If building Facebook isn't enough evidence of success for you, I don't know what is. Pretty sure most people with the same idea could not have turned it into what Facebook is today. Also, Facebook isn't just one idea - it's many ideas.
How about building one of the largest companies in the world? Would others be able to do that if they had that idea as a 19-year-old? Let's not reduce all his accomplishments to a single idea. Ideas don't matter, execution matters.
I highly doubt a plugin would work, but maybe a fork could work. It does seem like Mighty is collaborating with the Chrome team to make improvements to Chrome directly: https://twitter.com/Suhail/status/1385237770633846784
>creates an unnecessary dependency on a startup company that might fail or get bought at any time
This is the story of any new company trying to build anything
Why is running every webpage on a remote server a ridiculous response? I don't really care what the software is doing as long as (/if) it solves my problem. I agree switching to a different browser is the easy short term fix, but that might not work for some people. The medium-term solution is not really a response because that's completely out of your control.
The point is, these comments are not unique or valuable insights. I'm sure users already know they can buy a better computer or more RAM, so why haven't they upgraded? How will the comments on HN change their behavior? Something must be stopping them from doing those things. Maybe Mighty is the solution that will get the job done. Suhail is the only one providing a new solution while everyone else is saying the status quo is good enough even though clearly some people out there still have a problem.
I personally don't have 200+ tabs, so I can't speak to this problem, but I don't think you are going to make much inroads telling people to change how they work. So rather focusing on hypotheticals, I'm glad that Mighty provides a solution that doesn't require much friction or behavior change.
Why is $5 an acceptable price? Why not $10, $50, $500?
Edit: You agree that having 200+ tabs is a problem right? Why haven't the people with 200+ tabs adopted the solutions you speak of? Perhaps those solutions aren't good enough, or perhaps they don't want to change the way they work. Either way, if those solutions really "solved" the problem, we wouldn't be observing people with 200+ tabs in the world.
It's shocking that there aren't many positive comments. I've met people who had 200+ tabs in their browser, using 10 GB+ of memory on Chrome. Good luck telling them to use a thin client/buy a faster computer/change their workflow. Do the people suggesting those solutions realistically think their advice will be followed, or are they just showing off how smart they are? https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wow%20thanks...
Suhail came up with a solution to a real problem (Chrome is slow so I get less work done), but just because you don't have that problem, it's absurd for anyone to want this? It doesn't matter if the solution isn't a sexy new technology, or there are cheaper clunkier alternatives, who cares, all I care about is getting more work done. $30-50/month is nothing, if I just get 1 hour back a month it already pays for itself. I know plenty of people who value their time way more than $50/hour - if they can get more work done with a faster browser, getting Mighty is a no-brainer.
Edit: comments like "Maybe rather than having 50+ chrome tabs open, people need to learn how to manage resources on their machines." in another thread drive me crazy. Ok, how are people going to learn this? Are you going to teach them? Statements like that are not helpful because nothing will get done and we will still be at square one.