"Yes it comes with awful stuff but you don't have to use it" is not an argument. There are plenty of alternatives without that awful stuff in the first place.

It's awful, in your opinion. Clearly plenty of people enjoy it, and it provides a simple means of monetization that's far more on the up-and-up than the typical alternative of - 'spy on users, profile them endlessly, secretly monetize them.'

I also am unaware of any reasonable alternatives with similar functionality and compatibility. Single click access/tweaking of a native ad blocker, auto-https, script blocker/toggler, anti finger-printing, and much more is just awesome. And for better or for worse the Web is built to target Chrome and so Chromium based remains desirable, even if it is clearly becoming more onerous to decrappify it over time. It may eventually prove unsustainable, but we're not especially close to that point yet and at that point a fork would probably still be more desirable than a new root.