[mistercow]

> Why would it be an "artificial" advantage?

If Google successfully gets people to adopt Dart, but other browsers rely on JS cross compilation while Chrome has a dedicated VM, then there will be a period during which Chrome has an artificial advantage. This is a virtual certainty.

Dart might also have real advantages, and those would be enjoyed by all once other browsers provided fast implementations. But initially, Chrome would enjoy an artificial advantage even if Dart was actually worse by design than JavaScript, so long as they could get a significant chunk of web developers to adopt it.

My point is that getting people to adopt a technology that your product pioneers confers on you a market advantage independent of the actual merits of that technology.