Possibly, but they didn’t have much choice. Large open source endeavours are dead.

> I feel like the project just died.

Why? This seems to be a strengthening move, not a weakening one.

Maybe, or maybe not. But it will certainly kill the community they've built up, and squander a huge amount of goodwill. Why would anybody who's interested in supporting or using an independent browser (read: techies) choose one that nobody can contribute to? Not to mention how the sponsors might feel about this.

Too early to say. Once they enter "we now accept everyone to use Ladybird as daily driver" then there will be the real test phase. And, IMO, only after that phase has started and continued for some months, perhaps even few years, can a final conclusion be made. If ladybird fails then the Google empire has won permanently. Skynet slop will then be under control of Google, just as they stole all the advertisement money.