Well, they moved on despite both other major engine vendors having a negative position on this spec, so is the standards process really doing anything?

Yes, when people complain about what they're doing, they can say "this is just the way the standards process works".

I think that’s kinda misleading, isn’t it? You make it sound like it’s making good progress towards standardisation. They asked for feedback from other browser vendors, everybody said no, and they are shipping it anyway. Is “incubation happened, now on to origin trials before standardisation” really a suitable summary of that?

> “incubation happened (and we don't care what anyone said), now on to origin trials before standardisation (in chrome, and good luck if you use another browser)”

That's exactly how google would describe it with some missing context added.

It cannot be a standard until two browsers ship the API.

lol. As long as a browser with Chrome's market share ships it, it will be used.

Whether it's an official standard by some criteria doesn't matter.

Technically, it’s not two browsers shipping it, it’s two independent implementations. Otherwise everything that Google ships as part of Blink would become a standard as soon as any one of the other Blink-based browsers (e.g. Edge) includes it.

Standardization... also known as open washing by their employees in WHATWG.

It's not. There are now probably dozens (if not more) "standards" that are shipped in Chrome because "it's part of standards process".

Google creates an excuse of a standard proposal. Other browser vendors find major issues, or outright say "no", Google still ships the "standard".