>Why do people jump to replace safari on their laptops, and even their iPhones (often with chrome)?
totally unsupported conjecture: because to non-technical people, chrome is "the internet". It also didn't hurt that it was evangelized by many of their technical friends/family members/coworkers for being "the best", and that google bugged you to install it on many of their sites.
For a long time it was a indeed the best in many regards. I've always been a Firefox fan and users, but for a while I had to admit that continuing with Firefox meant making big sacrifices. Today, those sacrifices are only the rare website that was never tested on anything but chrome or brings my 8 cores to a halt.
totally unsupported conjecture: because to non-technical people, chrome is "the internet". It also didn't hurt that it was evangelized by many of their technical friends/family members/coworkers for being "the best", and that google bugged you to install it on many of their sites.