It feels like a natural competitive extension to any company seriously trying to usurp Google's browser domination including but not limited to paying Apple to be the default search engine

Why? Sounds quite competitive to me. Making chatgpt only work with their own browser would be anti-competitive.

I dunno... it sounds better than giving Apple/Mozilla/etc. dump-trucks of money to make Google my default search engine.

Very slightly better, but only very slightly, and Google's tactic was ruled illegal anti-competition so this feels like an attempt to find a loophole

getting an 50 mile Uber ride for $25 when taxi was charging me $100 sure got that app onto my phone... once I had the app on the phone...

Or maybe a prime example of healthy capitalism! /s