"Begin disabling installed extensions still using Manifest V2 in Chrome stable"

Hopefully this is the inflection point for Chrome. Despite all their made-up "security" reasons, everyone knows this is solely about making adblock less effective. For many users, adblock is what makes chrome bearable - and if they make it unbearable, then those users will leave. Slowly but surely.

Google seems much too sure of itself making this change. I hope their arrogance pays off just the same as Microsoft's did with IE.

The widespread adoption of Chrome was largely driven by word of mouth, people like you and I installing it on our friend's/relative's computers and telling them it was safer/faster/better.

Nothing stops us from doing the same thing again. I've been recommending Firefox to all my family/friends/colleagues for years (ever since I've seen the writing on the wall for Chrome). While Firefox isn't perfect, it's in a much better place than Chrome is, and meets the the needs of nearly 100% of people.

>The widespread adoption of Chrome was largely driven by word of mouth

No, it was driven by having a banner in the most privileged spot of the Internet, Google.com (the most visited site in the world with 0 ads on the homepage) saying that was faster and more secure than the alternatives. In fact Firefox benefited from some free ads on Google.com against Internet Explorer before Google developed Chromium.

It was kind of both, depending on the timeline. Early on it was word of mouth, then Google saw they had momentum and they capitalized on it with the banners and aggressive marketing.