Michael Arrington on TechCrunch writes:

For most early adopters (and all Mac users), the browser is increasingly the only operating system that matters anyway. Windows isn’t really that relevant any more just because of the increasing utility of online applications like Google Docs, which competes with Microsoft Office. – Gartner Says Vista Will Collapse. And That’s Why The Yahoo Deal Must Happen

With the increasing popularity of widgets over the last few years, I honestly believed that the browser was at and end, it had hit a wall. There are even Firefox plug-ins that allow the browser to NOT act like a browser.

The problem is in the general thinking of the OS, as a platform for apps to run. By definition this is true. That’s all it is.

Why the browser is so popular is that it is a tangible interface to the internet. People got the “pamphlet” pitch back when the internet first entered the publics’ conscience.

It is going to take a young mind, someone who sees the OS as something completely different, to bring its next iteration. Not simply as a serving tray for apps.

I think it’s less “the OS is dead” and more that the OS needs to be re-thought. (Windows is ‘collapsing,’ Gartner analysts warn)

Seth Godin points out today in a blog post entitled Why downloading Firefox is like getting into college that the act of going to college does not guarantee success, but it is rather a symptom of someone who will succeed at other things. He continues his argument with reference to Firefox users:

…if someone is using Firefox, they’re way more likely to be using other power tools online. The reasoning: In order to use Firefox, you need to be confident enough to download and use a browser that wasn’t the default when you first turned on your computer.

That’s an empowering thing to do. It isolates you as a different kind of web user.

Paul Graham relates such actions to hackers who choose to use the best tools when hacking on their own instead of the tools they are confined to use at work.

Whenever you are passionate about something you are usually willing to go out of your way to learn as much as possible, use the tools you want to, take on projects that are “beneath you” or “over your head” and even jump through hoops if it means you will succeed or get what you want. You do not see them as to-do items, but building blocks to which you climb.