I think what you write is true, as I experienced it myself seemingly being that way. And then you have that smug colleague, who uses Chrome "because it is so much faster" and wondering why you still use Firefox or alternatives.

No matter whether we ascribe it to evil or the sheer incompetence of Google engineers (the job which so many proud themselves for as in: "I worked at Google!" lol), it remains Google's fault and not the fault of things they subtlely try to push it to.