Comment by dosinga

Google-as-the-new-Microsoft feels about right. Windows 1 was a curiosity, 2 was “ok”, and 3.x is where it started to really win. Same story with IE: early versions were a joke, then it became “good enough” + distribution did the rest.

Gemini 3 feels like Google’s “Windows 3 / IE4 moment”: not necessarily everyone’s favorite yet, but finally solid enough that the default placement starts to matter.

If you are the incumbent you don't need to be all that much better. Just good enough and you win by default. We'll all end up with Gemini 6 (IE 6, Windows XP) and then we'll have something to complain about.