The issue here is that in order to do its thing, uBlock Origin requires quite extensive access to the browser context, including the ability to intercept network traffic.
It’s pretty easy to see how this could be abused by malicious extensions, and security is the stated reason behind many of the Manifest v3 changes.
So it’s not clear that this is Google “being evil”, so much as it is trying to force web security forward, at the expense of user experience.
Because whoever buys it won’t also control search.
Clearly it won’t be MSFT or AAPL, and given other DOJ investigations, unlikely to be AMZN. So I at least feel we have a fighting chance in someone else’s hands.
I do see MS buying it but keeping it as an independent foundation and letting other join to vote and help steer development... I could see Google itself doing this to chromium to avoid loose chrome..
Apple is more unlikely since they do not use Chromiun or Blink for Safari, but give that Blink is a fork of WebKit that is what Apple use in Safari i would not say chances are zero..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_be_evil