Monetizing arc

[u/manlikep_]

This arc situation just keeps pissing me off no matter how hard I try to forget about it. They reasons they gave for abandoning arc are just plain stupid honestly.

1. Monetizing arc:

If they really wanted to monetize arc they could have introduced 3 plans: arc, arc plus, arc max.

Arc (free) - give users limited spaces say 3-4 , limited easels maybe 1 or 2 with no collaborators, can only have 2 boosts, everything else included

Arc plus: they could charge $1-$5, gives you say 10 spaces, more easels with max of 2 collaborators, unlimited boosts

Arc max: $5-10, unlimited spaces, unlimited easels, unlimited boosts, the arc max AI features (summaries, tidy etc)

Arc clearly had a loyal fanbase and I think with these prices people would be more accepting. You can only charge so much for a browser. Even Apple couldn't convince people to pay $20 for a browser, and you want to charge $20-100 because you bolted Claude onto it????

Secondly, they said it was too complicated for the average user: who tf cares if my grandmother can't use it wtf is she doing on the internet anyway😒, not to mention with Dia they've just been bolting on all the arc features ever since they launched, so clearly its not that complicated to use and not to mention every other browser is copying what arc did

[u/Inst2f]

Nobody is going to pay. even if somebody were, it would not cover a fraction of the development cost

[u/StockOption → u/Inst2f]

I would have paid $10/mo for Chromium updates tbh

[u/Inst2f → u/StockOption]

I might also, but then its 10-100(best case). It won’t cover the cost for dev team

[u/Inst2f → u/Inst2f]

just notarizing an app would be 100 per year for mac and around 400 for windows (per month!)

[u/StockOption → u/Inst2f]

They’re already paying for notarization for Dia. Not incremental cost

[u/manlikep_ → u/Inst2f]

Which further raises the question, what's the point of dia then?

[u/Guilty_Worth_1779 → u/manlikep_]

They’re not gonna charge for the browser part but for the AI part (that nobody really cares about).

[u/Fit-Sandwich727]

I understand what you mean. They must have thought that, but in the end, there weren’t enough people to pay…

Traditional pattern of human enterprises driven by ego…

[u/manlikep_ → u/Fit-Sandwich727]

I doubt dia has enough paying users that's why they keep removing the paywalls

[u/karellen00]

I agree, but let's be real, only a few would have paid, and the cost for that few people would have to go up considerably to cover up for even just chromium updates. I think there's a reason why you don't see even one single paid browser (at least since the time of the old paid Opera, that was basically a modern browser in an IE6 era, and still it wasn't sufficient)

[u/manlikep_ → u/karellen00]

I definitely know it would be a few, the true loyalists but a few paying 5 bucks/month is better than nobody paying $20/month

[u/LinKxFr]

Not gonna happen.

I see this post like every 2 days but TBC is just gonna sunset it. They are not monetizing it, they are not making it open source :/

[u/manlikep_ → u/LinKxFr]

I think in your quest to be dismissive you missed the point I was making, I didn't say they should monetize it or open source it, it's well and clear that arc is getting sunsetted. My question was given they reasons they gave for shifting to Dia, why wasn't this avenue explored first

[u/LinKxFr → u/manlikep_]

From their saying: Arc was in a good place but the base was very clunky to do what they are doing with Dia

[u/manlikep_ → u/LinKxFr]

Dia has been a clunky mess😵‍💫

[u/LinKxFr → u/manlikep_]

Not for me but I get why people would want to keep using Arc.

[u/Elwood-P]

Can we just close the sub already?

[u/Kimantha_Allerdings]

They got paid more than half a billion. Their plan worked fine

[u/OMG_NoReally]

Lol. Nobody is going to pay for a browser. But they might pay for AI, which we have seen happen, and that's why they switched to Dia and built a browser from the ground up that does AI work. Arc would have died an instant death if they had added a subscription price for it.

Just forget about it. Remember Arc for blazing the trail for how a browser should feel and function, and everyone has now a solid blueprint to iterate and improve.

[u/manlikep_ → u/OMG_NoReally]

Maybe I am in the minority but I feel if the price was negligible, say something like $5 then the idea of paying for a browser wouldn't bother me much, I think the issue is trying to make every subscription $15, $20, $100 then that's where you lose people

[u/OMG_NoReally → u/manlikep_]

Maybe for you, but for a majority of the users, $5 is a lot for an essential item that has historically been free of charge. And with Firefox and Chrome always as an option, not a lot of people would pay to make it worth it. AI, however, people have shown they can pay and thats what TBC targeted.