If you know about politics, this is what it takes: a person on the leader's position would use anything and any way he can to keep his authority/position stable --- this is not happening just in DC but in enterprises too. As Larry etc formed Alphabet while tossing Google to Pichai, the latter's power has already been weakened by the former everyday. The fact is that Google as well as other large companies in silicon valley is more and more occupied by Eastern Indian workers, the quality control of products has therefore gone into toilet since their culture, while turning to be the majority, is to seek atomic survival by exploitation of extrinsic achievement instead of improving intrinsic value of products. Office politics has been never more severe since then and now it's difficult and exhausting for Pichai to maintain his position by dodging countless number of traps created by themselves. He would then like to do anything to keep himself up --- or else being destroyed --- even if it means to set the product quality back to a century before, to bind the will of midlevel managers to support himself.
And that is why the products goes back to as evil as IE, simply because no one could care less.