Safari’s privacy is a joke considering you can’t install browser extensions like UBlock Origin to thoroughly block trackers and other spyware. Not to mention it’s the most buggy and poorly developed rendering engine, breaking more websites than any other major browser. And it’s not even cross platform. Hardly a competitor as far as I’m concerned.
Safari was the only browser to ship with 3rd party cookies disabled by default. Without Safari there'd be tons of websites that required 3rd party cookies to work. These days there are very few.
3rd party cookies make pervasive tracking much, much easier.
Fair enough, but I wouldn't call a software locked to an ecosystem "user-centric". Firefox on Android is a lifesaver in a sea of opportunistic alternatives