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Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

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Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#391

Post by Jowsey »

DominikD wrote: post #264

I feel like the only thing that can save Fx at this point is a community-funded, community-led fork. The only problem is: this project would need a lot of monies, so unless there's a corporate sponsor (or sponsors) it's unlikely to happen. And corporate sponsorship would require some sort of incentive that makes the investment worthwhile but at the same it it can't compromise the spirit of the project. Let's say that…

In what world is the average pay of a developer 200k/year? I'm pretty sure you could quarter that, which would make the project much more viable

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#392

Post by [deleted] »

twblalock wrote: post #94
Jonnax wrote: post #13

There's a quote from the CEO saying that they looked at the market and felt like they were being underpaid. And they can't reduce their salary now because it'd be unfair on their families. Firefox has a problem. It gets most of its revenue from Google. They need a different revenue stream but their ideas haven't worked. Their executives are clearly failures. But with such high pay, they're cashing out. Buying themsel…

The Mozilla execs could all make more money at FAANG companies just down the road from Mozilla HQ. If they left, it would probably be pretty hard to replace them with anyone capable of saving Firefox who would settle for less. The same is true for most of the engineers at Mozilla. They could go to FAANGs and increase their compensation quite a bit. So while I agree that the leadership has been bad, executive pay was…

[deleted]

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#393

Post by chii »

INTPenis wrote: post #299
panpanna wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I use FF on mobile and it works perfectly. Not anymore! To be consistent with their business screw ups, they addressed this with the latest updates. Now the mobile app a mess like the rest of Mozilla.

I don't see this, how is it a mess exactly? On the parent issue, Firefox on mobile is great because of the same reason Firefox on Desktop is great. Power over your browser. Which is important since browser exploits are using Javascript to compromise phones. Of course regular people don't know this and will probably never care. But it's the reason Firefox probably won't die. Because the people who know tech know its s…

> Of course regular people don't know this and will probably never care.

except if firefox wills it, they could have an advertising campaign to show regular people that firefox can block ads (the irony!), and is a much better browser experience when paired with all the plugins!

But of course, this threatens the tenuous relationship with google, their major source of revenue. Google keeps firefox alive on a shoestring budget to stop the anti-trust happenings that microsoft went through with Internet Explorer.

So the status quo fits just fine for these parties, and the web browser competition gets worse over time.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#394

Post by hatch_q »

renewiltord wrote: post #311
sangnoir wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think you'll be able to attribute that quote to me. Eich fucked up, and should have realized that you can't be leading a flagship of diversity on the one hand and be a bigot on the other. I have a problem with characterizing Brendan Eich as a bigot for donating to a non-fringe political group. IIRC, the proposition campaign he donated to had close to a 50/50 split in support for/against. Eich's ouster cryst…

Why does the vote percentage matter? 43% of Germans voted for the NSDAP. Doesn't absolve them of their bigotry. If 100% of Americans voted that way that would just make all of them bigoted.

Treaty of Versailles caused this. If NSDAP didn't happen, some other extreme would.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#395

Post by mxschumacher »

nix23 wrote: post #334

Hey Microsoft, i have a Idea: Buy Mozilla, fire all the CEO/Staff, bring all the lost Devs back and let them work on the Browser and Rust (and just that), if anything happens with the Chromium development you have your own second browser at hand...and by that way rust itself.

I was thinking the same, but for Amazon.

They don't have a browser yet (extremely interesting data), directly compete with google on ads (and search when we consider shopping) and are increasingly using Rust. Getting great engineering talent on top is nice, too.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#396

Post by lopis »

lumberingjack wrote: post #342
koolba wrote: post #326

> The real problem is not the royalty cuts, though. Mozilla has already received more than enough money to set themselves up for financial independence. Mozilla received up to half a billion dollars a year (each year!) for many years. The real problem is that Mozilla didn't use that money to achieve financial independence and instead just spent it each year, doing the organisational equivalent of living hand-to-mouth…

This is what happens when you throw an LGBT office party every weekend. Just one of the many stupid ways they found to spend money.

A source for this would be welcome.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#397

Post by jacquesm »

patrec wrote: post #389
jacquesm wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a problem that she is both on the board and CEO, which effectively makes her impossible to hold to account unless the board members that want her out would resign if she does not want to make way. That would be a major statement and would put the remaining board members on notice. The board typically does not get compensated the way the CEO does so they are usually not in a position to 'suck it dry', on top of…

Well, concerning the sucking dry: maybe I'm overly cynical but I wonder if being on the mozilla board is not a nice sinecure (so high effective hourly wage, even if the yearly compensation is not egregious) with a massive CV boost: none of the people I can see on the board of either the corp or the foundation, with the exception of Brian Behlendorf (and I had to look him up) seem to have much name recognition and bei…

> It seems extremely unlikely to me the mismanagement is rising to the level of personal liability.

Agreed. But the CEOs statement here is very peculiar and might actually rise to that level, the board not taking action in turn might just make them culpable.

It is a very dumb statement, especially for a lawyer, to make.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#398

Post by pseudalopex »

chrisco255 wrote: post #260
shp0ngle wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right? Native is by nature faster, which makes sense on the resource sensitive devices. webOS (the Palm thing) did the same mistake, I think. It makes sense on desktop, and even there people keep complaining about Electron performance.

I have an LG WebOS television and it runs extremely smoothly. VS Code is an electron app and nobody complains about its performance. Ultimately webOS didn't lose because it was web tech. It lost because Android and iOS already captured the market. Windows Phone was a .NET runtime with similar performance to Java, but it failed to capture the market even with billions in Microsoft subsidies.

VSC is the only Electron app most people can agree is even just OK. Performance is still the most common complaint.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#399

Post by slightwinder »

twblalock wrote: post #94
Jonnax wrote: post #13

There's a quote from the CEO saying that they looked at the market and felt like they were being underpaid. And they can't reduce their salary now because it'd be unfair on their families. Firefox has a problem. It gets most of its revenue from Google. They need a different revenue stream but their ideas haven't worked. Their executives are clearly failures. But with such high pay, they're cashing out. Buying themsel…

The Mozilla execs could all make more money at FAANG companies just down the road from Mozilla HQ. If they left, it would probably be pretty hard to replace them with anyone capable of saving Firefox who would settle for less. The same is true for most of the engineers at Mozilla. They could go to FAANGs and increase their compensation quite a bit. So while I agree that the leadership has been bad, executive pay was…

> it would probably be pretty hard to replace them with anyone capable of saving Firefox who would settle for less.

That's just baseless assumptions. And considering that this "saving" did not work out so far, it seems they are not even worth the money at all.

On another side, for the money of one of this managers, you could probably get a dozen or more semi-competent people who are more eager to make money and save the project.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#400

Post by jacquesm »

pyb wrote: post #387
patrec wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you see any realistic chance of this happening? Generally if a company is captured by a parasitic leadership sucking it dry, that's it, right? Is there anyone on the board whose interests are more aligned with keeping Mozilla alive (probably hard to do at this point) than feasting on it whilst there is still something left to feast on? Presumably you'd need a few such people.

Are there any examples of a company recovering from what you describe ? I don't know of any.

Apple. Currently the most valuable company of all time.

And there are interesting parallels, Apple too was kept alive by their competitor as a fig leaf in light of anti-trust troubles.

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