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Firefox Was Always Enough

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Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#581

Post by minikites »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #501
minikites wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've replaced "waiting for unskippable Flash intros" with: - a web that is thoroughly unusable without an ad-blocker (ad-blocking was pretty optional in 2005) - waiting for 20 megs of minified JS to load over 3G - waiting for Google web fonts to load because apparently shipping more than 4 fonts in common is beyond the ability of plucky upstarts like Microsoft, Apple, and Google - web "apps" with worse performance c…

You have to look at the web's good and not just it's bad. It's kind of tiring to read comments that act like nobody else is capable of enumerating the downsides of something. Why own a dog? You spend money on it, it shits, it makes noise, you have to find a caretaker when you go on vacation, it bites, it needs walks, it needs to go to the vet, your next girlfriend might be allergic to it, and after all that, it dies.…

You're replying several comments deep in a chain where we've already discussed this. Sometimes things do in fact get worse over time and "look on the bright side" is not a universally useful strategy.

In fact, I submit blind optimism is in fact more tiring, look at any comment thread about Tesla or Bitcoin. It's as if these two things are perfect and you had better buckle up if you dare criticize either one.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#582

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

what would happen if firefox decides to fire all "executives", "ceo" and the whole "bureaucracy" leadership, not technical one that is. what money can be saved from doing that which brings me to the second question, does firefox really need a CEO?

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#583

Post by chrisseaton »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #484
heavyset_go wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine a web developer learning just a few APIs and being being able to customize their web app for smart TVs This was WebOS in 2009. Windows Phone, WebOS, Meego and Ubuntu Phone all "failed" around the same time period as Firefox OS. I have a hard time laying blame solely on Mozilla there.

> Windows Phone, WebOS, Meego and Ubuntu Phone all "failed" around the same time period as Firefox OS. I have a hard time laying blame solely on Mozilla there. I've seen a number of comments on Windows Phone since then (on HN), and one and all they emphasize how much better and nicer Windows Phone was -- from a consumer perspective -- than any other phone. What was the failure? This isn't a retrospective that makes a…

> What was the failure? This isn't a retrospective that makes any sense.

People didn't buy it. Simple as that.

Doesn't matter how much better people think the consumer experience is if nobody's buying it.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#584

Post by johannes1234321 »

dralley wrote: post #530
johannes1234321 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is true, however routing funds (donations) from foundation to corp is hard, thus only very little $, ¥, €, ... of the money donated go to browser development, while the brand is tightly tied to it. Browser development is funded out of corp budget, which mostly is Google's money for being default search engine. Thus I can't even donate to browser development ...

The donated money is complete peanuts compared to the search engine revenue, anyways.

Now we could speculate how much money they could collect with some Wikipedia-Luke banners in the browser and with the purpose of developing Firefox ... true, less than what Google pays, but how much do they need if they focus on browser (and maybe mail) instead of side projects?

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#585

Post by sfink »

_skel wrote: post #515
jshen wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they own pocket, which you can pay for.

I don't think very many people actually like Pocket. I wish it would die. It makes Firefox look like it's no better than any commercial browser -- not even Chrome installs that kind of stuff in my toolbar by default!

Pocket is easy to dislike before you start using it -- it's just UI bloat, as you point out.

But the feedback from people who do use it is overwhelmingly positive. A lot of people love Pocket. It's enormously popular, despite the impression you would get if you exclusively went by HN comments.

Personally, I've just recently started to try using it. It hasn't really captured my enthusiasm yet, despite addressing one of my larger pain points with a browser. I still think I'd prefer management capabilities that felt more built into the standard (well, Tree-Style Tabs) tabs/history experience. But it's early days, I'll have to see how my Pocket experiment goes.

They're certainly good at surfacing appealing-looking content that isn't vapid when I try reading it. That's worth something.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#586

Post by dralley »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #584
dralley wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The donated money is complete peanuts compared to the search engine revenue, anyways.

Now we could speculate how much money they could collect with some Wikipedia-Luke banners in the browser and with the purpose of developing Firefox ... true, less than what Google pays, but how much do they need if they focus on browser (and maybe mail) instead of side projects?

Wikipedia is one of the most-used websites on the planet and they raise ~$90 million a year. That's still only like ~20% of what Mozilla brings in, and I find it unlikely that Mozilla could ever raise that much without driving away users with the annoying ads. That's not a problem for wikipedia because there's hardly a replacement for wikipedia, but there's tons of replacement browsers.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#587

Post by sfink »

mrec wrote: post #345
hombre_fatal wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why can we not return to purchasing a copy of software? Because your competitors are free and users expect free and we have a culture stuck in a rut of "everything is free" because ads don't have them taking money out of their wallet. Not every software is in a niche where they can flip the switch back into a premium model and have a good outcome. If Firefox did it, most of us would stop using it. Maybe Firefox is…

But, as we lament every time this topic comes up, it's not even possible to donate to Firefox. I don't know whether that would bring in significant cash, but it's frustrating that the option isn't there.

It would be possible, but it would involve some major legal wrangling, and there's a good chance that it wouldn't pay for itself and/or would tie Mozilla's hands in problematic ways.

The best route still appears to be paying for whatever paid services Mozilla comes out with (VPN, Pocket, ...?) even if you don't use them. I don't know if a "pay what you like" option would be problematic?

(Regulators watch pretty closely when you have 100s of millions of dollars of annual income.)

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#588

Post by mrec »

sfink wrote: post #587
mrec wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But, as we lament every time this topic comes up, it's not even possible to donate to Firefox. I don't know whether that would bring in significant cash, but it's frustrating that the option isn't there.

It would be possible, but it would involve some major legal wrangling, and there's a good chance that it wouldn't pay for itself and/or would tie Mozilla's hands in problematic ways. The best route still appears to be paying for whatever paid services Mozilla comes out with (VPN, Pocket, ...?) even if you don't use them. I don't know if a "pay what you like" option would be problematic? (Regulators watch pretty close…

> The best route still appears to be paying for whatever paid services Mozilla comes out with (VPN, Pocket, ...?)

Maybe. There still doesn't seem to be any guarantee that money raised this way would go toward Firefox development. With zero pricing signals it's very hard to express the "you have one job" frustration that many of us are feeling about Mozilla these days.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#589

Post by Firehawke »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #492
toastal wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what markets WhatsApp is important to. In the UK quite a few people used it while briefly lived there, but in the US, Thailand, Vietnam, et.al. I didn't see anyone using or ever talking about it.

Adding on to the other comments, I understand it is the default messaging app in Australia / New Zealand. More roughly, my understanding of the messaging space was: - USA: Facebook Messenger - Japan, Taiwan: LINE - China: WeChat - Everywhere Else in the World: WhatsApp And the comments here seem to basically bear that out.

I'm seeing a lot of push towards Discord in the USA as well; it's a bit awkward in that kind of usage, but when basically everyone is already using Discord on PC it's not hard to convince people to use the phone app.

Re: Firefox Was Always Enough

#590

Post by ploika »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #369
k33n wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the pursuit of better technology, don't forget that we have already built and are living in a prosperous civilization. The browser doesn't exist to "create" a civilization. It exists to enable the one that already exists, and is evolving every day.

> don't forget that we have already built and are living in a prosperous civilization I don't think thats true for the west. The only impressive progress we have made for the last 50 years was in computer hardware and software. Sure, we are somewhat comfortable, we got a bit better at producing things, but if compare that with 1850-1950? Its not even a competition.

That's pure HN solipsism.

I don't know how you can look at plummeting rates of illiteracy, child mortality, polio(!) and countless other scourges on humanity and conclude that no impressive progress has been made since 1950 outside of computers.

The first (internal) organ transplant was only in 1954. The amount of progress made in medicine and pharmaceuticals alone is staggering.

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