It prevents google from arbitrarily deciding "web standards" on it's own.

Anyone who "buys chrome" would most likely follow a similar agenda. If you can base your browser on Chromium, free of cost, as most do, and are not interested in dictating web standards, what incentive do you have to "buy chrome" (which is to say buy the marketshare of chrome users who use Chrome because Chrome)?

Google most certainly has other means of dictating web standards, simply by being Google.

I fail to see the scenario in which Chrome is purchased by a benevolent entity which engages in less shitty practices and/or one where Google doesn't just upstreams their bullshit in to chromium itself . I don’t really understand how this would work in practice - Google's Ad business obviously calls the shots, and that's a bad thing for the web, but I'm not sure how we get from here to there.

It prevents google from arbitrarily deciding "web standards" on it's own.

Anyone who "buys chrome" would most likely follow a similar agenda. If you can base your browser on Chromium, free of cost, as most do, and are not interested in dictating web standards, what incentive do you have to "buy chrome" (which is to say buy the marketshare of chrome users who use Chrome because Chrome)?

Google most certainly has other means of dictating web standards, simply by being Google.

I fail to see the scenario in which Chrome is purchased by a benevolent entity which engages in less shitty practices and/or one where Google doesn't just upstreams their bullshit in to chromium itself . I don’t really understand how this would work in practice.

It prevents google from arbitrarily deciding "web standards" on it's own.

Anyone who "buys chrome" would most likely follow a similar agenda. If you can base your browser on Chromium, free of cost, as most do, and are not interested in dictating web standards, what incentive do you have to "buy chrome" (which is to say buy the marketshare of chrome users who use Chrome because Chrome)?

Google most certainly has other means of dictating web standards, simply by being Google.

I fail to see the scenario in which Chrome is purchased by a benevolent entity which engages in less shitty practices and/or one where Google doesn't just upstreams their bullshit in to chromium itself .