Live data from Hacker News

Mozilla will reportedly launch a paid version of Firefox this fall

thenextweb.com

61–70 of 200 posts

Re: Mozilla will reportedly launch a paid version of Firefox this fall

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very unlikely that this will happen. Payed subscriptions to news-websites/magazines are also not advertising free. When you have demonstrated you are willing to pay money for a service, you are likely to also spent money on other goods. This only makes you more attractive as an advertising target. Most likely we will see premium features like: - premium color themes - more cloud storage for settings and extensio…

To me what you're saying is Mozilla is no longer about FLOSS, they're now just a company whose only purpose is to make money selling their users downstream for as much as they can get? That may be true but it's extremely sad.

Where is the proof that it is true?

Re: Mozilla will reportedly launch a paid version of Firefox this fall

#62

I'd be happy to pay for Firefox, but I have a few points that are important to me. They are probably not very realistic but here they are anyway: 1. I would like my money to go into Firefox development and nowhere else. I certainly don't want my money spent on their content business, even if it is used as a leverage to generate more money for Firefox development. I'm torn about Rust development because I certainly wo…

> 1. I would like my money to go into Firefox development and nowhere else.

They donated to Godot[1]. Don't think this rule should be so broad.

[1] https://godotengine.org/article/godot-engine-awarded-50000-m...

Re: Mozilla will reportedly launch a paid version of Firefox this fall

#63
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure you are right now paying a lot more money to companies doing a lot less efforts Mozilla is currently doing. And now you are asking even more of them, just as a condition for maybe giving them something day. See, that's one of the weirdest problem in FOSS: the fans hold them to a way too high standard, making it twice as hard to thrive. Once because it's hard to make money as an open source, benevolent…

I am not a fan of using “this” in a discussion but seriously, a million times this. You’ve clearly identified a real issue. FOSS users like parent believe they have a birth right to the software they’re using, including making decisions for the direction product is taking.

This is a user stating what it would take to make them a paying customer.

This is not about FOSS. Full stop. The title is literally:

"Mozilla will reportedly launch a paid version of Firefox this fall"

Mozilla is free to ignore that feedback and sell whatever product they want. The parent user is free to not buy it.

> FOSS users like parent believe they have a birth right to the software they’re using, including making decisions for the direction product is taking.

This is not the conversation we're having. Shut up about it.

Re: Mozilla will reportedly launch a paid version of Firefox this fall

#64
This looks like they're not so much launching a paid version of Firefox-the-browser, but a paid subscription service, including e.g. a VPN service. This is in line with their recent push towards Firefox as a brand for related services and products like Firefox Send and Lockwise in general, with the browser being specifically referred to as Firefox Browser.

So presumably, Firefox accounts will become a freemium service, where paid accounts have e.g. higher limits for Firefox Send, a VPN, etc.

Re: Mozilla will reportedly launch a paid version of Firefox this fall

#66

I'd be happy to pay for Firefox, but I have a few points that are important to me. They are probably not very realistic but here they are anyway: 1. I would like my money to go into Firefox development and nowhere else. I certainly don't want my money spent on their content business, even if it is used as a leverage to generate more money for Firefox development. I'm torn about Rust development because I certainly wo…

I'm pretty sure you are right now paying a lot more money to companies doing a lot less efforts Mozilla is currently doing. And now you are asking even more of them, just as a condition for maybe giving them something day. See, that's one of the weirdest problem in FOSS: the fans hold them to a way too high standard, making it twice as hard to thrive. Once because it's hard to make money as an open source, benevolent…

I agree. Unfortunately, I've seen this more demanding behaviour primarily from tech savvy people. Programmers/Engineers (me including) can have wildly esoteric demands. Only after did I start running a business, did I re-adjust my expectations of myself and that of others.

That said, fortunately, Firefox is still common of a tool which is used by the general public and I think they'll pay. This would have been a painful process had this been a library which was exclusively used by devs but browsers etc can escape that unreasonable expectation.

P.S. I don't think GP is making some extra-ordinary demands but I won't be surprised if someone will demand the heaven and moon from Firefox for 10 USD a year. Absolutely will not be surprised.

Re: Mozilla will reportedly launch a paid version of Firefox this fall

#67

I'd be happy to pay for Firefox, but I have a few points that are important to me. They are probably not very realistic but here they are anyway: 1. I would like my money to go into Firefox development and nowhere else. I certainly don't want my money spent on their content business, even if it is used as a leverage to generate more money for Firefox development. I'm torn about Rust development because I certainly wo…

i basically agree with you and would want the same if i were to be paying for it. but. usually when companies try to sell a thing they try to make it _less_ alienating, not more. loosening up wallets is hard enough; when you pry out all the “helpful” features it gets even harder (for a very large portion of the market. maybe opposite for you and me, but who will this be targeted with this product?)

in general it’d be great to see the wider market start to see these “helpful” features as actually harmful, but that 180 degree reversal is slow going. we’re in the middle of it right now with security/privacy vs convenience. seems like half the companies are going one way and half are going the other.

Re: Mozilla will reportedly launch a paid version of Firefox this fall

#68

I'd be happy to pay for Firefox, but I have a few points that are important to me. They are probably not very realistic but here they are anyway: 1. I would like my money to go into Firefox development and nowhere else. I certainly don't want my money spent on their content business, even if it is used as a leverage to generate more money for Firefox development. I'm torn about Rust development because I certainly wo…

Your list of "strings attached" to Firefox are fairly weak because most represent a trivial few clicks in settings. Insisting that a piece of software must ship preconfigured exactly to your liking seems a bit selfish to me. Really though, how onerous is it to configure a fresh Firefox profile to suit your preferences? (And how often do you reset your Firefox profile anyway?) Complaints about Pocket are largely emoti…

i think it’s a principle thing. for 90% of people, they’ll use it with default settings. seems like OP doesn’t want to support the usage of those default services in general (say, google search default?), so supporting a product that implicitly advances their usage is unattractive.

Re: Mozilla will reportedly launch a paid version of Firefox this fall

#70

I'd be happy to pay for Firefox, but I have a few points that are important to me. They are probably not very realistic but here they are anyway: 1. I would like my money to go into Firefox development and nowhere else. I certainly don't want my money spent on their content business, even if it is used as a leverage to generate more money for Firefox development. I'm torn about Rust development because I certainly wo…

I'm pretty sure you are right now paying a lot more money to companies doing a lot less efforts Mozilla is currently doing. And now you are asking even more of them, just as a condition for maybe giving them something day. See, that's one of the weirdest problem in FOSS: the fans hold them to a way too high standard, making it twice as hard to thrive. Once because it's hard to make money as an open source, benevolent…

This is just people: I make games. Players want 100 hours of unique experience, DRM free, DLC free and oh free. Plus they want all their features and bugs fixed or they threaten you.

The reasons for this are complicated but just like FOSS, videogames have convinced players we can provide them with the moon on a stick when in reality it's a photo of the moon and they need to provide the stick.

Post reply on HN