←back to thread

520 points kevinyew | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.352s | source
Show context
crowcroft ◴[] No.45128398[source]
The strategic insight behind Arc was perfect – your browser IS the Operating System, and so we should build a browser that can function as that platform.

Arc had pretty good market validation with early adopters, they say that growth was flattened out but IMO that's normal for most products, and it's up to the company to find out WHY growth flattened and then solve that problem. Not kill the product and chase some entirely new idea about AI.

I wouldn't be surprised if the investors were fed up with the business and wanted out, pretty good exit all things considered.

replies(10): >>45128530 #>>45128798 #>>45128955 #>>45129016 #>>45129916 #>>45131541 #>>45131834 #>>45132803 #>>45133258 #>>45135253 #
creatonez ◴[] No.45131541[source]
> The strategic insight behind Arc was perfect – your browser IS the Operating System, and so we should build a browser that can function as that platform.

I'm sorry, but this is the exact same insight that MSN Explorer had. And everyone in retrospect sees that as an absolute spamfest. Ironically, in a very similar way as AI features are seen today.

replies(2): >>45133199 #>>45134220 #
1. dehrmann ◴[] No.45134220[source]
> I'm sorry, but this is the exact same insight that MSN Explorer had

The internet wasn't fast enough. There are a number of dot-com era ideas that were before their time for various reasons. There's also Wordle. That game could have been made (and I think variants were) for at least a 20-year window, but it caught on late in the pandemic when our streaming queues were exhausted.