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Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

blog.mozilla.org

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

#211

Post by jacquesm »

staktrace wrote: post #193
stingraycharles wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Losing that great competitive browser because of pursuing even higher goals and ending up with an even more silo'd, broken up internet is an even less desirable end state and one that is much more likely to materialize by acting like this.

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

#212

Post by gspr »

onyva wrote: post #196

Would defiantly move from proton to Mozilla’s VPN the minute they make it available in Europe. Would love to cancel my iCloud storage too, if Mozilla offered an hosted NextCloud or something similar.

Mozilla's VPN is powered by Mullvad. Mullvad is available globally right now, costs €5/month (vs Mozilla VPN's $5), and allows a range of payment methods all the way down to "cash in an envelope".

Mozilla are great, I have nothing against them, but I really struggle to see the point of their VPN service.

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

#213

Post by saagarjha »

frankjr wrote: post #157

> I've been told that a large part of Mozilla's security team has also been laid off, which seems like a big issue especially after Mozilla launched a VPN offering last month. https://twitter.com/campuscodi/status/1293200453736570881

What about their browser security team?

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

#214

Post by staktrace »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #194

> Economic conditions resulting from the global pandemic have significantly impacted our revenue This is baffling. How? You make a web technology and everyone is stuck at home.

People aren't clicking on ads to buy things because they've all been laid off. Economies are circular.

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

#215

Post by konaraddi »

The cost of building and maintaining a competitive browser is huge and it's hard for Mozilla/Firefox to compete with Google/Chrome. Firefox saw its monthly active users go down by ~14% in the last 8 months [1]. I think Mozilla should consider stopping Firefox development and fork Chromium to focus on accessibility and privacy (both in and out of the browser). It's far from ideal--there'll only be one popular browser engine--but it's a trade off that could help Mozilla put more money and time towards its true mission: "to ensure the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all". The cost of building/maintaining Firefox is holding them back from putting more money and effort toward that mission (and I think that's why they're reducing their workforce [2]).

[1] 244M MAU in Dec. 2018 and 209M MAU as of Aug. 2, 2020 https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity

[2] "Today we announced a significant restructuring of Mozilla Corporation. This will strengthen our ability to build and invest in products and services that will give people alternatives to conventional Big Tech. Sadly, the changes also include a significant reduction in our workforce by approximately 250 people."

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

#218

Post by jacquesm »

gfodor wrote: post #204
jacquesm wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your two claims (Mozilla can't do anything other than Firefox, Firefox is not failing) are easy to provide counter-evidence to. You're making strong statements here as fact that are not only subjective but which run against evidence.

So provide the counter evidence.

Mozilla is letting 250 people go, that's not because their things other than Firefox are a resounding success, but mostly because none of those things pay the bills and are failures in the market place.

Firefox is falling behind on Chrome and Edge, it is really annoying that since a couple of weeks I'm more or less forced to use Chrome because FireFox languishes in domains that matter to me personally. That's a pretty strong sign because if there is one thing that I never thought would happen it is that I would switch away from FF. So no, it is not failing - yet. But it may come to that. If people like me are considering to switch that future is closer than you might like.

So maybe my strong statements are subjective but they are actually backed by some evidence, you did not provide any whatsoever other than naysaying.

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

#219

Post by wintermutestwin »

I am already paying a very high price (mostly in time) to keep the data thieves from stealing my precious data. I would pay a pretty high monthly fee to someone who I could trust to take care of it for me. That's why I pay the Apple tax. How about a free browser for those who want to DIY privacy and a premium for those who don't want to spend their time?
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