Competing browsers saw their traffic increase,[16] suggesting that these smaller competing developers were gaining users. However, long-term trends show browsers such as Opera and Firefox losing market share in Europe, calling into question the usefulness of the browser choice screen.
If that were the case, you would have seen Chrome’s market share increase faster in the EU than the US where there was no browser ballot. That wasn’t the case.
The premise of browser lock-in was that Microsoft was tying IE to Windows and then encouraging the creation of websites that required IE. If Europe broke the lock on global websites that required IE, that would enable people all over the world to switch to other browsers at the same time.
What do you think had more to do with IE losing market share worldwide “browser choice” or the most popular website in the world hawking their browser on the front page and MS losing mobile - you can’t very well be IE only and want to work on mobile browsers.
What requires it to be a larger effect? Your claim was that "browser choice" was ineffective because non-Microsoft browsers lost share, but that's nonsense. Microsoft browsers lost share. That there were multiple reasons for this is no evidence that browser choice didn't work. The thing it was supposed to do happened.
I’m quoting from *your source”. How would Microsoft not lose share if they weren’t on mobile? We have a control group - the US. Where there was no browser choice forced on Microsoft, they lost share faster and where Google was more popular.
Losing share faster rather than at the same rate is evidence that there are independent factors involved, which means that it isn't a valid control group.
Competing browsers saw their traffic increase,[16] suggesting that these smaller competing developers were gaining users. However, long-term trends show browsers such as Opera and Firefox losing market share in Europe, calling into question the usefulness of the browser choice screen.