Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up • Hacker News Board

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

#981

Post by BrendanEich » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 2:51 PM UTC

throw_m239339 wrote: post #738

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you so sure that a) Eich would do the job for less, or that b) he'd be able to single-handedly defeat Google on a budget. Just because someone opposes gay marriage for religious reasons doesn't make them a superhero or saint. Is Brave browser doing better than Firefox with his miraculous help? Seems like the people angry about this political issue are one key factor in us heading towards an internet monocultu…

> Why are you so sure that a) Eich would do the job for less, or that b) he'd be able to single-handedly defeat Google on a budget. a) Eich publicly called out Mozilla's current CEO compensation. b) well the current CEO isn't doing that either. > Just because someone opposes gay marriage for religious reasons doesn't make them a superhero or saint. Is Brave browser doing better than Firefox with his miraculous help?…

Firefox lost market the whole time period during which I started Brave and led the team that grew it from 0 to ~20M MAU. Something worked. Of course it couldn't have had anything to do with me :-/.

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

#982

Post by BrendanEich » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

thebigspacefuck wrote: post #679

TheArcane wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a unique value proposition to use Firefox on iOS, since due to Apple policy, they can't have addons? Even Firefox Focus' content blocker works on Safari and not the main Firefox app

It’s better than Safari and it’s not Chrome. Brave is similar and has ad blocking, but I didn’t like it as much.

In late 2018 we rebased desktop Brave from Electron to a chromium front end fork, so if you tried Brave earlier than then, I hope you'll give it another try. Thanks.

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

#983

Post by BrendanEich » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 3:01 PM UTC

0134340 wrote: post #328

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we shouldn’t have canceled Eich after all...

Ah, another overpaid CEO trying to cash in on the relics of pre-existing browser technology (chrome).

I founded Brave with a pay-cut to $160K/year. Note that due to my not taking anything near $2M+ salary+bonus annual comp when I was at Mozilla, I am not independently wealthy.

I'm not complaining (it was worth doing Brave on many non-material grounds), but you are disparaging out of malice and ignorance. This will not work well for you in life — my two cents!

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

#984

Post by BrendanEich » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

mythz wrote: post #327

threatofrain wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We see Eich with his own browser vision and executive style over at Brave, where he is unencumbered by legacy bureaucracy or codebases. He wouldn’t have been as free if he were at Mozilla.

He would've had an iconic brand, elite staff, an established business model & userbase, etc. I'd posit he'd have been a much better technology focused CEO then the leaders of Mozilla's current titanic trajectory into obsolescence. Instead of Brave where he's having to build a product, brand & userbase from scratch & try to force a niche unproven VC business model with Brave.

FWIW, Brave's VC funding is < 10%. No "VC business model", whatever that is, either — I carved nature at the joint using science, proceeding from ad/tracker blocking and reconnecting the necessary parts of the Web's funding ecosystem via crypto.

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

#985

Post by BrendanEich » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 3:17 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #754

dotancohen wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that we have the person who arguably most understands the domain of web browsers, online privacy, and all the legal and ethical aspect thereof, working on another Chromium-based browser. I do not need to elaborate on why a diverse browser ecosystem is important, there are enough threads on that already. Mozilla had this jewel, exactly what it needed to succeed and make the web a better place. He was at…

I wonder why Eich went with Chromium/Blink and didn't decide to continue to use Firefox/Gecko as the basis for Brave?

See https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1297577391129128960 among others.

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

#986

Post by BrendanEich » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 3:20 PM UTC

lightgreen wrote: post #148

ekianjo wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Mozilla have a board? Who gets to fire the CEO in this organization?

Seems like Mitchell is both CEO and board member https://wiki.mozilla.org/Board is that even legal?

Not just member, Mitchell is chair of both the parent (Mozilla Foundation) and wholly owned subsidiary (Mozilla Corporation) boards. This is unusual, in my experience.

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

#987

Post by BrendanEich » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 3:36 PM UTC

pkphilip wrote: post #87

It is interesting to note that Brendan Eich's severance pay when he was forced out of Mozilla was just $113,000. https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2015/11/30/mozilla... Also interesting to note that Brendan Eich too plotted a chart showing Baker's pay vs Mozilla stock's performance: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1217512049716035584 How anyone can claim that sort of pay hike when showing very poor res…

BTW, I didn't create that chart, someone inside Mozilla (I'm told) did.

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

#988

Post by BrendanEich » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 4:49 PM UTC

vxNsr wrote: post #652

paulintrognon wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if Brendan Eich stayed CEO of Mozilla, maybe we would now have a kind of firefox/brave mixed browser. But instead, we can choose between Firefox, and Brave. 2 competitors for Chrome, from which users can choose. So, in the end, maybe it was for the best?

Brave is just chrome with a few additions it’s much worse than a Braved-Firefox would be. I’m guessing he rightly feels he couldn’t use Firefox as his base due to the history.

From https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf,

"We study six browsers: Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Brave Browser, Microsoft Edge and Yandex Browser. For Brave with its default settings we did not find any use of identifiers allowing tracking of IP address over time, and no sharing of the details of web pages visited with backend servers. Chrome, Firefox and Safari all share details of web pages visited with backend servers."

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

#989

Post by conradfr » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 7:00 PM UTC

endless1234 wrote: post #972

conradfr wrote: post #736

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last update seems to have added yet another unnecessary click to access a pinned site (whatever it's called). It used to be "click on the url bar -> click big site preview", now it's "click on the tab counter -> click the plus icon -> click to dismiss some overlay -> click small site icon". Thanks Mozilla, I hate it.

Yeah, it's not great. But you can get to "new tab" by longpressing the tab counter thingy. Yep, I noticed it by accident.

Ha, not bad, it puts the action where you finger is already on the screen and it removes on step (the url/search overlay).

Thanks !

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

#990

Post by sk2020 » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 10:30 PM UTC

boomboomsubban wrote: post #954

sk2020 wrote: post #763

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox isn't a direct competitor to Chrome. It's Google's hedge against an anti-trust lawsuit. When you see Mozilla as a Big Tech trust-fund baby struggling with cognitive dissonance, then their behavior makes sense.

If you look at the history of Mozilla's revenue, this conspiracy is ridiculous. Why would Yahoo compete over the Firefox contract if they serve as a hedge against a lawsuit?

Why would you (Google) not prefer for someone else (yahoo!) to pay for something that benefits you? That Yahoo! leadership didn't renew the contract should tell you how much being a default search engine is actually worth. Why would you (actual you) believe that Google would provide nearly all of a "competitor's" revenue? that somehow makes more sense? The pontificating about privacy Mozilla does is total nonsense. They serve their users up to Google's surveillance enterprise without hesitation. They're a puppet to fool gullible hipsters with fashionable social statements.