> A side-effect of a Chromium-only web is that it gives the Chrome team at Google less incentive to invest in the web platform. It used to be a way to differentiate Chrome from other browsers. Now-a-days that is no longer the case.
That's what happened with Internet Explorer but the reason Microsoft was perfectly happy to stall the development of the web once it took over the browser market was because it didn't really have any incentive to use the web in the first place (it was better off if people just used desktop apps), and it only developed IE so that if the internet was going to take over it could be the one in the position to control it.
On the other hand, outside of Android, Google is extremely reliant on the web for its products on desktop and on chromebooks (there used to be chrome os apps and chrome browser apps but they have already been deprecated).
Google actually has an incentive to add new features to try to give PWA's feature parity with desktop apps, so rather than ceasing development, it may be more likely that they start just adding new features that aren't compatible with other browsers.
E.g. they could probably now go back and immediately undeprecate WebSQL and just say, "we don't care what firefox thinks now." If they announced that, they have enough market share that they could probably get people to start using it again and that would immediately break compatibility with firefox.
Yes they can act unilaterally and with Chrome OS and many popular web apps they do have incentive to care about the web. But will that translate to the Chrome organization caring? It doesn’t make Chrome a more attractive browser to users than other browsers also built on Chromium.
That's the point. They don't need to care if it makes it more attractive than other chromium browsers. They have features they want to use so being able to unilaterally add them benefits them either way.
If they decide to add new amp integration or similar features, for example, that can give them more control of the Internet even if you are using those features through Edge rather than Chrome.
Seeing Google's goal as getting everyone on Chrome is missing the point: it's just as good from their perspective to simply have everyone using chromium based browsers.
That's what happened with Internet Explorer but the reason Microsoft was perfectly happy to stall the development of the web once it took over the browser market was because it didn't really have any incentive to use the web in the first place (it was better off if people just used desktop apps), and it only developed IE so that if the internet was going to take over it could be the one in the position to control it.
On the other hand, outside of Android, Google is extremely reliant on the web for its products on desktop and on chromebooks (there used to be chrome os apps and chrome browser apps but they have already been deprecated).
Google actually has an incentive to add new features to try to give PWA's feature parity with desktop apps, so rather than ceasing development, it may be more likely that they start just adding new features that aren't compatible with other browsers.
E.g. they could probably now go back and immediately undeprecate WebSQL and just say, "we don't care what firefox thinks now." If they announced that, they have enough market share that they could probably get people to start using it again and that would immediately break compatibility with firefox.