I agree most either have used it for a long time or because someone recommended it. It's nearly tautological. I disagree the recommendations for the average user only/primarily come from <1% of the user base or that's what makes the installs stick when they do. Power users desperately want to feel key to the success, but the reality is people stick with a browser based on what it does for them not how much it does for their power user friend who recommended it 20 years ago. The same is true in reverse: power users can comment here all they want about privacy nits or what Mozilla should do blah blah but it doesn't matter to the average user because they aren't reading tech forums for opinions on browsers. Most Firefox users probably couldn't tell you what Mozilla even is in relation to Firefox.

The 200 million normal users can also recommend trying to use Firefox all the time to their friends again, they just don't have a reason to do so because often, for their cares, Chrome and others are the ones with better target to them. Pre-installs is definitely a problem, as it always has been, but it never stopped Firefox before.

If the non-tech person wakes up one day and decides privacy is a key concern for the browser then they join the few that learn about each in this detail and pick from there and the niche has a new member. When things like 1,000,000,000 people wake up and decided mobile performance and battery life were important for years it resulted in Firefox having next to no presence on mobile more than any other reason.