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Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company

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520 points kevinyew | 8 comments | 04 Sep 25 12:12 UTC | HN request time: 0.968s | source | bottom
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al_borland ◴[04 Sep 25 13:50 UTC] No.45127269[source]▶
I lost all faith in The Browser Company when they went into a maintenance-only mode with Arc to shift to Dia, without any real announcement. Just a reply to a Twitter post calling them out. They figured no one would notice. I think they eventually addressed it after some public pressure, but I don’t think they sold the decision well.

AI seems like a feature to add to existing browsers, not something that needs its own dedicated browser. People’s workflows get tied to a browser, especially one like Arc, so to proclaim it done, with no need for any new features after just a couple years, while most expect a browser to carry on for decades, left a really bad taste in my mouth.

I was excited when they launched, but won’t miss them. They felt more like a dev backed hype machine. I’m not sure what Atlassian has planned, but won’t be surprised if they kill the browsers and integrate some tools into their existing product line.

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1. amykhar ◴[04 Sep 25 14:53 UTC] No.45127985[source]▶
I also hated that they were trying to make it a free tool, which would mean selling user data to make money, and would require growth at all costs.

These days, I'm trying to migrate to paid tools. I would much rather work with a slower growing company that has a real business model other than grow and sell out.

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2. thewebguyd ◴[04 Sep 25 15:46 UTC] No.45128584[source]▶
> a real business model other than grow and sell out.

This is why I have problems trusting any new SaaS these days. The industry has changed from wanting to build a good product to wanting to grow fast and then exit, and typically the users get screwed.

You just can't trust that anything will stick around, so why bother adopting the tool in the first place, especially for anything that's not open source.

3. al_borland ◴[04 Sep 25 15:49 UTC] No.45128622[source]▶
Same. Old business models make more sense to me and seem healthier for customers, employees, and the economy. Growth at all costs, with the goal of a quick and profitable exit only benefits the founders, and is generally a net loss for society as a whole.

I can’t say I’d be above taking the briefcase full of money when dangled in front of my face, but when that’s the goal from the outset, the incentive structure feels backward.

4. lotsofpulp ◴[04 Sep 25 17:51 UTC] No.45130093[source]▶
Assuming the business has access to the data, the backup plan for the business is always to sell the data. There is very little chance the leaders of a business simply wind down the business and close the doors.
5. knr2345 ◴[05 Sep 25 02:59 UTC] No.45134597[source]▶
I share your sentiment but still can’t imagine adding a browser-specific AI subscription alongside my current GPT or Claude sub.
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6. blackqueeriroh ◴[05 Sep 25 07:02 UTC] No.45135737[source]▶
Dia was paid. Dia Pro cost $20/mo
7. amykhar ◴[06 Sep 25 23:44 UTC] No.45153928[source]▶
I don't really need AI in my browser. I do like spaces in Arc, and how it handles cleaning up my tabs. The color coding of the sidebar for the various profiles is the one feature I haven't been able to find in things like Orion, Vivaldi, Firefox, etc. By color coding, I mean the ability to make the entire sidebar a different color, which helps me make certain I don't do stupid things in prod.
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8. knr2345 ◴[07 Sep 25 23:50 UTC] No.45163331{3}[source]▶
Agreed; the occasional Raycast AI query using their web extension suits me well.

Haven’t used Arc as my daily driver in a while now, but I used a similar setup with a semi-bright green sidebar as my debugging space when my last project was in active development. I’m rarely at a desk these days so back to Safari for the time being, but one thing I miss the most is Arc’s near-borderless window ‘frame’.