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

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

#111

Post by rvz »

Jonnax wrote: post #13

There's a quote from the CEO saying that they looked at the market and felt like they were being underpaid. And they can't reduce their salary now because it'd be unfair on their families. Firefox has a problem. It gets most of its revenue from Google. They need a different revenue stream but their ideas haven't worked. Their executives are clearly failures. But with such high pay, they're cashing out. Buying themsel…

> Isn't that pretty much admitting that they're on a sinking ship?

Yes.

They are admitting they are solely reliant on Google's money. Given that Google Chrome is a direct competitor to Firefox and has gained more market share, Google can justify to either reduce spend or stop paying for being the default search engine in Firefox due to its shrinking market share and instead pay more for Apple Safari as the default in iOS, macOS, etc instead.

Mozilla and Firefox will be another geek's relic in this decade if it doesn't find another revenue source apart from relying on Google - A direct competitor in all areas.

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

#112

Post by rwmj »

twblalock wrote: post #94
Jonnax wrote: post #13

There's a quote from the CEO saying that they looked at the market and felt like they were being underpaid. And they can't reduce their salary now because it'd be unfair on their families. Firefox has a problem. It gets most of its revenue from Google. They need a different revenue stream but their ideas haven't worked. Their executives are clearly failures. But with such high pay, they're cashing out. Buying themsel…

The Mozilla execs could all make more money at FAANG companies just down the road from Mozilla HQ. If they left, it would probably be pretty hard to replace them with anyone capable of saving Firefox who would settle for less. The same is true for most of the engineers at Mozilla. They could go to FAANGs and increase their compensation quite a bit. So while I agree that the leadership has been bad, executive pay was…

> The Mozilla execs could all make more money at FAANG companies just down the road from Mozilla HQ.

I mean, really? After their record of poor performance at Mozilla?

> Hiring leaders who could make better decisions certainly won't be any cheaper.

It's been blindly obvious for years what they should do, but let's state it again: (1) Build up a fund instead of throwing away the money, so they can be financially independent. (2) Concentrate on the browser and users.

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

#113

Post by jameskraus »

lightgreen wrote: post #71
jameskraus wrote: post #2

Devils advocate: you have to pay a top exec more if the company looks like its main product is in decline. Plus 2.4m/year isn't crazy in the scheme of tech salaries - that exec could potentially take other roles that pay even more.

Exec pay is usually tied to some metrics. Like market share or the revenue in case of Mozilla. (In the corporations it is usually done by offering CEO options with nonzero price.) If the company is not performing well, CEO only gets the basic salary (which is higher than engineer salary, but not too large.) When Mitchell was given a raise for no reason, it is a sign of corruption in Mozilla board.

This really isn't crazy compensation given the role and the industry. There are many execs making orders of magnitude more [0]. I know there is a bit of sticker-shock for people who haven't heard about top-level compensation, but it's not unheard of, just usually unspoken.

https://usanewssite.com/news/the-unconventional-ceo-of-33-3-...

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

#114

Post by lightgreen »

danielEM wrote: post #88

From my perspective - first and foremost question is - why the usage is going down so much? What makes people pick Chrome?

Mozilla bug tracker has lots of bugs which are open for decades.

I live outside of US and I’m annoyed that Firefox does not fill addresses in forms, for example. Because Mozilla does not bother finishing this feature for the rest of the world.

Similarly they have released credit card auto fill recently, and again, US only.

That’s just one of many example.

I still use Firefox, but mostly because it’s hard to switch (reconfigure all extensions, get used to new UI etc).

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

#115

Post by jacquesm »

deanclatworthy wrote: post #8

I really want Mozilla to succeed. But I just can't bring myself to use Firefox as a daily driver. Just open a few tabs on a top of the line macbook, and a twitch stream and things get very laggy. I've seen numerous people craving for better container support, which is definitely a killer feature for people going forward towards a more private web. Why isn't Mozilla more actively developing this? Developers were the p…

I routinely have 100[+]'s of tabs open when working on a project and it has never been a problem so I suspect that this is due to one of the websites you are using or a plug-in.

[+] as in 500 or more. I use my browser windows to keep my 'state' of what I need to read and where I've left off, by the time they are all closed again I'm done preparing for an interview.

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

#116

Post by adamt »

jameslk wrote: post #96
Jonnax wrote: post #13

There's a quote from the CEO saying that they looked at the market and felt like they were being underpaid. And they can't reduce their salary now because it'd be unfair on their families. Firefox has a problem. It gets most of its revenue from Google. They need a different revenue stream but their ideas haven't worked. Their executives are clearly failures. But with such high pay, they're cashing out. Buying themsel…

While I understand the frustration, it's unclear to me what the expected solution is for Mozilla. Pay the CEO less until the company does better? Ok but the CEO will presumably just find a higher paying job elsewhere. Then what? Find a cheaper CEO? How does that help fix the slipping market share for Firefox?

Better align executive pay with business performance from the beginning. If the business is failing then parting company with the CEO is working as intended.

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

#117

Post by jimnotgym »

IshKebab wrote: post #73
londons_explore wrote: post #22

The main difference here is a US tech Vs UK corporate culture. Mozilla's approach is "spend lots of cash and grow fast like a VC backed company". The guardian is a "let's try and have a stable user base and keep the company alive for another 100 years". In this case, Mozilla's approach has failed badly. I think it's unlikely they'll turn it around without the help of another big tech company making a strategic purcha…

Not sure The Guardian is the best example of economic success.

I think you need to qualify that statement

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

#118

Post by kbenson »

37a37a37 wrote: post #62
robin_reala wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repeat after me: correlation is not causation.

Repeat after me: saying "correlation is not causation" "slippery slope fallacy" or "survivorship bias" doesn't amount to an argument. They are thought-stopping words primarily used by midwits who think it makes them sound smart. I see this all the time on HN and it's annoying. Furnish evidence or a solid argument for why he is wrong, otherwise you're no better than him.

The point is to get the person to actually supply real evidence instead of unfounded associations. If someone can't come up with a feasible way they actually are, or even could be causal in nature to discuss, then they probably should be shut down. If someone can't muster up the barest excuse for how their argument makes sense, then I won't be sad to see them stop talking about it.

If someone tried to shut down my argument with one of those excuses and I didn't know enough about each of them to either explain away their influence or revise my theory, my first step would be to figure out what they are. To dismiss them is to just admit ignorance of statistics, and thus the world.

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

#119

Post by lagadu »

RobertoG wrote: post #69

This: "Mitchell Baker, Mozilla's top executive, was paid $2.4m in 2018, [..]. Payments to Baker have more than doubled in the last five years." and this at the same time: "Mozilla recently announced that they would be dismissing 250 people." It's shameful. Specially for a "non profit".

That argument is senseless: the organization is nonprofit, the workers are definitely not, nor should they be.
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