Matt Alexander writing about his impressions of Dia, the new browser from The Browser Company (aka what they stopped working on Arc to pursue):

In all, I think they've built a decently attractive skin for Chrome. It's somewhat privacy-minded on the surface, but poses a tremendous amount of questions a level deeper. It has a built-in adblocker and compatibility with Chrome extensions, which is handy. But I can't think of any compelling reason to use Dia as my primary browser today. And I do not see a future where this becomes widely adopted.

And:

Arc had an opinion and a point of differentiation. Plenty of whimsy and a-ha! moments. I'd sometimes use it occupying 70% of my display with ChatGPT open in the remaining 30%. Similar experience, albeit with separate apps! I think I prefer it that way. This feels soulless and, worse, pointless.

My A Better Computer season finale was a look at Dia and let's just say I am not currently impressed with it either. I don't doubt that there are people who find this genuinely useful, but I just don't get it. Maybe they'll develop a huge user base and I'll look silly, who knows?

What I will say is that I don't understand their business logic at all here. They had a quite large, die-hard fan base in Arc, but they didn't think they could grow that audience into the hundreds of millions of users. They want to do that with Dia, but they also say they want to make money. Nobody makes a mainstream browser and makes money on it, so I wish them luck. I just think they had a better chance monetizing enthusiasts who adored and relied on Arc paying up than your mom or students (the only users they seem to care about now).

The bright side I guess is that Arc for the Mac was at least in such a good state when they stopped improving it that it still work great as a browser today. Windows users aren't so lucky, but you can probably ride Arc into the ground for a while now if you don't see any good alternatives.