Google somehow managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of success
This is still very early days. Who is "on top" has flipped back and forth many times already. The next frontier model release (from whomever) will change things again.
Proof-of-life release while they figure out how to have a competitive frontier model release. My hunch is they pushed too far in the "omni" model direction, that they made something so ungainly, it wasn't as good for normal tasks.
True, but also "Do Things that Don't Scale" (https://www.paulgraham.com/ds.html). There are many examples of successful companies that had customers before they had products.
Unfortunately, reviews from publishers and forums tend to be so superficial and/or astroturfed that it's very difficult to judge quality without handling/using item directly.
Is this a problem in the EU? I often think in terms of home remodels that a family might do at least once. Those can easily fill a dumpster with tons of garbage. That's much more waste than a family could ever generate directly or indirectly in clothing.
Excellent hack! Should definitely be possible to make an animated gif to jpeg converter. I guess the animation could be slowed a little by repeating frames.