Lots of comments here are trying to poke holes in the parent comment, and missing its substance as a consequence.

There is, first and foremost, the elephant in the room which everyone ignores because everyone's thinking Russia these days. That elephant is China, which acts as the extremely valuable missing link to G7 economies. China and the G7 group are wholy interdependent, whether they're willing to admit it or not. One without the other, at least at this moment in time, would be Chapter 1 of a dystopian novel about societal collapse. We've had a whiff of that during the supply chain crisis in the pandemic -- and that was just some clogged logistics.

Anyone taking this as proof that BRICS is now its own thing that can stand on its own is just as wrong as anyone thinking that G7 is its own thing that can stand on its own. They're not. And any factor that's straining the relation between the two blocs (via China) is not likely to be viewed with wholly favourable eyes by either parties, even though some of them can't acknowledge that publicly due to ideological reasons, or are happy to let it be for as long as it causes more trouble on the other side.

Second, lots of the economic activity that happens inside BRICS is decidedly not happening in the "cooperation" side of the cooperation-competition-conflict framework, or within any unreservedly friendly quadrant of any framework. Russia, for instance, is a major supplier for the Indian defense industry not so much because of historical socialist ties, but because it's the only major supplier it can realistically deal with without major restrictions. It has a hot border dispute with China, another hot border dispute with a regional ally (Pakistan) of another major supplier (US and the NATO bloc), and has fought real wars with both in the last sixty years.

Russia and China aren't sharing fatherly influence over India and Bangladesh, or over post-Soviet Asia, they're competing for influence in much of it. Just like China and Brazil are competing for regional influence in some of South America, just like China and South Africa are competing for regional influence in some of Africa.

Third, people are also forgetting an important lesson from recent history: on the eve of World War II, Franco-German commercial relations were extraordinary. Actually, Germany had excellent trade relations with most of Europe. Most of the arguments about BRICS today readily translate to FIGUC (France, Italy, Germany, United Kingdom, Czechoslovakia) cca. 1936, including caveats like they're backing opposite parties in some regional conflicts/civil war. Economic interests and common enemies are transitory; geopolitical aspirations are far more durable.

This isn't to say that BRICS is "not a real alliance". It is, it's bound by real economic relations, and there is plenty of competition within the G7 bloc as well. However, its potential for global cooperation outside the economic sphere is greatly diminished by the current state of mutual foreign relations, and competition, between its members. BRICS cannot, at least for now, achieve any more than G7 could've achieved back when Germany was trying to widen its military supply sources so as not to depend on France because there was a real chance they might into it over Alsace, the way India is now trying to widen its military supply sources so as not to depend on China or the US because there's a real chance they might get into it over LoCs in Kashmir.