> By "browsers we have now" you clearly mean "Chrome, the only browser I care about".
False. I use Firefox for all of my browsing, hate Chrome, and only use Chrome as a whole-browser sandbox for Google products.
> Firefox can handle literally thousands of tabs with lower memory than Chrome using one or two dozen due to different trade-offs.
Yes, and I'm arguing that that's a tradeoff and that's a good thing based on the intent of tabs.
> the presumption that no better should be done on the memory front because your favorite doesn't manage it
Neither did I say that no better should be done, nor do I actually believe that. Presumptuous today, aren't we.
> isn't supported by the facts.
The facts are that tabs are intended to be a working set and are optimized for that. If you don't use them as such, you're going against the design of the tool and expecting it to do well, which is insane. It's equivalent to using files on a filesystem like RAM (expecting extremely quick access and no wear over time) and then complaining when they're slow and your SSD wears out in a few weeks.
> Bookmarks aren't used in the same way as tabs by most people and it's telling that your workflow so easily conflates them that you're making criticisms based the rest of us using them differently.
Correct, because they aren't different. Bookmarks are intended to be used for saving and organizing things for the long term. Tabs are intended to be used for actively working on a task. They're two different things. Thinking that the case where you reasonably want to work on a task that requires dozens of tabs to be open, all at once, all on the same topic, and you switch between all of them very frequently is a common case is completely unsupported by evidence, and logically incoherent.
This has nothing to do with my workflow, and everything to do with the design intent of the tool, and proper use of the tool. Again, see the example about using disk as working memory.
> I get the impression that what you want bookmarks for would be better done with tab groups for most people?
Again, this is something that bookmarks are much, much better optimized for than tabs. Bookmarks can exist in folders - which are probably like tab groups, but first-class, and much better supported - and tabs cannot. Bookmarks can be tagged, and tabs cannot. Bookmarks can be exported to a file, and tabs cannot. Bookmarks can be renamed, and tabs cannot. Bookmarks are straight-up better at their job then tabs are. This is not "better done with tab groups for most people" - this is "worse than tab groups for everyone".
To summarize: working memory is not the same as long-term storage (in the human brain, in operating systems, in physical desks, in the browser, and everywhere). Tabs are for working memory, and optimized for that. Bookmarks are for long-term storage, and optimized for that. Bookmarks are objectively better than tabs for long-term storage in non-performance metrics (can be organized using folders and tags, can be exported/imported, can be renamed) and performance metrics, and you and everyone else who insist on using tabs like bookmarks are (1) doing yourselves a disservice by using the tool wrong and suboptimally and (2) doing everyone else a disservice by demanding that the tool literally be made less optimal to fit your incorrect use of it.