[geor9e]

You call them Chrome extensions, but they're really Chromium extensions that work on Edge, Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, Arc, etc. Those teams contribute code to the Chromium open source project too. Sure, whoever takes over Chrome won't have Googles juggernaut team pushing Chromium development forward, and maybe that will lead to degradation over time, but it's not like it would cause immediate ecosystem collapse. For all my psychic prediction powers know, getting rid of the monopoly could lead to a renaissance in browser tech via stronger competition. This could go either way.

[nfw2]

In the past, too many competing browsers resulted in a frustrating experience for web application developers.

Does Google have undue influence now? Sure. But I’m not so sanguine about the alternatives either.

[MyOutfitIsVague]

It was more than just too many competing browsers, from what I understand. It was a few competing browsers that interpreted standards completely different, and a standards body that was slow enough to be completely ineffective.

I'd argue that the main problem was not too much competition, but effective anti-competitive behavior (and simple laziness) from Microsoft in particular. The frustrating experience was primarily caused by Internet Explorer.

[Jensson]

We will move back to a worse version of that when Microsoft buys Chrome, since now Google aren't allowed to compete in this space.