[cosmic_cheese]

Why is it that Google is fixated on bolting on ever more junk and turning browsers into Homermobiles[0] instead of putting those vast resources towards fixing the numerous structural weaknesses in everything that browsers are already capable of? Why not focus on foundational things that will improve quality of life for everything on the web platform ranging from static blogs to e-commerce to cutting edge web apps?

Really, I just can’t understand it.

[0]: https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/The_Homer

[zamadatix]

Google doesn't build Chrome to make a better web. Building a good browser for the sake of building a good browser is throwing billions towards goodwill while Google's goal with Chrome is to further replace the user's OS as the platform users do things on their devices with.

Google has Android & ChromeOS to directly try to do that but Chrome makes it so the average user using e.g. Windows still ends up in a Google world most of the time.

[afavour]

Chrome is an operating system for Google. It gives them a way into corporate environments that run Windows far more easily than getting those companies to convert to ChromeOS or something. So they keep adding features because they want users to be able to do just about anything in there.

[bloppe]

If you want to go for promo at Google, you gotta launch a prompt API

[lxgr]

How would not implementing a prompt API make them dedicate their resources to something else they didn't consider important before? This seems like a false dichotomy.