See the previous pieces in this thread.

Today, I have to say that unfortunately, while turning off automatic plug-ins did significantly decrease the instances of clipboard failure in Chrome/Mac, they are still there.

At this point, I don't think the problem is going to go away until Google decides it's time to make it go away.

Why this problem persists

I'm learning a lot about how the tech industry works today from this example. I was very naive, apparently.

The reason this bug is not a high priority is that it is only a problem for people who use the web to write. People who just watch YouTube videos and click on links in Twitter or Facebook, they don't use the clipboard. They probably don't even know it exists.

Basically if a bug interferes with your ability to watch advertising, it's high priority. If not, well, someone can work on that in their "spare time." Said with a wink and a nudge.

And when someone gets too close to saying this in public, flame them, hoping they will think it's not worth the trouble.

What do do?

It seems there's enough economic interest in the web to find a few million a year to keep a fork of WebKit nice and solid and working well across all versions of Mac OS. Based on the theory that PBS hasn't had a huge negative effect on commercial TV over the years, the tech industry might not even try to sabotage it.

As much as I don't care about advertising, personally, I have to say that in order for this idea to work, this version would have to specifically not support advertisers' interests. They're what's making the web crazy right now.