Safari being Apple-only only has the appearance of a problem when the only alternative is one browser that happens to be almost everywhere. Again, the point of the web is to be an open platform, not the placing at a single corporation.
Chrome has plenty of problems but nobody cares because when Chrome doesn’t support something properly, no one uses it.
I agree that Safari is not perfect either. But let’s assume for a moment that nothing is going to make Apple invest more into WebKit than they are already. Which of the following worlds would I prefer?
1. WebKit remains the exclusive browser on iOS devices. The bleeding edge of the web doesn’t advance quite as quickly. A tiny number of developers who don’t already have access to an Apple device have to spend literally tens of dollars buying or inheriting 5+ year-old devices in order to test on a diversity of platforms.
2. Blink becomes available on iOS and Google continues use dark patterns to trick users into installing their browser. A small but non-trivial number of developers start assuming that everyone uses Blink/Chromium, and end users no longer have a choice of browser.
I’m sorry, I forget, isn’t the whole point about giving people a choice of browser? Because some people on Hacker News have some fairly dystopian blinders on and don’t actually care about user choice, they’re just lazy arseholes who don’t want to deal with an open web and resent having to test in more than one web browser.
Between these two alternative futures, I’ll pick number one every time, no hesitation. The open web is far more important to me than developer convenience.