Live data from Hacker News

Mozilla Lifeboat

mozillalifeboat.com

251–260 of 336 posts

Re: Mozilla Lifeboat

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which company that cares about the “open web” pays well - instead of just paying lip service to openness [1]. Have you checked Mozilla’s salary? https://www.levels.fyi/company/Mozilla/salaries/Software-Eng... I was making almost that much pre-Covid as a regular old SAAS CRUD developer in the south East US. It was comfortable but far from not needing to work for a few months and hold out because I was concerned about…

Do you need to make 15k/month? In my experience, finding fulfilling work is harder than well paying ones.

When you have kids, bills, trying to save for retirement, etc. I can’t afford to be out of work for an extended period of time. Even making $120K a year (just trying to make the math easy), means every month I am out of work I am losing $10K.

But I was replying to this...

If you’re qualified to write that kind of code, basic needs are surely well taken care of and are the least of your concerns.

The Mozilla developers aren’t getting paid minimum wage by any means, nor am I doubting their skills, but they definitely aren’t making the salaries of great engineers if levels.fyi is accurate.

That was my entire point. I wouldn’t get past the first technical screen for an entry level software engineer at $BigTech without “grinding leetCode ((tm) r/cscareerquestions) as a CRUD developer, but I made about that much even before I got a consulting job at $BigTech and I am living on the opposite coast from Silicon Valley.

Re: Mozilla Lifeboat

#254
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, I’d really love to see Matrix to become a standard. I’d love to use it as a major goto chat/communication tool but i get frustrated with UX. Pls pls, don’t screw it.

Yep ux is a huge problem for getting even tech-savvy people onto element. Would love to see it become a viable alternative to discord but its still far off.

Try fluffychat. It offers a more polished experience

Re: Mozilla Lifeboat

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which company that cares about the “open web” pays well - instead of just paying lip service to openness [1]. Have you checked Mozilla’s salary? https://www.levels.fyi/company/Mozilla/salaries/Software-Eng... I was making almost that much pre-Covid as a regular old SAAS CRUD developer in the south East US. It was comfortable but far from not needing to work for a few months and hold out because I was concerned about…

Do you need to make 15k/month? In my experience, finding fulfilling work is harder than well paying ones.

[deleted]

Re: Mozilla Lifeboat

#257
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been trying to get people to join "element" but it just makes the whole chat sound awkward "Hey, want to join me on element? compared to "hey, want to join me on riot". Element just doesn't have the same ring and sounds less exciting and dull. It's not even listed in search engines, especially DDG, so I then have to give them the URL which adds to the awkwardness. It was a bad move in my opinion. Sure sure, the…

Every time 'Element' (The Matrix chat app) gets a mention, it resorts into questioning the name or a disambiguation. The technology, product and pricing with the deals they are making with multiple governments and businesses is an excellent source of revenue and is very competitive at striking those deals. However the genericness of the name will be a problem with non-technical users and will always be an issue with…

Curious if just buying ads in search engines would help raise the rankings? Not sure if Google eventually raises your rankings when your link is clicked on more due to ads but I assume the more people visit specific search results the higher up it goes.

Re: Mozilla Lifeboat

#258

Element (the company from the Matrix.org core team) is super interested in providing refuge to Mozilla folks - we share the same goals of building the open web, albeit with a focus on open communication. (We'd put ourselves on the mozillalifeboat.com page, but I somehow doubt our Mozilla alumni uses FB... :D) Particular areas that may be of interest include developer documentation (making https://matrix.org/docs/spec…

Man, I’d really love to see Matrix to become a standard. I’d love to use it as a major goto chat/communication tool but i get frustrated with UX. Pls pls, don’t screw it.

[deleted]

Re: Mozilla Lifeboat

#259
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time 'Element' (The Matrix chat app) gets a mention, it resorts into questioning the name or a disambiguation. The technology, product and pricing with the deals they are making with multiple governments and businesses is an excellent source of revenue and is very competitive at striking those deals. However the genericness of the name will be a problem with non-technical users and will always be an issue with…

Folks, it's been like 3 weeks since we renamed Riot as Element, and (picking DDG) it's already the 18th hit from the top. Riot was 4th at the point we renamed it (second only to RG). Meanwhile it's already the top hit on the Play Store. So give it a few more weeks :) In terms of the name itself, I personally think "Let's talk on Element" is at least as catchy as "Let's talk on Riot", although it's touching to see fol…

Generally I like the new name a lot. The turning point that took me from lukewarm to positive was when the phrase, "in my element" popped into my head, which I think is a pretty fitting theme for a messenger app using a decentralized protocol like matrix (almost (but not quite) enough for me to wish matrix were branded something like "bond" -- that which connects elements).

However, there's one major way it's lacking: brevity. "Element" will never be a verb like Slack, WhatsApp, Snap, Signal, etc. Telegram has the same problem -- "Send me a Telegram" is the closest you can naturally get; "Telegram me" is too much of a mouthful. Element is even worse in this respect, since I can't think of a phrase like "Send me an Element".

Now to turn this criticism upside down: I think you can spin this downside onto an amazing upside, by making the protocol the verb. People don't say "gmail me" or "aol me". They don't say "handcent me" or "textra me" (or at least, not until iMessage came along). If your goal is to encourage an open ecosystem rather than monopolize the market, not having your flagship client take up too much of the verbiage is a good thing. So it's not "Element me, it's "Matrix me".

..which, is still subpar. Two syllables with ending in x is a mouthful. I'm kind of loathe to suggest a rebrand of the protocol, too, but.. It might be worth considering.

Total aside: The single biggest improvement you could make to Element, for me, would be to stop giving mentions special treatment in the composer. I want to be able to put my cursor in the middle of someone's name, press backspace, and delete one letter, not their entire name. Using a pill as a distinct visual style to indicate that the person I'm mentioning will see it as a mention is a good thing. Making it function differently than the plain letters would is an exercise in frustration. I've nothing against WYSIWYG composers, although I prefer plain text (since I'm used to it), but if you're going to allow text-based formatting, then the composer window needs to act as (but not necessarily look like) 100% text. Polari is the absolute gold standard here, and Discord is alright (at least, if you keep their godawful "preview as you type" beta feature, which messes up mentions the same way Riot does, turned off). I spend most of my time in the composer; it's the biggest bang-free-buck area for QoL improvements.

Re: Mozilla Lifeboat

#260

Is there a chance maybe Mozilla had this plan even from before the pandemic and now it's the perfect time to justify it?.

The pandemic certainly doesn't mean fewer people browsing the web.

Literally cutting everything important to their browser -- future improvements, dev support, and security. That's not the kind of move you make unless you're about to be cutting a project.

Post reply on HN