Chrome, firefox, and safari are much, much more likely to be used by the technically elite. These are the people who fix their friends' and relatives' computers, who design and build websites, who write about technology, they have the ability to influence the less sophisticated in browser choice.
More importantly, browsers are free (except Opera), and in the internet age the process of changing your choice of browser is about as difficult as posting to facebook. This makes browser market share potentially highly volatile. Firefox and chrome are slowly but steadily making gains in market share, and firefox is already within striking distance of becoming the dominant browser. There is very much the potential of reaching a tipping point where the featureset of IE becomes so outdated that it no longer becomes a viable browser choice. And if we ever reach that point, and I believe we very well could given the differential in pace of development of firefox/chrome/safari vs. IE, then the entire browser marketshare arena could be turned upside down overnight. One need only to look at the growth in popularity of twitter, for example, to see how fast things can change in the modern internet world.
Chrome, firefox, and safari are much, much more likely to be used by the technically elite. These are the people who fix their friends' and relatives' computers, who design and build websites, who write about technology, they have the ability to influence the less sophisticated in browser choice.
More importantly, browsers are free (except Opera), and in the internet age the process of changing your choice of browser is about as difficult as posting to facebook. This makes browser market share potentially highly volatile. Firefox and chrome are slowly but steadily making gains in market share, and firefox is already within striking distance of becoming the dominant browser. There is very much the potential of reaching a tipping point where the featureset of IE becomes so outdated that it no longer becomes a viable browser choice. And if we ever reach that point, and I believe we very well could given the differential in pace of development of firefox/chrome/safari vs. IE, then the entire browser marketshare arena could be turned upside down overnight. One need only to look at the growth in popularity of twitter, for example, to see how fast things can change in the modern internet world.