Google paying all of its employees to work on Chrome, or it pays Chrome to be the default search engine to a new company called Chrome so Chrome can pay its employees. What's the difference?

I think the difference is if Chrome had to stand on its own, it would be even more incentivized to drive traffic to Google for revenue at the expense of user experience.

what if, *gasp*, people paid for chrome directly?

What if google paid it's users directly for their searches.

Sounds like a joke but Bing is actually trying this.

if people paid for Chrome, Google would have to stop collecting data on its users. Google would much rather have that data than some <$20 fee. If Chrome was its own company, Google's money to be the default search engine would be more than they could earn from selling the browser. Free. Always has. Always will be. wait, that's the other data hoover.

Ask the regulators, that's one tool they use against monopolies. Like when they shattered AT&T into over a dozen pieces.

Which created the baby bell monopolies. :s

It's created AT&T all over again. Many got gobbled up by one baby bell who bought the name. Quite interesting.

Having had to deal with the ILEC/CLEC dance decades ago, the splits also did nothing to change their ‘die competitor’ attitude in any way.