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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

#551

Post by gsnedders »

lazyjeff wrote: post #492
discardable_dan wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a large gap between "focus on the browser" and "make Firefox slightly better." People forget that Firefox gave the world tabbed browsing. Sure, it was around before, but Firefox was the drive and impetus that moved it from a niche idea to the default option across every browser . That was over a decade ago. Firefox has the opportunity to execute a vision of modern web-browsing again. And, frankly, we really…

I seem to remember that Opera was the first stand-alone browser that brought the world tabbed browsing. People switched to Opera for that and its fast performance. Other browsers including Mozilla copied the feature to catch up. Opera was the source of browser interface innovation and I wish we could replicate that process. They also invented popup blocking, speed dial (the default blank tab UI now on every browser),…

> One big thing Opera didn't invent was the use of the address bar for more than URLs, so you could search and autocomplete on it. I think some combination of Chrome+Firefox iterated on that concept.

Pretty sure it was one of the notable innovations in the original Chrome beta release.

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

#552

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

ecf wrote: post #346
praveenperera wrote: post #127

4.5 months severance for the laid off employees. Doesn't say anything about any cuts to executive compensation however. https://blog.mozilla.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Message-...

Every single C-suite executive should be required to take a (2 * % of employees laid off) pay cut. Lay off 25% of your company? Enjoy your 50% pay cut. Have to lay off 50%? Enjoy working unpaid for a year while you rebuild.

I mean, I guess I want a pony, too.

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

#554

Post by Vinnl »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #177
Vinnl wrote: 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.

> 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.

Exactly, and they only did that when it was too late, and it was proven that mobile was going to be big. It'd have required betting on mobile before it was a sure thing, instead of just focusing on the browser they had.

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

#555

Post by missedthecue »

codemonkey-zeta wrote: post #465
missedthecue wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This forum would be in uproar if the firm was offering their software devs $30k a year, but offering competitive pay for executives and managers is a sin incapable of restitution for some inconsistent reason.

Exorbitant executive pay is a sin incapable of restitution wherever it occurs, much more today than at any point in the past. The leaders of nonprofits especially should be ashamed to accept such pay. Developer compensation generally is not exorbitant to nearly the same degree, so this comparison feels unfair.

Explain to me why an executive who might have three or four opportunities choose the lowest paying one while a dev should be entitled to competitive pay?

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

#556

Post by xolve »

rswail wrote: post #5

"Focusing Firefox On Users In order to refocus the Firefox organization on core browser growth through differentiated user experiences, we are reducing investment in some areas such as developer tools, internal tooling, and platform feature development, and transitioning adjacent security/privacy products to our New Products and Operations team." So what is the impact on things like Servo/Rust, and the core browser?…

So this means more web developers are going to move towards Chromium as base development.

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

#558

Post by hoorayimhelping »

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…

>Mozilla. From combatting a lethal virus and battling systemic racism

Why is everyone so freaking obsessed with saving the world and fixing all its ills? When did it become not good enough to just make something people enjoy using?

Could you imagine how stupid and obnoxious it would be if every time you bought a tool from a hardware store, the packaging went on some long winded self congratulatory rant about how it's saving the world and battling the woes of humanity?

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

#559

Post by rurp »

shock wrote: post #510
news12klm wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They may have made mistakes over EME but would you have sacrificed netflix or other stuff and continued to use pure OSS?

Computers are powerful enough these days to have multiple browsers installed and running simultaneously. One could have used Firefox for general browsing and just used Chrome for Netflix.

This is what I do currently. I use Chrome or Brave to access Google sites only, and use Firefox for all other activity. I never sign in to any Google account from Firefox. For me it doesn't feel inconvenient at all to just click the Brave icon when I want to check Gmail and I like segregating my Google activity as much as possible.

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

#560

Post by citizenpaul »

This is one of the most pathetic layoff releases I have ever seen. Its extremely, soul crushing, heart wrenchingly depressing to see Mozilla succumb to the the get woke go broke mentality.

They should be focused on making good tech period nothing else.

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