Maybe you could carve out a niche that's willing to pay, the same way C# did before dotnet core. But for a mass product the best-case scenario would be something similar to today's Opera.
However what it would do is open up the market to competition. Right now Google is spending a lot on Chrome development and Chrome advertisement. Opera and Edge both have given up on their own engines because they couldn't keep pace with Chrome development, and Firefox kept its engine but can't compete with Chrome's ad spend. If Chrome had to compete on a more even playing field there would be more room for diversity and competition. That could be a net positive, even if it makes Chrome worse.
What if the browser had a similar model? The manufacturer pays a certain 'browser development fee' into escrow, then on first boot, the copmuter shows a browser ballot, which gets set as the default, and the fee goes to the chosen browser developer? There's probably a bunch of problems with this approach, and, at least initially, wouldn't break the monoculture, but it might be a good starting point for how to fund browser development.
So who would buy “Chrome” when they can get Chromium for free and fork it?