It would be a world of simplicity if I logged into the browser with my google account, a little picture of myself showed in the top right corner of the browser chrome (instead of in various places in different apps), and that identity is what was used for per-app Google auth.

I should also mention, there's another place it gets used - in Chrome extensions. That should use the same identity.

Google login then becomes one reasonable choice for "log into the internet". Right now it's too fractured to be a coherent identity.

> I should also mention, there's another place it gets used - in Chrome extensions. That should use the same identity.

That's actually good use case for the browser login feature. (when one is using some google-acc-connected extension)

But for ordinary users I don't think this solution would work flawlessly, because it is different than ones before (and users learn new things slowly).

However if that would be the actual implementation (force logging everywhere into the same acc) I agree it would be simpler for end-users. But it is not, therefore original point (browser login is confusing people) still stands. And therefore teaching users to rely on it does not seem like a good idea.

I realized that Chrome now (M69) forces the forced-logging-in solution (not sure, cannot test atm). Then my post is mostly moot (can't edit already), and for simple-users is this change probably good.