And, indeed, perfection of the craft involves politics: it's not just understanding the technical space, it's about, eventually, understanding why other people see that space differently, what their goals are, how those goals overlap or don't, and how technical choices feed into that social layer.

Back in the day, Chrome was about a sandboxed subprocess architecture that made for a more stable browser. It was also about breaking the back of the Microsoft monopoly and advocating for why people should bother to care (remember the comic strip Google commissioned?). Nowadays, if it weren't about politics at all, Chrome would still be the best choice because it's still technically very good.

But there's more to the problem than simple technical competenece.