Meet Act 2 Of Arc Browser
posted February 2, 2024 #
If you haven't been keeping up with the latest announcements from The Browser Company and what they're doing with their browser, Arc, I suggest you start tuning in. They are doing their damndest to rethink the paradigm of browsers, search engines, webpages and how you interact with them. It's hard to watch these announcement / explainer videos and not be excited for what they're angling at.
While I am certainly excited by the direction they're headed in, it does make me think about the future of the web in general. I'm not sure I'm able to articulate it yet but we're starting to see a whole lot new experiences that summarize the web, pulling from disparate sources and telling you the highlights of a certain topic or site. If every tool we use simply summarizes information, why would anyone publish anything? Visitors aren't even being taken to the source of the information, they're just being shown summaries.
This is not an indictment of The Browser Company or Arc; everyone is doing this. Google is summarizing, Apple is summarizing, et al. And the web has become littered with ads, popovers and modals that make it very unfriendly. It's a mess and users would benefit from summaries as an experience but it devalues publishing. Not sure what the answer is but some very interesting questions to pose at this time.
While I am certainly excited by the direction they're headed in, it does make me think about the future of the web in general. I'm not sure I'm able to articulate it yet but we're starting to see a whole lot new experiences that summarize the web, pulling from disparate sources and telling you the highlights of a certain topic or site. If every tool we use simply summarizes information, why would anyone publish anything? Visitors aren't even being taken to the source of the information, they're just being shown summaries.
This is not an indictment of The Browser Company or Arc; everyone is doing this. Google is summarizing, Apple is summarizing, et al. And the web has become littered with ads, popovers and modals that make it very unfriendly. It's a mess and users would benefit from summaries as an experience but it devalues publishing. Not sure what the answer is but some very interesting questions to pose at this time.