As far as I understand, v8 doesn't care about node, and would never think twice about doing something that breaks the entire node ecosystem if it makes Chrome slightly faster. FWIW, they aren't even "wrong": it makes sense to me. What is interesting here is not "competition" but "someone who builds a JavaScript engine wants you as a user".

That is probably true, but maybe this position stems more from the fact that they were never challenged than we think. I'm hoping some pride will be thrown into the mix and will make them care just a bit more than they currently do.