I tried to avoid it with the "vibe" bit, because I'm not actually offended by someone remixing a typeface, and I'm also professionally aware of some of the finer points of font licensing.
What I am responding negatively to is the communication style of this announcement. There's a lot of myth-making here, and calling it a revival, to aggrandize what just comes down to "we really like Arial for what we do, and we wanted a cleaned-up version of it that we own and could host on the web".
For one, if it was a true, spirited revival it'd be nice if it was a revival for anyone else as well, given how widely available Arial is. But as far as I can tell, they haven't published it for outside use anywhere, so it may well perish with the single website it's found on. Actual Arial will handily outlive this.
What I am responding negatively to is the communication style of this announcement. There's a lot of myth-making here, and calling it a revival, to aggrandize what just comes down to "we really like Arial for what we do, and we wanted a cleaned-up version of it that we own and could host on the web".
For one, if it was a true, spirited revival it'd be nice if it was a revival for anyone else as well, given how widely available Arial is. But as far as I can tell, they haven't published it for outside use anywhere, so it may well perish with the single website it's found on. Actual Arial will handily outlive this.