[lapcat]

> A "little indie developer" hasn't been able to write a web browser in several decades.

IMO that's a major problem.

> The fact is, all three major browser implementations are open-source and that has allowed any company to come in and release or embed their own browser with minimal effort.

And they're all beholden to Google's decisions, for example to wreck the web browser extension API. Of course you can fork the code, but forks become increasingly difficult to maintain as they diverge significantly from the original code. Google can make things extremely difficult for forks.