Yeah, Chrome represents a pretty different model from most desktop apps we run. Chrome's seamless auto-update has brought web-app style continuous iteration to the desktop. That means continuous change, and presumably improvement, but also no real ability to opt-out of new features/bloat and newly introduced bugs.

This was a brilliant move for Google because it removes the friction they face to push web-client functionality where they want it to go. For example, I woke up one day and suddenly I could run all these new webgl apps. We have all granted them implicit license to push code out to all our desktops -- at the cost of no longer controlling what version and bug/feature tradeoff you are running.

Whereas App Store apps, where the user controls updates, are somewhere in the middle of this shrinkwrap vs. web app continuum. You get the constant nagging to download version N.epsilon.epsilon of iTunes, with 20 pages of block text describing updates that are only interesting if you are the person driving Apple's grand product strategy, but you at least get the ability to say no thanks, don't ask me again. (Of course they will ask you again, but that's just due to inevitably skewed incentives.)