Then it's not much of a competition. It's just more chrome market share, with a different name.

Open source is what you make of it. If you have no plans to change Chromium, then sure, "It's just more chrome market share".

I would argue that you probably shouldn't be making a web browser unless you have plans to change the status quo for web browsers.

That's the difference between theory and practice.

In theory, sure.

In practice, there are lany chrome forks and they all chrome with a few features on top.

In theory you can beat usain bolt by just running faster than him.

In practice nobody does.

in practice it's just chrome and firefox, just like it was america and the soviets.

it's irrelevant what flag your fork (nation state) flies when its marching orders come from above.

This comment is like saying that all Unreal Engine 5 games are the same game just with different names. This is not the case. The engine is what powers and helps you build the product you want. 2 different companies can use the same engine and have their end products compete against each other.

But if you fork it you cannot paid that amount to keep it bug "free".

You can merge in the paid for fixes though. Depends how divergent you want to be.