Watching "BCNY" (why they aren't called Arc I shall never understand) looking for product-market fit has been a fascinating study in startups.<p>Arc got immediate traction, but the traction was for features that could never be a business model.<p>They pivoted, seeing AI as the future, and started adding a bunch of AI features, but they were throwing things at the wall to see what stuck, and my personal feeling was that none of it did (the features were fine, but nothing transformational). It felt like increasingly they were just trying whatever and not really focusing on one thing and trying to do it well.<p>Arc for Mobile was interesting, because again it started out with a "wow" feature and traction – instantly dropping you into a search on every launch/foregrounding. I loved this. But again, there was no business model there.<p>They started throwing everything at the mobile app to see what stuck, but between holding your phone to your ear to talk to search (Boomer Search?), and growth hacks like overlaying their own search on top of Google search results, the product started to feel weird.<p>Now on to Dia. From reading this it feels like they're experimenting in a much more bare-bones environment, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Arc -> Dia transition came with layoffs and was a more fundamental business pivot. Perhaps it'll crack it, but so far it looks again like a feature not a product, maybe a feature that will get initial traction, but probably not one that will turn into a business.<p>I'm not a particularly anti-VC person, but it seems like a BCNY that carried on as they were in 2022 and sold Arc as a browser for professionals for $50 a year would probably be making reasonable money for a small business right now. The reason they're not doing that would probably be VC funding and the need to be a big business.