Agreed. While being forced into a walled garden isn't a good thing, it has the current side effect giving iOS Safari a significant market share to keep Chrome from dominating to become the new IE and have all those "works in Internet Explorer 6 with 1024x768 screen" websites again but this time for Chrome.
Maybe from the perspective of webdevs, from what it represents for users, that's Chrome. A Chrome monopoly may seem desirable, because they're catering to webdevs, but there's nothing they'd like more than having webdevs help them lasso all the users they can surveil and expose to ads as possible.
I get your point. However, unless mobile usage (vs desktop) gets to something like 90% and unless another 90% of that mobile is iPhone/iPad (vs anything non-Apple), Safari dominating like IE did is impossible.
However, for Chrome, it is possible without the walled garden (not to defend it or anything, but it is what it is).
That simplistic a comparison is simply not worth responding to in any direct way. Safari is Safari and IE is IE. there are some clear differences between the two, in both mobile market share and total market share. That’s just the beginning.
