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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

#471

Post by dang »

There have been multiple submissions. I guess this one wins because it's the original source and was posted first. But since corporate press releases leave much to be desired (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...), I've pilfered the title from https://www.zdnet.com/article/mozilla-lays-off-250-employees... via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24121166.

Please note that this thread has multiple pages of comments. To reach them, click the More link at the bottom, or like this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24120336&p=2

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24120336&p=3

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

#472

Post by tmaly »

dblohm7 wrote: post #79
tmaly wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I donate $20 a year to Mozilla. I like the product. I hope they will keep focus making great browser and not get distracted with other things.

While donating to Mozilla Foundation is a great cause [1], none of those funds go to funding Mozilla Corporation, and thus Firefox. If you want your funds to go toward MoCo (and thus Firefox development), your best bet is to subscribe to Mozilla VPN or Pocket Premium. [1] https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/initiatives/

Why not just offer a paid version of firefox then? That is really what I am offer. I don't use pocket or the VPN.

I am willing to pay for a license if they continue to support the browser.

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

#473

Post by shock »

barrkel wrote: post #325
gfodor wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Counterpoint: Apple when Jobs came back. Sometimes the answer to a company which is trying too many things at random is to drastically reduce the dispersion of effort, and focus ruthlessly. It's very hard to do psychologically, though. IMO Mozilla would probably be better served, business-wise, as being "the customizable Chrome". It would be a much smaller business (i.e. less IP under development), but it could be pr…

> And at the end of the day, that's mostly Tree Style Tabs, uBlock and a menu bar.

I regard Firefox Container Tabs and Rust as the most useful things that come out of Mozilla.

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

#474

Post by freeopinion »

barrkel wrote: post #325
gfodor wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Counterpoint: Apple when Jobs came back. Sometimes the answer to a company which is trying too many things at random is to drastically reduce the dispersion of effort, and focus ruthlessly. It's very hard to do psychologically, though. IMO Mozilla would probably be better served, business-wise, as being "the customizable Chrome". It would be a much smaller business (i.e. less IP under development), but it could be pr…

Your counterpoint is a little confusing to me. Apple reversed their sinking fortunes when they released the iPhone. That seems to make the exact opposite of your point.

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

#475

Post by kbenson »

rootsudo wrote: post #461
fsflover wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what are your suggestions? Let Mozilla die and enjoy Google monopoly in the web? No, thanks. I prefer a non-profit organization which " failed their users and the ecosystem by not standing up to industry pressure ". By the way, consider donating to Mozilla if you want them to (be able to) listen to you.

Ironically, Google supports the Mozilla project https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/01/22/so-why-i... Which means as Mozilla dries up, its only support is "Google." Meaning, soon to you, a chromium firefox based browser no different as to Edge, Brave or whatever else is out there. tl;dr Mozilla is propped up by Google. Google is no bueno.

> Meaning, soon to you, a chromium firefox based browser no different as to Edge, Brave or whatever else is out there.

Doubtful. I think of lot of the reason Google helps fund Mozilla is so there's a better answer to the question "Does Google have a monopoly in web browsers?" It's better for both Google (because they can point at competition) and Mozilla (because Google will still want to hand them money) if Mozilla has their own engine.

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

#476

Post by ilmiont »

Mozilla needs to stop prattling on about being a "world-class, modern, multi-product internet organisation" and being "diverse" and "inclusive" and "battling systemic racism" and get back to developing its core products which people actually want to use.

Stop with the fluff and the airy blog posts and societal ambitions and get back to doing actual engineering which gets people back using your products. You may have a "new focus on community" but it means nothing if there's no product to have that community built around.

You might claim to be a "technical powerhouse of the internet activist movement" (whatever that is !? ) but soon you're going to be nothing at all because Firefox is, as much as it pains me to say it, still merely following and not leading while Mozilla leadership goes back and forth and seems more interested in writing blog posts about global issues than the technology that actually makes it a viable business.

Focus on Firefox. Build a product that's truly competitive once more. Build a product. Not endless blog posts about trust and "authenticity" and "leadership" and whatever else appears on the RSS feed today; get some actual leadership together and start looking at what you're actually doing, which of late has been not a lot at all.

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

#477

Post by isatty »

nine_k wrote: post #446
bsimpson wrote: post #408

Sounds like Servo, the next-generation browser engine that brought the world Rust, is one of the teams being destaffed: https://twitter.com/SimonSapin/status/1293231187167784960

The whole thing is open source, isn't it? I wonder if anybody else is interested in having it developed. Maybe if a couple of star developers currently being laid off, or redirected to other stuff, started to put more effort into it, and the community started supporting them with donations, that could speed things up? Firefox is widely popular, and its popularity is also wide among the techs-savvy, well-paid people.…

How can I donate some money that is specifically for Firefox development?

I do not really care for or like the other products that Mozilla is developing, like VPNs etc but rather, I would like for my money to be used towards browser development.

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

#478

Post by danielscrubs »

rootsudo wrote: post #461
fsflover wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what are your suggestions? Let Mozilla die and enjoy Google monopoly in the web? No, thanks. I prefer a non-profit organization which " failed their users and the ecosystem by not standing up to industry pressure ". By the way, consider donating to Mozilla if you want them to (be able to) listen to you.

Ironically, Google supports the Mozilla project https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/01/22/so-why-i... Which means as Mozilla dries up, its only support is "Google." Meaning, soon to you, a chromium firefox based browser no different as to Edge, Brave or whatever else is out there. tl;dr Mozilla is propped up by Google. Google is no bueno.

Firefox has less memory usage and at least for me, is the faster browser.

You even have non-techies at wall street journal recommending people to switch from Google Chrome on YouTube.

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

#479

Post by craigsmansion »

Santosh83 wrote: post #290
dblohm7 wrote: post #258

[I am a Mozilla employee, and yes, I do recognize how my position influences my perspective.] One thing that always frustrates me a bit whenever Mozilla comes up on HN or elsewhere is that we are always held to impossibly high standards. Yes, as a non-profit, we should be held to higher standards, but not impossible standards. OTOH, sometimes it just seems unreasonable and absurd. Stuff like, to paraphrase, "Look at…

I may be rapidly downvoted but what strikes me as an outsider (reading most of the comments in this thread) is the collective psyche in the US is viscerally against any entity rising to the top that does not have profit as its sole goal. What they want is for Mozilla to solely focus on Firefox, on the technicalities, and shut up about everything else. And yet no one will actually pay for it as a product. The tragedy…

> is the collective psyche in the US is viscerally against any entity rising to the top that does not have profit as its sole goal.

It might be the other way around in this case.

Mozilla rose to the top because of the promise of an open web and always making sure their users would come first, generating near endless goodwill and advocacy, and it was free software to boot.

Throughout the years when choices had to be made Mozilla didn't always side with the open web or the users, and whenever they were asked about it, the answer was always the same:

"Not our hill to die on. We need the clout we would lose, otherwise we won't be big enough to have any say when the next thing comes around."

and then the next thing came around, and the next...

The problem is that Mozilla seems to have revenue as an important goal. I imagine that's why people clamour for them to focus on the browser instead of pointlessly playing corporation with borrowed feathers.

They sold out.

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

#480

Post by vkou »

jacquesm wrote: post #95

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…

> lots of dedicated users that would rather quit the web than switch to Chrome or Edge.

By lots, do you mean that we'd need to pull off our boots to count them?

Everything is done on the web now. Job applications, apartment leasing, government services, government obligations, commerce. Giving up the web alltogether is the modern-day equivalent of living as a mountain hermit. It either requires a truly colossal amount of privilege, or it will inflict a lot of pain on you.

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