Imagine a world where 99% of users do not have any concept of URLs or any other fundamental WWW concepts. Instead, they open Chrome type whatever they want and get the results. It is not difficult to imagine a world where the non-tech users do not think of google as search engine but as internet in itself.
What chrome did by training users to enter their searches in the address bar (via the default tab’s fake google search box which moves the cursor to the URL field) was stupid, expensive, and probably undermines Google’s ability to be a destination web site in the long term.
At this point, the overwhelming number of devices are not Google’s. There is no reason to think that in the future they will be. After this anti trust stuff their influence over android may be even less than it is now.
Sadly then Android will probably falter. As much as things are a shitshow, the unified app ecosystem is a big deal to allow competition for smartphones themselves which allows users to switch without getting burnt on app costs. Otherwise corporations are all about vendor lockin and fucking over the consumer for short term gain because greed is king these days.
Someone should fund a "cash back for not using google" browser extension.
They've introduced mouse support (in 2019 no less), but even then it's disabled by default and buried in the Accessibility settings menu.
While I'm not a fan of obscuring what a URL is actually doing, this already is happening with headers.
But this is news because it's Google.
Apple does this and it's a "feature".
Marketing is a dangerous tool.