Yeah, there's lots of half-fact nonsense going around in this space.
But really that's the real takeaway here: the reason that "everyone knows" something that was false[1], because no one actually cares about the facts. Modern laptops do extremely well with battery life, Macbooks best among them, and frankly no one is away from a charger for that kind of period in the modern world. You know the thing will always have power, so you never bother to notice or measure what might affect it.
But you still want to argue anyway, if for no better reason than justifying the $3k you dropped on the device, so... "Chrome hurts battery life!" becomes a shibboleth denoting your membership in the right subculture. It doesn't have to be true to do its job.
[1] And, yes, there is a direct analogy to be made here about the current US political debate about immigration. I won't elaborate but I'm sure people see it.
What if—I realize this is crazy but hear me out—Chrome actually consumed more power at some point in the past? Why would Google claim that they fixed Chrome if it was never broken?
Well... did it? Again there was a hypothesis, and a measurement that disproved it. It's not very good science to say "well, the hypothesis may still have been right on this older system that wasn't measured". What you're applying is essentially conspiracy logic: you can't validate an incorrect statement by pretending that it might have been true "at some point in the past".
Remember “Chrome is bad”? (As proven by the empirical method of “I deleted a bunch of Google named things and now not only does my laptop run cooler, my laundry uses less water as well!”)
But really that's the real takeaway here: the reason that "everyone knows" something that was false[1], because no one actually cares about the facts. Modern laptops do extremely well with battery life, Macbooks best among them, and frankly no one is away from a charger for that kind of period in the modern world. You know the thing will always have power, so you never bother to notice or measure what might affect it.
But you still want to argue anyway, if for no better reason than justifying the $3k you dropped on the device, so... "Chrome hurts battery life!" becomes a shibboleth denoting your membership in the right subculture. It doesn't have to be true to do its job.
[1] And, yes, there is a direct analogy to be made here about the current US political debate about immigration. I won't elaborate but I'm sure people see it.