Right, basically no web browser has a profitable business model except through licensing or being subsidized through some other branch of the business.

The best pure browser company in history was Opera, and they didn't fail because they weren't innovating. It is simply not a survivable model. People don't remember anything, but during Google's recent anti trust case, one floated "solution" was to spin Chrome off as a separate company, but that was regarded as unrealistic partly because such a company would not have a credible path to profitability separate from Google.

I happen to disagree, they could have collected a search licensing fee just like Firefox but that model is already being regarded as monopoly adjacent.