The only reason why they are separate is corporate politics. At the time Google decided to make a web-browser-only laptop, Android codebase was a stinking pile of garbage, the tablet version of Android failed hard, and Android would not support such fancy gadgets as a mouse or an Ethernet cable, because oh no, they need to design a new page in system settings.

It's always easier to start a new project from scratch with a new team than fix the pile of shit that is your existing commercially successful operating system, because (oh no!) you have you integrate into the existing team, adopt their coding style, and fight their established management at each step, who only cares about phones and ignores even tablets, much less laptops.

Both Android and ChromeOS used the same identical Linux version from day one. Both Android and ChromeOS can be installed onto the same exact hardware.

So 'merging' most probably means that they will port Android on all Chromebooks, lock system settings, strip every app except Chrome, change the color theme so it looks more like ChromeOS, then kick one of the management teams out, to work on the Google's fifth chat app, with AI, or forced to quit (developers need not worry, they are all moving to Android team to implement that system settings dialog for notifying the user that Ethernet cable is plugged).

But but fuchsia