We hear this pretty often without any evidence. He is a user, you are a user, that makes two opinions.
I think the reality that companies set the rules and people just swallow what they get because alternatives require huge efforts.
We also heard that users want large tiles that are all over their desktop with zero functionality.
I personally don't think it would take off, because I think most user attitudes range from "want these features" to "ambivalence". But if you're so certain, why not try?
Because it runs contrary to maintainer’s interests?
However, maintaining such a fork is not the only prerequisite for it “taking off”. It may well be that my great uncle would love that feature - but how are you going to get his attention when several vendors are already spending millions of dollars in marketing/design/etc to influence which browser he uses?