You're being needlessly down-voted here (I can only guess at what silly HN tripwire you've activated) but you're absolutely right. Tech people like us might think it's completely obvious that a browser shouldn't render pdfs or make your toast. But end users don't care. Browser x lets them read stuff quicker without switching to another app. They want the monolith.

We can dislike it, but we need to reconcile it.

Yeah, and I know this first hand. I work at a biotech startup and we have some super intelligent people who regularly get confused with modern UIs. For e.g. Not everyone understands that the hamburger menu is actually a menu. Or that flat shaded text can actually be a UI button element.