I don't understand Google's decision here - I wish they simply predicted a longer than normal release cadence, versus none at all
"Please test this build of Chrome on these 1000 various models of android phones" sounds kinda hard to automate.
Even if you had automated it, you'd probably still need someone in the office to poke hardware that locked up, etc.
I wouldn't be surprised if even the best of those systems requires some human supervision.
https://firebase.google.com/docs/test-lab/
As do many others:
It's reasonable to not understand their decision, but it's also reasonable to give them the benefit of the doubt that they know what's best for their team and product (and in that order).
Googlers (like myself) are probably the least materially affected by COVID-19. We are well compensated and most aren't living paycheck to paycheck. We have great medical benefits. Our schedules are flexible and working from home is fairly feasible for most teams. Many are young enough to not have kids, or compensated well-enough to have a stay-at-home partner.
And technically, for many of us, working from home is fairly straightforward. Google already has much of that infrastructure in place. Many teams are already distributed across sites and used to working over email and VC. We all have laptops, etc. Some of us work on open source where it's trivial to have full access to source code when not on the corporate network.
Even so, my rough estimate is that my team is about 30% less effective right now. Like you say, it's not because working from home is hard. It's because staying focused on code during a global pandemic that will kill unknown people, is causing massive suffering for people who aren't as fortunate as we Googlers, and may lead to a depression the likes of which haven't been seen in a hundred years is really hard.
We're all trying to survive a monumentally catastrophic event with our health and wits intact the best way we know how. The history books are going to write about how millions low-risk young people self-quarantined to protect the older generation. They will remember the states and countries that suspended evictions and mortgages.
No one's going to give a damn that Chrome skipped a release or two. At the scale of shit the world is dealing with right now, it just doesn't matter.
There are different ways to cope with adversity. The "Keep calm and carry on" method is a contrasting formula, which applied to Chrome, would see maybe one release versus three or four, even in the midst of an adversity.
As much ubiquitous suffering as there is currently, the comfort of at least a (slower than usual) browser release can be a ray of hope in an otherwise bleak horizon. Heck, if my browser won't even update, forget fixing a massively multivariate system/problem like public health, or the economy.
Your/Google's self awareness of privilege is much appreciated. But if you really want to make a difference, a slower release cadence is much more uplifting than resigning to the virus.
Edit to add: this also has a follow-on effect of reducing the possibility that end users experience problems due to breaking changes or bugs, which is also important considering nearly everyone is depending on the internet at this time.
Like I said in my previous comment, the newly remote Chrome team may be facing many unseen roadblocks, but I expect that to be a temporal window of delay, after which the team should resume shipping, albeit at a slower cadence due to reduced productivity compared to normal-times WFH.
Whilst I love NFC API, it's not critical at this moment where as ensure there are no (or as rew as possible) regressions is.
Wrapping up, it's a massive mix of needs right now from our own teams and users alike.
Sure, but that impact might be somewhat more... impactful right now. This isn't that difficult. If you're a FB user, you probably saw last night nearly all of your friends reporting that their posts were being flagged as spam yesterday. That's because a bunch of people were sent home and the automated system took over. Staffs are being sent home and their ability to work effectively is reduced. The prospect of breaking changes and new bugs in the world's most popular web browser could put more strain on already strained teams that are struggling to keep up with both their current working environment and new challenges as they respond to the public health crisis. Removing that as a factor is a net benefit for those teams and for all of their users.
I prefer 100% WFH to that, but I dislike not going to the office at all. This is my first time being 100% WFH for this long -- my previous max was a full week.