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Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

blog.mozilla.org

191–200 of 1001 posts

Re: Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

#191
I wonder what this means (and fear) for important projects like https://commonvoice.mozilla.org, that do not seem to have been concerned with a business case at all. Best case I can currently see is that some other organisation will take it on, though I'm not sure which.

And I'm also curious how the pandemic has impacted them. As I understood it, still by far their major revenue sources were the search engine deals - has their value changed due to the pandemic?

Re: Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

#192
post #176

Mozilla management has me puzzled. They have a position that is incredibly strong, lots of dedicated users that would rather quit the web than switch to Chrome or Edge. "But we know we also need to go beyond the browser to give people new products and technologies that both excite them and represent their interests" Is exactly what they should stay away from. Work on the bloody browser, forget about the rest. There a…

A common refrain, but is anything but obvious. Focusing on the browser could be a losing strategy. I'd argue it probably is. The trajectory is terrible: the tech is being commoditized (WebKit, Chromium) and the market share picture is bleak. The opportunity cost is huge: maintaining a web engine, one which basically just tries to keep up with the others put out by Google et al, takes armies of people that could perha…

Yes, it is a losing strategy because this is a rearguard action. There are only losing strategies, nothing will turn Mozilla around to be some kind of powerhouse besides what it already is. And that's fine. It doesn't need to be the next singing, dancing platform with bells and whistles. It's a tool. It should do one thing and do that one thing well.

FireFox is not a failing product, it is the only product they have that is not failing and pursuing shiny and new stuff that nobody needs (despite the corpspeak there) is only going to accelerate that towards becoming the truth.

Mozilla is a one-trick pony (well, they were a two trick pony but then they decided to murder Thunderbird and then retracted it or whatever they did, it also confused the hell out of me when they pulled that one). And they now have to accept that, deal with it and focus on being the very best one trick pony they can be.

Re: Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

#193

Mozilla management has me puzzled. They have a position that is incredibly strong, lots of dedicated users that would rather quit the web than switch to Chrome or Edge. "But we know we also need to go beyond the browser to give people new products and technologies that both excite them and represent their interests" Is exactly what they should stay away from. Work on the bloody browser, forget about the rest. There a…

Thanks for capturing my feelings around this so well. I absolutely love Firefox, but I can’t help but feel Mozilla’s ambitions are hurting them rather than helping them. Don’t get me wrong; their “distractions” have given the world a lot of nice things (Rust comes to mind). But first and foremost, Mozilla’s mission should be to ensure a great, competitive browser, and they’re losing the competition badly. And imho th…

Mozilla's mission is to make the internet a better place for everybody. Having an open web browser is a part of that, but nowhere near sufficient to accomplish the goal. The "vanity ambitions" you are talking about are the things that actually make a long-term difference in people's lives. Having a great competitive browser with a silo'd, broken up Internet is not a desirable end-state.

Re: Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

#195
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Work on the bloody browser, forget about the rest. But they did that, and now Firefox market share is almost negligible because it wasn't the default browser on mobile OS's. For example, I'm sceptical about the potential reach of XR, but if it grows big, it is vital that Firefox plays a bigger role there, instead of everybody being reliant on apps and Chrome once again.

> But they did that, and now Firefox market share is almost negligible because it wasn't the default browser on mobile OS's. Firefox has never been a default browser on any OS, mobile or otherwise, and I don't see how that could ever change short of Firefox developing their own OS. Which is in fact something they tried a while back for mobile, and it didn't go so well.

Firefox has been the default browser on many linux distros.

Re: Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

#197
post #4
post #2

That's the last call for anybody who thinks "it's good that Mozilla exists, and its mission is important, but I'm still using Chrome and derivatives". Mozilla can't exist solely because people think it has a good mission: it needs products that can pay the bills, or at least a large population of active users.

Also, please make a monthly donation to Mozilla if you can. You will contribute to saving the world. https://donate.mozilla.org/

After hearing how their corporation is run and what their execs spend on flights I'm not convinced they deserve it.

Would rather they fall and a Phoenix rises out of the ashes for a second time.

Re: Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

#198
> "Recognizing that the old model where everything was free has consequences, means we must explore a range of different business opportunities and alternate value exchanges," Baker said.

> We must learn and expand different ways to support ourselves and build a business that isn't what we see today.

Perhaps I am wrong, but to me this reads as Mozilla plans to give up on not being evil and to do whatever it takes to make money. Sounds like Mozilla products will soon become toxic including Firefox if not forked. Also, looks like their hand is being forced by google.

Edit: formatting - also I hope I am wrong.

Re: Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

#200
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they cannot succeed in making Firefox better, the problem is bigger than I thought. So basically, they’ll try to gain income from other sources, because they have given up on increasing the Firefox market share, and anticipate losing the revenue that comes with it?

> If they cannot succeed in making Firefox better They can make Firefox better, and have been doing that a lot. The problem is - it doesn't make the users to come. Google, Apple, Microsoft - all own platforms that people use, and they heavily push the users towards their own browsers.

I think that point is not as big as you think it is. Remember how big Firefox was back in the day? This was despite Microsoft pushing IE and bundling it with Windows.

Users nowadays have been conditioned that it’s perfectly normal to download Chrome after installing Windows / buying a new computer. If Google can do this, why not Mozilla?

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