> Something we already somewhat have in the US with the National Laboratories
Our national labs fund aren’t typically replicating commercial findings.
Nuclear fusion isn’t something you can download for free. Browsers are. It looks wasteful to everyone but the technically inclined, and even we would be undercut by those who never trust the government.
Non-profit that competes for government grants and contracts seems the way to go.
You're demonstrating my point for me: the institutions tasked with governing our lives and protecting us from wrongdoers are increasingly divorced from reality. Albeit moroseo in america than anywhere.
Not really.
It's a web browser and from a non-tech politician they already have the internet.
It's pretty hard to get a government to understand why the 1000 webkit browsers aren't actually competitive.
They'd rather send money and regulations towards something they can better understand like healthcare or right to repair. Heck, even "AI".