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Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo

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Re: Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo

#431

Post by Sailemi »

tsoukase wrote: post #421
gkoberger wrote: post #275

Having worked at Mozilla a while ago, the CEO role is one I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Success is oddly defined: it's a non-profit (well, a for-profit owned by a non-profit) that needs to make a big profit in a short amount of time. And anything done to make that profit will annoy the community. I hope Anthony leans into what makes Mozilla special. The past few years, Mozilla's business model has been to just m…

Firemail should be the name of a free and privacy oriented email client wholly owned by Mozilla with a web and mobile app. I would sign up instantly and gradually migrate from gmail, while being assured for its sustainability.

Maybe not exactly what you’re looking for but Thunderbird is working on a paid email service: https://www.tb.pro/en-US/

Re: Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo

#432

Post by beej71 »

gkoberger wrote: post #422
macspoofing wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What Mozilla is good at ... Firefox - the one thing they do not want to work on is the only thing that makes them special.

They do work on it. A lot. But the issue is browsers don't make money. You can't charge for it, you can't add ads to it, etc. You're competing with the biggest companies in the world (Google, Apple), all of whom are happy to subsidize a browser for other reasons.

They could make it so we could subsidize development like with Thunderbird.

Re: Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo

#433

Post by amrocha »

criddell wrote: post #212
bastardoperator wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All those things we had before AI?

Most of those things weren't very good before AI was applied. Translation specifically was pretty bad before Google applied machine learning methods to it around 2007 when it became very good almost overnight.

Stop blurring the lines, google translate using machine learning has nothing to do with turning firefox into an ai browser

Re: Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo

#434

Post by mixmastamyk »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #348
mixmastamyk wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The job was always very easy, fire all of the pure managers and sock the google money into an endowment before it runs out. Then focus on privacy as you mentioned. They’ve taken in several billion dollars by now. Let that sink in. They're supposedly a non-profit, so this plan is the well-trodden playbook. But of course no Manager instance could imagine such a thing. Cue Upton Sinclair quote.

Care to explain how would they get the money in the process you described? Selling privacy to Google or someone is the only money maker they have. There is no reason to believe manager pay is even 10% of the total expense.

Mozilla took in the money from the distant past all the way into the present. They have leaned into privacy the whole time, while not being perfect.

At some point they ease off the google money or it goes away itself. And they move forward on privacy.

Google was less demanding in the past as well; they continue to give Apple billions each year.

There are a number of privacy-oriented business models, as listed here: https://aol.codeberg.page/eci/status.html - while not as lucrative as some, combined with an endowment its a good living that many companies would envy.

Re: Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo

#435

Post by amrocha »

lenerdenator wrote: post #217
bastardoperator wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All those things we had before AI?

Technically, many of those things often were AI. They just existed before the GenAI craze and no one cared because AI wasn't a buzzword at the time. Google Translate absolutely was based on ML before OpenAI made it a big deal to have things "based on AI". But just putting stuff in your browser that hooks into third-party services that use ML isn't enough anymore. It has to be front and center otherwise, you're losing…

Yes, tools have used machine learning, nobody is questioning or denying that.

But that’s not what the CEO of mozilla means when he says he will turn Firefox into an AI browser.

It means there will be stupid fucking LLMs shoved in your face.

Re: Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo

#436

Post by Zak »

alberth wrote: post #25

Dumb question: who’s Firefox target user? Chrome is able to capture the mass consumer market, due to Google’s dark pattern to nag you to install Chrome anytime you’re on a Google property. Edge target enterprise Fortune 500 user, who is required to use Microsoft/Office 365 at work (and its deep security permission ties to SharePoint). Safari has Mac/iOS audience via being the default on those platform (and deep platf…

It seems to me Android users who want to block ads are a strong target market. Desktop Chrome has extensions and despite the nerf, it has adblockers that mostly work; Android Chrome doesn't have extensions.

A built in adblocker would probably help Firefox attract those users, but might destroy their Google revenue stream.

Re: Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo

#437

Post by hosteur »

pseudalopex wrote: post #339
hosteur wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont even think they employ close to 100 FTE devs actually working on Firefox at this point.

Mozilla spent $260 million on software development in 2023.[1] How do you believe they spent it? Vivaldi employ 28 developers to produce an unstable Chromium fork and email program for comparison.[2] [1] https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-202... [2] https://vivaldi.com/team/

Well, I do not believe $260 million went to Firefox development. I would be surprised if the majority of that went to other non-Firefox projects like:

Various AI initiatives (Mozilla.ai, Orbit, etc.)

Mozilla VPN

Mozilla Monitor

Pocket

Firefox Relay

Fakespot

Mozilla Social

Mozilla Hubs

... just to name a few.

Re: Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo

#439

Post by amrocha »

dangus wrote: post #344
high_na_euv wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Translation? Image search? Live captions? Dubbing? Summary? Rewrite text better?

Exactly. There’s doom and gloom in this thread but the truth is that the early adopters who are using AI-integrated browsers love them. Mozilla having unique features is what made it popular in the first place (tabbed browsing versus IE6).

I’m not exactly surprised that AI grifters that have probably bet all their life savings on nvidia “love” their AI browsers.

Re: Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo

#440

Post by koolala »

wejick wrote: post #53
4gotunameagain wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will eat my hat if Google had nothing to do with the demise of Mozilla, what an absolute disgrace. How incompetent can they be, how out of touch with their core (and arguably only) product ? Nobody wants AI in firefox.

I want a good AI integration with Firefox. The current chatgpt shim is horrible, something more refined would be nice.

Would you pay $20 a month for it? Like Cursor but for your browser?
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