Opportunity Sizing: Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze? • Hacker News Board

Re: Opportunity Sizing: Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze?

#11

Post by seoaeu » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 1:08 PM UTC

tuukkah wrote: post #4

dandellion wrote: post #3

I wonder if this kind of reasoning might be why Mozilla keeps dropping features of Firefox I liked such as RSS, bookmark descriptions, FTP, while adding stuff I don't care about like Pocket and Hello. I've recently finally caved in and installed Chromium and Brave, to see if they might be worth switching because of the reasons I had for using Firefox are just not there any more. After 15 years using Firefox (and advo…

I think you are right, the author does not discuss the ultimate question of their framework at all: "3. How will those users change?" That is, will the users become advocates of our products and recruit many more users, or will they become disillusioned and turn to competing products even for the heck of it. (Not every decision and outcome is logical either.)

Is "users will become advocates" a real thing that meaningfully drives market share at this point? Sure there's anecdotes floating around of this happening, but I've never been able to tell whether it actually has an impact or if it was just power users justifying why they should be considered disproportionately important.

Re: Opportunity Sizing: Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze?

#12

Post by tuukkah » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 1:21 PM UTC

seoaeu wrote: post #11

tuukkah wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are right, the author does not discuss the ultimate question of their framework at all: "3. How will those users change?" That is, will the users become advocates of our products and recruit many more users, or will they become disillusioned and turn to competing products even for the heck of it. (Not every decision and outcome is logical either.)

Is "users will become advocates" a real thing that meaningfully drives market share at this point? Sure there's anecdotes floating around of this happening, but I've never been able to tell whether it actually has an impact or if it was just power users justifying why they should be considered disproportionately important.

I was commenting from a more general point of view: It might or might not be significant for Firefox at this point, but it's weird that all the author says about the question is that you multiply by the answer ("Multiplying 1x2x3").

Certainly marketing people care about the net promoter score, and it would be good to have an idea how its changes affect growth.

Re: Opportunity Sizing: Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze?

#13

Post by icegreentea2 » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 1:29 PM UTC

dandellion wrote: post #3

I wonder if this kind of reasoning might be why Mozilla keeps dropping features of Firefox I liked such as RSS, bookmark descriptions, FTP, while adding stuff I don't care about like Pocket and Hello. I've recently finally caved in and installed Chromium and Brave, to see if they might be worth switching because of the reasons I had for using Firefox are just not there any more. After 15 years using Firefox (and advo…

Does Brave keep these features that Firefox dropped? I know that Chromium doesn't (FTP, RSS, Bookmark Description).

You appear to have a choice between a browsers with feature parity, except one of them supports your privacy more.

Like "this type of reasoning" is what happens whenever you reach a point where you get resource constrained (even Chrome/Chromium has to pick how to allocate their resources). Eventually you need to pick what to work on, and what to keep maintaining.

Re: Opportunity Sizing: Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze?

#14

Post by sciurus » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 2:20 PM UTC

cassepipe wrote: post #6

One sure thing is when you actually finish a project it might be worth trying to market it or just wait a little to see where it can go. See Firefox OS, or how we could have had an android independant alternative phone os and how Mozilla could have been financially independent thanks to revenues that are now going to KaiOS.

Are the financials of KaiOS public?

Re: Opportunity Sizing: Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze?

#15

Post by dandellion » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 2:37 PM UTC

icegreentea2 wrote: post #13

dandellion wrote: post #3

I wonder if this kind of reasoning might be why Mozilla keeps dropping features of Firefox I liked such as RSS, bookmark descriptions, FTP, while adding stuff I don't care about like Pocket and Hello. I've recently finally caved in and installed Chromium and Brave, to see if they might be worth switching because of the reasons I had for using Firefox are just not there any more. After 15 years using Firefox (and advo…

Does Brave keep these features that Firefox dropped? I know that Chromium doesn't (FTP, RSS, Bookmark Description). You appear to have a choice between a browsers with feature parity, except one of them supports your privacy more. Like "this type of reasoning" is what happens whenever you reach a point where you get resource constrained (even Chrome/Chromium has to pick how to allocate their resources). Eventually yo…

They don't have those features either, so then I have to look at other features. Brave comes with a pretty good ad blocker out of the box (whereas in Firefox I have to install uBlock) it's also very explicit about the ads it shows, keeps a log, allows to opt out individually or altogether, and seems to stay away from shady features like Floc. To be honest, I'm not too convinced the change in paradigm will be an actual improvement over the old one, but I appreciate the transparency of the system. Some web applications that I use frequently work noticeably better in Chromium/Brave than in Firefox and in the end I want a good balance between ideals and quality of life.

To be honest the main reason I have to keep Firefox as my default browser is that I'm used to the developer tools and I like them better than Chrome's. But it's gotten to the point where I have to tell myself that it wouldn't make any sense to drop those, but I thought the same when they dropped all the other features, so I find it harder and harder to stay optimistic.

Re: Opportunity Sizing: Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze?

#16

Post by iib » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

tziki wrote: post #8

Something like this should be part of every engineering curriculum. As a small anecdote, I've several times ran into engineers who spent inordinate amounts of time to make the system just a tiny bit more type safer, and when I ask how many bugs would this have fixed during the last year they don't know. When I do the work and send them the single, low-impact bug their efforts would've fixed, they still go through men…

A thing to keep in mind in these situations is that making the system a bit more type safe may be more personally satisfying for the engineers. They may see that as a more worthy goal than fixing `n` additional bugs.

Same thing with premature, or otherwise unnecessary, optimization. Sometimes it's just fun!

Re: Opportunity Sizing: Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze?

#17

Post by dandellion » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 3:07 PM UTC

seoaeu wrote: post #11

tuukkah wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are right, the author does not discuss the ultimate question of their framework at all: "3. How will those users change?" That is, will the users become advocates of our products and recruit many more users, or will they become disillusioned and turn to competing products even for the heck of it. (Not every decision and outcome is logical either.)

Is "users will become advocates" a real thing that meaningfully drives market share at this point? Sure there's anecdotes floating around of this happening, but I've never been able to tell whether it actually has an impact or if it was just power users justifying why they should be considered disproportionately important.

When it comes to any of the major browsers I really doubt power users drive any significant market share. But is it the same for a niche browser? Mozilla have been trying to chase shiny features to drive adoption yet they somehow keep losing more and more market share. Why can't they at least listen to some of the people who are actively trying to use their browser... have they decided they're going all in and they'll either have it their way or they'll die trying? I would be really sad to lose my favourite browser like that.

Re: Opportunity Sizing: Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze?

#18

Post by paulryanrogers » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 3:58 PM UTC

dandellion wrote: post #17

seoaeu wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is "users will become advocates" a real thing that meaningfully drives market share at this point? Sure there's anecdotes floating around of this happening, but I've never been able to tell whether it actually has an impact or if it was just power users justifying why they should be considered disproportionately important.

When it comes to any of the major browsers I really doubt power users drive any significant market share. But is it the same for a niche browser? Mozilla have been trying to chase shiny features to drive adoption yet they somehow keep losing more and more market share. Why can't they at least listen to some of the people who are actively trying to use their browser... have they decided they're going all in and they'l…

My guess is that power users are picky and opinionated. If one of their favorite features gets cut back or dropped they may loudly complain on the way out.

Mainstream users don't care about any of it. The only reason Firefox or even Netscape were ever mainstream was because they were undeniably better than alternatives. User advocates got the word out, but it was the clear advantages carried the day.

Now that browsers are all mostly the same for the laymen there's no reason to change the default. Or if they change it's only to whatever's most familiar.

Re: Opportunity Sizing: Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze?

#19

Post by harterrt » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

iib wrote: post #16

tziki wrote: post #8

Something like this should be part of every engineering curriculum. As a small anecdote, I've several times ran into engineers who spent inordinate amounts of time to make the system just a tiny bit more type safer, and when I ask how many bugs would this have fixed during the last year they don't know. When I do the work and send them the single, low-impact bug their efforts would've fixed, they still go through men…

A thing to keep in mind in these situations is that making the system a bit more type safe may be more personally satisfying for the engineers. They may see that as a more worthy goal than fixing `n` additional bugs. Same thing with premature, or otherwise unnecessary, optimization. Sometimes it's just fun!

Author here. I fully support prioritizing a project because it's fun! We need to own that rationale though.

In OP's situation, it sounds like their counterpart is trying to argue that this project is a "good thing to do" for the user/system. In reality, it's a bit of code hygiene that makes it more fun to do work (still important [1]).

That dissonance hides the true value of the work and makes it difficult to reason about.

[1] https://blog.harterrt.com/bad-tools

Re: Opportunity Sizing: Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze?

#20

Post by icegreentea2 » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 4:38 PM UTC

dandellion wrote: post #15

icegreentea2 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Brave keep these features that Firefox dropped? I know that Chromium doesn't (FTP, RSS, Bookmark Description). You appear to have a choice between a browsers with feature parity, except one of them supports your privacy more. Like "this type of reasoning" is what happens whenever you reach a point where you get resource constrained (even Chrome/Chromium has to pick how to allocate their resources). Eventually yo…

They don't have those features either, so then I have to look at other features. Brave comes with a pretty good ad blocker out of the box (whereas in Firefox I have to install uBlock) it's also very explicit about the ads it shows, keeps a log, allows to opt out individually or altogether, and seems to stay away from shady features like Floc. To be honest, I'm not too convinced the change in paradigm will be an actua…

That's fair.

I haven't used Brave at all. I can appreciate wanting the ad-blocker being built in. I guess I've been using ad-block add-ons since... they first existed (I remember being excited about FF 2.0), so I'm actually kinda leary of built in ad-blockers (alignment of interests and all), but I can also appreciate with Brave is trying to do with BAT and all.

I guess I naturally stick with FF (despite being annoyed by many of their changes) since I can (or at least I think I do) appreciate the magnitude of what they're trying to do, as well as the realize that while it's okay to hold them to a higher standard, what it feels like is that a lot of people hold FF/Mozilla to a really high standard, and then Chrome/Chromium to different (typically lower) standard, and when FF comes short of their high standards, they just switch to Chrome/Chromium without actually directly comparing the two browsers to each other. Like if FF can't be the fantasy magical piece of software they want, they may as well just use Chrome/Chromium.

Rant over.

I hope FF keeps the dev-tools. I'd be in a pickle too if they went away.