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Firefox on the brink?

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Re: Firefox on the brink?

#401

Post by matwood »

mariusor wrote: post #305
tnorthcutt wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would e.g. take 33M users who agree to pay $5/mo for a Mozilla "support subscription" to collect $400M a year. Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but when I do the math (33M x 5 x 12) I get $1.98B. Maybe you meant $1/month?

I'm deeply disturbed of this normalization of software as a subscription service. I want the return of good old days when people could pay once for their software and use it in perpetuity.

> I want the return of good old days when people could pay once for their software and use it in perpetuity.

This simply does not exist for any software that is internet connected.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#402

Post by cuu508 »

lucideer wrote: post #257
ink_13 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When an open-source project somehow loses its way, it's often forked by a new team of contributors who have a better idea Perhaps ironically, this was also the genesis of Firefox

> Perhaps ironically, this was also the genesis of Firefox That's not entirely accurate (or at least, while accurate, is missing a lot of significant context) Mozilla was creating within Netscape, not in opposition to it, as a steward org for the open-sourcing of Navigator & Communicator. Even when Netscape was acquired by AOL, AOL continued to fund[0] Mozilla for years after the acquisition. [0] https://web.archive.…

But after that, IIRC Mozilla Suite was big, clunky and stagnating. And Phoenix, I mean, Firebird, I mean, Firefox was a lean spin-off.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#403

Post by Semaphor »

culi wrote: post #378
Semaphor wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mentioned that: > this is Germany, generally far higher FF usage But the interesting part is not how much FF has here, but how much GA undercounts it.

Yeah it's interesting. I wonder if it's done on purpose or if it has to do with the way bots/crawlers are counted

See parent. The default in FF is to shim the GA script

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#404

Post by Analemma_ »

mariusor wrote: post #305
tnorthcutt wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would e.g. take 33M users who agree to pay $5/mo for a Mozilla "support subscription" to collect $400M a year. Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but when I do the math (33M x 5 x 12) I get $1.98B. Maybe you meant $1/month?

I'm deeply disturbed of this normalization of software as a subscription service. I want the return of good old days when people could pay once for their software and use it in perpetuity.

Of all the types of software where you should be ok paying a subscription, browsers are the ones where should be most ok with it. Browsers, more than anything else, need constant updates because they're by far the biggest and juiciest attack surface for hackers, and also web devs will just stop supporting you if you're not on top of the treadmill of browser standard updates.

It's not feasible at all to call a browser "done" and leave it alone, so if you want one that's independent from adtech, a subscription is kind of your only option.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#405

Post by charcircuit »

JohnFen wrote: post #382
Barrin92 wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

subscription is a significantly fairer revenue model for software which undergoes regular upgrades and has support, which is most software nowadays. It makes sure that people who continue to use continue to pay. Upfront charges are often either too low with long term users free-riding or too high, in case the project is abandoned. Subscription makes it much more likely to price products correctly.

> subscription is a significantly fairer revenue model for software which undergoes regular upgrades and has support I could not disagree more. Subscriptions for software are a deeply unfair approach. Great for the companies, of course, but not for users. A more fair approach is to charge for upgrades and support instead. At least that way, users only pay if/when they choose to obtain additional value.

Leaving nonpaying users on old versions on browsers with security issues and who will no longer support the latest web standards will be bad for the web.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#406

Post by danaris »

ekianjo wrote: post #73
munk-a wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a pretty reasonable question when the salary is so incredibly out of line with what developers make. Is the CEO singlehandedly responsible for productivity equal to that of sixty or so developers?

Did I need to append a /s for people to get my comment?

Poe's Law[0] applies.

Unfortunately, nowadays, unless you're among a group of people who already know your general opinions on things, it's nearly impossible to state an absurd position on some issue that a nontrivial number of people would actually, unironically, advocate for, until you get into the absolutely batshit stuff like "we should literally sacrifice poor people to the devil, then eat their flesh, to keep the rest of us from getting poor."

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#407

Post by anonymous_sorry »

oldpersonintx wrote: post #79
loganmarchione wrote: post #36

Mozilla also just posted their State of Mozilla 2022 (this includes financial statements). From what I've read, it seems that expenses are up and revenue from search deals is down. https://stateof.mozilla.org/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38530382 https://www.ghacks.net/2023/12/05/mozilla-earned-close-to-60... Firefox's market share has been on the decline since 2010. https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market…

Firefox will be better off longterm as a true community project free from Mozilla.org. Let Mozilla.org die.

I doubt this. Maintaining and developing a competitive browser is serious work, and needs skilled professionals working on it full time, as well as getting stuck in to the web standards process. That requires a level of funding that most community projects only dream of. I can't see any incentive for industry to put money behind it in the way that they do with Linux.

I have very few complaints about Firefox as software. I only wish more people would use it. (That includes you, dear reader!) It is actually great, and if you've ever complained about AMP, WEI or anything like that, using a non-Google derived browser is one of the few things you can actually do to reduce Google's power here.

Firefox are up against the power of OS defaults and dirty tricks in an age where most people don't really know what a web browser is. But if you have any awareness or concern about the health of the open web, you are absolutely educated enough to use Firefox. Of course there will be the odd minor workflow thing to get used to. But Firefox is great. All you really need is the motivation to choose something other than the default.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#408

Post by taf2 »

I can't be alone in my view that open source won. Just not the original Mozilla open source browser. Instead the re-invented one spear headed by Google - Chrome. Chrome is like the 2.0 of everything the IE6 team and Mozilla team learned the hard way. It was built by many of the original founding members of those teams. It's not a bad thing when Microsoft now uses the open source Blink rendering engine. It's not a bad thing that Apple uses the open source Webkit engine. My feeling is "we won". The web is so much better today thanks in part to the amazing teams that came together sponsored by Google to build Chrome. Time marches forward and there are plenty of interesting problems to overcome for the web as a platform. I just think we can move on from M$ bad, Mozilla good... Mozilla showed us we could have a better browser and helped break the web free from the shackles of Microsoft. There's new problems to solve new fights to win just this one, is IMO, over.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#409

Post by SilasX »

dehrmann wrote: post #266
jeroenhd wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Genuine question. What is justifying Mozilla Corporation CEO Mitchell Baker's salary? This question is why I don't expect Mozilla to last at its current course. I like their work, but the endless increases in CEO salary while their most important money maker is fledgling is not justifiable.

The increases look reasonable to me, but not when you consider their declining market share. I guess she only returned to the role of CEO in 2020, but she's been in leadership for a long time, and the org's performance has been poor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker#Negative_salary...

From the link:

>>On the same period, Firefox marketshare was down 85%. When asked about her salary she stated "I learned that my pay was about an 80% discount to market. Meaning that competitive roles elsewhere were paying about 5 times as much. That's too big a discount to ask people and their families to commit to."

So I bet it's something like:

Baker: "If you don't pay me market rates for comparable work, I'll leave and go mess up a different organization."

Google: "No, wait, stop, we'll get you the money!"

Considering all the unforced errors on Mozilla's part, I'm only half joking there (i.e. that Google is influencing the decision, via their search placement deals, to keep Firefox bad).

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#410

Post by toyg »

taylodl wrote: post #205
croes wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you shoot yourself in the foot to teach Mozilla a lesson? We all lose if it's only Chrome.

Last I looked Safari isn't Chrome. Also, anybody can use the Gecko web rendering engine, yet project after project after project has picked the WebKit or Blink rendering engines. And no, I haven't "shot myself in the foot" - when I replaced Firefox I found two great browsers: Brave and Vivaldi. The better question is why you continue to support a compromised organization?

Gecko being a mess for embedded use pre-dates the Eich affair and Baker's payday.

As for Mozilla being compromised - maybe, but it's still less compromised than advertisement companies, crypto companies, tax evaders, and their likes.

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