As someone pointed out on Twitter, the reason The Verge and others are getting upset about "Mobile Safari" may be Apple's upcoming introduction of Safari Content Blockers, which would deprive them of advertising revenue. By badmouthing Safari (for something which isn't its fault), it can get people to switch to Chrome, which won't have ad-blocking on iOS.
I think that argument could be made without the conspiratorial angle, too. The Verge and others are probably grumpy about Safari because of that, and that in turn makes them more eager to bad-mouth it.
This is hypothetical, of course.