There are high odds you are using a chrome based browser to read this - did you know that is a GPL project because once upon a time it was khtml (from the KDE project), but the changes were never contributed back.

Chromium is what you're ignoring here, and they are contributed back.

Many embedded companies have their own fork of linux as well - their changes are all available as the GPL requires, but the changes won't be accepted to the kernel as is and so the fact that they are available is useless.

And that's fine, if someone ever did want to pick it up, they could.

Meanwhile there are many companies using FreeBSD who choose to contribute their changes back.

I didn't say there weren't people/companies contributing to BSD. I am saying that since they aren't required to, BSD isn't getting the level of support it deserves. The companies contributing to GPL projects are required by law to release the source, so they might as well contribute to the project. I can guarantee there would be a lot less progress in linux/gnuland if releasing the source wasn't required.