Browser Wars
Out of context: Reply #19
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The point I'd like to make is that if you control market share, you can shift technology towards what benefits your own company.
Maybe Flash is a bad example.
How about this one... Let's assume that Google thinks Gmail/Inbox is a valuable asset. In order to keep people using it, gmail needs to be a decent user experience. Having your own browser means that you aren't relying as much on other companies' technologies to deliver a good user experience.
It's the same reason Apple makes Maps for iPhone. Google Maps works fine, but Apple doesn't want to rely on Google's technology. If Google Maps starts to lag behind as the best map (or Google decides to limit it or drop support for iOS or any other unlikely but possible scenario) Apple could lose lots of sales of iPhones while people complain about the map service. So, they make their own Maps app so that they aren't depending on the technology of others.
Also, don't forget that data is valuable, and the more data you can scrape, the more valuable your company looks. Notice how in recent versions of Chrome you can Log In to Chrome? This is great for tracking your usage patterns (especially across devices) and that data is super valuable to lots of different organizations. Google couldn't offer that without offering their own browser. So, the better they make their browser, the more people use it, and they get more logins and better data to sell. Of course, not everyone needs to log in. They get a lot more data from people just using Chrome than the data they can get when people use other browsers.