If there was any company that I would trust less with a web browser (and related user data) than an ad-tech company, it would be an AI company.
https://blog.cloudflare.com/perplexity-is-using-stealth-unde...
It's not a profitable business to be in, and Perplexity would just do the exact same thing that might force Google to sell Chrome.
The only companies that should be allowed to buy Chrome are non-profits and companies promising to sell it for a fee (preferably not a subscription).
I am not sure if a single fee works. Browsers are too important and hard to maintain. What if people had paid single fee for Chrome 15 years ago for non-profit?
We want more browser engines, and slowing down development, e.g. to yearly, every two, or every three year for major releases would go a long way to ensure that.
Maybe you forget why we want more browser engines? It is not that we want the same standards rewritten differently. We want more competition, so that we get new ideas and alternatives. Maybe others don't have to catch up, since some standards or practices are currently dictated by Google and not seen as good in general.