He said the browser cannot be completed because Google won't allow their stuff to be used in an OSS project. It's clear he never countenanced the possibility that * gasp * somebody could deny him access to their software. He might have offered to pay, but the substance is basically the same: he assumed he could get access to somebody else's stuff, when there was no such guarantee (if anything, Google carefully insulating it from Chromium should have been a big hint of things to come).