I don’t think it’s accurate to say Google is paying for Brave development, since any money they spend on developing Chromium, they’d be spending anyway because it’s what Chrome is based on. So it’s more like Brave is freeloading on them… but being dependent on a Google browser engine still gives Google power over you, it makes you dependent on them since nobody else has the resources to understand or influence Chromium’s development, so Google can basically implement whatever features they want in Brave by implementing them in Chromium.