Fireflies in jars. That would make an interesting light source + decoration object for your home in the game. Just an idea I came up with.

The majority of the playerbase want exactly that actually. It's an idea that has been in mods since mods were made for Minecraft.

This isn't even a new thing- players have wanted Fireflies (and jarring them for a light source) since years before they were announced as if they were a confirmed feature.

Ah right...Yeah idk what's up with Mojang really. Meanwhile I'm just waiting for certain mods to be updated for 1.18 anyway.

Their reasoning and logic was totally flawed. Apparently they wanted to go for the realistic portrayal of fireflies in that they are toxic to frogs, and so they removed them, because that's not a thing that should ever occur in nature, and if they were worried about that, don't make frogs eat them, or rename them to something else, or any other number of things, and if they were going for realism, well, they might have some explaining to do about 90% of the rest of the game. Their reasoning makes absolutely no logical sense what so ever. It's so stupid that they can't accept the criticism. Why these corporations never want to listen and understand that a product is and should be as every bit as much the consumers as it is theirs is what really makes no sense at all. They're the one's being invalid here, not the fans.

Everything about these decisions, from removing Fireflies entirely to saying they never had intentions to include the birch forest changes, not to mention archaeology as well, really makes me worried about what they are doing. This entire update is now just two new biomes and a pseudo-boss enemy. They aren't even redoing the original swamps, which is what I think everyone thought it was about; you know, the Wild Update.

Showing concept art gives people expectations, to suddenly turn around and say it's not coming... Yeah not sure what they expected the community to say to that.

The community is justified in being angry and scolding them for presenting things incorrectly. I'm not really as upset about archeology as I am about the fireflies and birch forests because archeology was delayed but not canceled. I would much rather hear them say that the features are simply coming at a later date.

I don't want to hear them flat out say that features that they treated as if they were finalized and ALL of the art included... to suddenly be removed without warning and given a complete half baked answer like "realism", especially in a game where we have infinite water by placing water buckets diagonally to one another.

They never should have showed the concept art if they were uncertain.

Right. The realism excuse is such a weak statement, as many have said; they could just keep the fireflies in and make it so frogs don't eat them. Frogs don't eat slime in reality, nor do they eat sentient balls of magma to poop out glowing blocks, where's the realism in that?

The problem with delays is in many cases with Mojang, delays mean they forget or quietly shelve those plans, which has happened a fair bit. But regardless yes, I'd rather it be delayed then cancelled.

It definitely feels like they threw in the concept art because of pressure from Microsoft to show something. Otherwise I don't know why they did it if they had no idea whether it was going to happen or not. :/

The best part is about the bitch forest upgrade…they can EASILY put it in. It’s literally stupid easy, because some modder made EXACTLY those blocks in less than a week after the concept art was shown. And there’s no performance loss associated with such additional blocks to the game. Mojang is just BSing. They could literally put it in as an afterthought, but no. They’re too lazy to do the simplest of things.

I think Mojang has just become lazy and complacent ever since Microsoft bought the company. With the success of the game for over 10 years, together with the protection of one of the "big daddies" of technology and gaming companies, they're only doing the bare minimum to keep their paychecks coming in.
All that other time is spent spreading exotic butters on honeyed brioche buns while they get exfoliating massages from their high end jacuzzis.

I don't think they make enough money to go that far with it, and it's less laziness and more overpromising and underdelivering on those promises. Miscommunication and ignoring feedback and acting entitled about it. It's still a problem, but it's not laziness.

Im usually pretty tolerant and understanding when it comes to Mojang's more questionable decisions, but the decision to not add fireflies "because they're poisonous to frogs" is the dumbest excuse i have ever heard and Im legitimately angry at them for making that decision. There is NO REASON they couldnt just make frogs not eat fireflies.

Meanwhile they redirect blame back to their "lovely community's input", blaming the like 8 people that pointed out the poisonous to frogs thing. Yes, we get it, they're poisonous to some frogs.

Is that really a reason to remove the most important ambient mob we could have had?

It is definitely not a valid reason. Its not even a good excuse.