> why would they want to go through the browser abstraction API instead? Better dev ex and ergonomics?

That and portability. The ergonomics are always up for debate, but I find it a much more modern and nicer interface than OpenGL which feels...quite dated. How it compares to something like Vulkan or Metal is up for debate.

But for portability if I write my code using directx, then I can only run it on systems with directx. If I write it for vulkan, I can only target systems with vulkan. If I write for metal, I can only target systems with metal.

However, if I use wgpu and the WebGPU API, I can target any system that has directx or vulkan or metal or OpenGL. I can also target wasm and compile my application for the web.

So, I can really easily write code that will run natively on linux, on osx, on windows and the web and will use the graphics library native to that platform.