Right, yet, Chrome has an enormous number of Mac users. Apple argue that battery life is a topic so important it's worth banning competitors for but clearly when given the choice users disagree. There are other things more important to them.

My impression is that most computer users have a limited sense of which software applications are churning through battery, and instead just blame the computer vendor.

That is, if Chrome churns through battery on a Mac laptop, the typical user is going to just think “Apple laptops have poor battery life”, never realizing that switching to Safari would make a significant difference.