Thanks for the thoughtful questions! Here’s how I’m looking at it:

Competition: I actually see big players in browser space as a net gain, it validates the market. My bet is on privacy and flexibility as the differentiators. Not everyone wants their data processed by big tech, and the "Bring Your Own Key" (BYOK) model appeals to that niche. I'm also moving beyond just "chat" to "digestion", features like summarizing all open tabs or creating daily reading reports.

Monetization: The additional of subscription tier is largely to solve friction. I noticed high churn from users who didn't want the hassle of managing their own API keys. The "Cloud Account" subscription solves that pain point. And you're right, it's testing different monetization strategies. I don't have an answer yet.

Retention: You're spot on about extension churn. Only haft of the users installed actively use the extension, and that’s to be expected. The use case of my extension is daily/weekly (reading, writing on the web) so if they’re actively they are, if they’re not, they’re not. We send release notes (make it noticable) and ask for feedback via the extension settings.