This is all going through IPC in a command buffer like architecture where the display lists are formed in another process. Where you can have several framebuffers that you can render 2d, 3d and intermix them in a beautiful final output thanks to the sophisticated compositor.
The state-of-the-art on desktop was a in-process direct rendering instead.
Modern browser are wonderful machines, we should be glad we are seing this happening.
Also, Google contantly are being bashed on HN, i know, who like the big man right? i think this we should thank them for pushing the envelope on a open platform, that will probably even eat the closed app platform with time.
Just Dorothy-like hackers would'nt be able to fight back the awful world of closed source applications platform if browsers were not what they are today. We are constantly in danger to get back to where we were in the nineties. If this whole "cloud computer" paradigm were not enough of a threat to a world of global scale control of the digital life of billions by only a few.
Its good to be skeptic and bash the big man, its important to fight back, but lets respect and give them props for the things they do right. A piece of software that has value on its own by the way.