> [!Quote] Josh Miller, CEO of The Browser Company > The Browser Company calls Arc Explore “a tool for automating a browsing journey from end to end,” with the promise that you can ask for information on any subject or question and Arc will scour the internet and use AI to generate a summary with links and information. That’s good for Arc, and maybe even good for users, but what does it mean for the internet as a whole? Miller agrees that this is a big shift, but seems unworried about what it might mean. “We are grappling with a technology, and we are grappling with a revolution in how software works and computers work, and that’s gonna mess some stuff up,” he says. “But I think it will do more positive than negative.” What a quote. For context this is about Arc Explore, a feature for the Arc Browser that does the usual AI scraping bullshit. This comes two days after their new "[web browser](https://cohost.org/mint/post/4335833-the-funny-thing-abou)", which does the same thing.  Arc's pivot to this hits different for me in particular because of what it was originally supposed to be. [Look at their first feature on The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/23462235/arc-web-browser-review). I haven't seen a heel-turn like this since Sasuke ran away from his boyfriend. And it *is* a heel-turn. Arc went from "we're a quirkly little browser company teehee" to "we are going to let our LLM regurgitate and cannibalize the web, and we don't care about the potential consequences." What are we doing here? These tech companies are straight up dusting off the remains of the web that weren't already SEO trashheaps like zombies taking out the final remnants of a big city. The Arc browser was, once upon a time, at least a little decent[^1]! They're certainly not interested in improving on that browser anymore, instead focusing on pumping it with bullshit generative LLM garbage at every turn. To be fair to Arc, this isn't even that unique. Every third-party browser I've ever tried at this point doesn't care about what made them useful in the first place, letting it take a back seat so they can work on this or Cryptocurrency or NFTs or whatever. And the worst part is that it's useless. It's so useless. Arc Search constantly gives wrong info, just like all this other trash. And if it doesn't give wrong information, it gives zero information. I asked it to tell me what the best classes are for each character in [[Like a Dragon - Infinite Wealth (2024)|Infinite Wealth]] and it responded by giving me a summary of each class and...that's it. Go girl, give us nothing! I'm not worried about LLMs. We're already hitting a point where its usage is obviously worthless. And they're definitely [not making any money LOL](https://www.theverge.com/23462235/arc-web-browser-review). Here, let me sum up what's going to happen: - AI becomes too expensive for these companies - They make you pay for the features they've given you for free (we already around here) - This gets worse and worse, prices go up further and further - People realize that they don't need to spend $22 a month to write a work email - Market Crash So am I afraid of LLMs? No. I'm just tired, man. This market is going to tank, a bunch of people who don't deserve it will lose their jobs to satisfy investors and BLAH BLAH BLAH YOU'VE HEARD THE SONG AND DANCE ALREADY. Sorry I don't really have a point or solution here. Just ranting. [^1]: Barring it also running on chromium, which is fucking hilarious because they spend so much time clowning on Google in the Arc Explore trailer