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Mozilla pulls Bypass Paywalls from Firefox add-ons store

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Re: Mozilla pulls Bypass Paywalls from Firefox add-ons store

#221

Post by ghostly_s »

probably_wrong wrote: post #192
buboard wrote: post #162

I 'm going to have to defend Mozilla here. There is this very perverse idea here that everything should be free, but that's only because you are used to using VC-funded services with an expiration (acquisition) date. This seems to be endemic thinking in SV but the rest of the world has to make their own paycheck. Maybe mozilla should think of experimenting with some micropayment service though. They are ideally posit…

I would argue that this position is contrary to Mozilla's stated values about freedom on the web. If they truly support freedom, that should include my freedom to decide which add-ons I want to run on my browser. Sure, they can have an opinion about where should the web go, and in fact it would probably be a very well-informed one. But they can't both claim to support freedom for their users while, at the same time,…

Which "position"? No one has even shared the stated reasoning for removing this extension yet. Just a bunch of people jumping at an opportunity to disparage Evil Mozilla in here with no details on the real situation. This whole thread should be deleted if you ask me.

Re: Mozilla pulls Bypass Paywalls from Firefox add-ons store

#222

Post by yholio »

zaarn wrote: post #215
yholio wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That doesn't mean there won't be addons you don't like But it certainly guarantees there won't be any apps Apple doesn't like and haven't paid the appropriate fee. It's incredibly naive to think the primary reason for Apple is trust and security. At least as far as their mobile ecosystem is concerned, their control over what the user can run is a major revenue source.

You are aware there is a difference between "primary" and "only", yes? I'm not saying Apple's intent is pure but there is a primary driving factor behind it, that to my knowledge, seems fairly pro-consumer. Doesn't mean it has other, anti-consumer motivations.

Let's see if I got the hang of this: The average iPhone user can only install software approved by Apple, and their primary motivation for that setup is an anti consumer one.

Re: Mozilla pulls Bypass Paywalls from Firefox add-ons store

#223

Post by oconnor663 »

jape wrote: post #3

While this is extremely dubious behavior from Mozilla, and reminds me why I stopped donating to them (the moment Firefox started requiring _their_ signature in order to load addons), Mozilla still has the "automated signing API" in place. Supposedly, this API allows to get an XPI signed as long as it passes a series of automated checks. So it's worth a try. This was the excuse they used anyway when trying to justify…

> dubious behavior

When you criticize someone this strongly, it pays to at least acknowledge the reasons they've given for making the decisions they made, even if you don't like those reasons. Here they are: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2015/04/15/the-case-for-exte...

Re: Mozilla pulls Bypass Paywalls from Firefox add-ons store

#224

Post by kalenx »

Endy wrote: post #196
tux1968 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is to protect users, not hurt them in any way. Anyone can sign and run their own add-ons, or offer those add-ons for others to use. The only thing being restricted now is who can distribute their addons via addons.mozilla.org, which seems more than fair.

The idea might be good. The execution is harmful to users, and they refuse to roll it back. That's all that matters. Mozilla has shown this pattern consistently - they have an idea they think will be good for people, and when it ends up being hurtful and damaging not only the core product but the userbase - driving more people to alternate browsers - they steadfastly refuse to see what's going on around them. Frankly…

Firefox is still a terrific browser. Compared to forks like PaleMoon I would even say that it is now much better given the continuous improvements we've seen with quantum and others.

I definitely do not agree with Mozilla on everything, but stating that they are harming their userbase based on your single point of view is moot, to say the least.

And Firefox, a sinking ship with not even rats on board anymore? Come on now.

Re: Mozilla pulls Bypass Paywalls from Firefox add-ons store

#225

Post by oconnor663 »

Endy wrote: post #196
tux1968 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is to protect users, not hurt them in any way. Anyone can sign and run their own add-ons, or offer those add-ons for others to use. The only thing being restricted now is who can distribute their addons via addons.mozilla.org, which seems more than fair.

The idea might be good. The execution is harmful to users, and they refuse to roll it back. That's all that matters. Mozilla has shown this pattern consistently - they have an idea they think will be good for people, and when it ends up being hurtful and damaging not only the core product but the userbase - driving more people to alternate browsers - they steadfastly refuse to see what's going on around them. Frankly…

> The execution is harmful to users

Do you have a source for that? Moz has a ton of data about how harmful to users it was to have an ecosystem full of trashy spam extensions. The leap from "this solution has some downsides" to "this solution's downsides outweigh its upsides" is skipping the most important part of the question.

Re: Mozilla pulls Bypass Paywalls from Firefox add-ons store

#226

Post by wetpaws »

buboard wrote: post #162

I 'm going to have to defend Mozilla here. There is this very perverse idea here that everything should be free, but that's only because you are used to using VC-funded services with an expiration (acquisition) date. This seems to be endemic thinking in SV but the rest of the world has to make their own paycheck. Maybe mozilla should think of experimenting with some micropayment service though. They are ideally posit…

This is a huge PR issue for Mozilla given how their entire strategy nowadays is to promote free and open internet.

Re: Mozilla pulls Bypass Paywalls from Firefox add-ons store

#228

Post by tzs »

buboard wrote: post #39
dmortin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you mean automatic micropayments when reading articles then you'll still be tracked, because the payment provider has to track what you read to make the payments and even has to be able to provide a log of it in case there is a payment dispute, so they will store what urls you visit and when. Without a proper log payment disputes can't be resolved legally.

if there was something like anonymous payments (cryptocoin-based maybe?) then it would be possible without any tracking. In the few cases where you ask your penny cash back because something happened, most companies would just give it back without questions asked assuming they dont get tons of cashback requests from your IP.

> if there was something like anonymous payments (cryptocoin-based maybe?) then it would be possible without any tracking

Taxes mess that up. A large number of jurisdictions charge a sales tax or VAT on sales to people in their jurisdiction and require the seller to collect. Some tracking is necessary in order to figure out what the tax is and where to send it.

That tracking doesn't necessarily have to be at the content provider. The service handling the micro-payments could also incorporate tax handling. The buyer would have to give up personal information to the payment service, but they probably already did when funding their micro-payment account.

It could also be handled by having content providers sell through aggregator sites, with the aggregator sites being the seller to the end user as far as taxes are concerned. Then the buyer only has to give up personal information to the aggregator site, instead of every content provider site that they buy an article from.

Aggregator sites would also help with the costs of dealing with taxes. An aggregator would have enough sales in each jurisdiction for the costs of filing to not be excessive. That's not necessarily true when individual content providers sell on their own sites. Some jurisdictions, for example, require tax collection and payment if you have more than 200 transactions in the past year in that jurisdiction, regardless of how low the total dollar amount is. Sell 200 articles for $0.05 and you've earned $10...and will be paying way more than that in quarterly filing fees.

My prediction is that if we move away from the ad model for funding content providers, we will see a big move toward aggregators for all but the major newspapers and magazines. The websites of smaller newspapers and magazines will just be summaries, and when you click to get the full text it will take you to some third-party publisher that the paper has licensed the full article to, and it is from that publisher that you will buy full access.

I think the aggregator market will end up concentrated in a very small number of aggregators that together have pretty much all of the "professional" content on the web, except for a few major newspapers and magazines that are big enough to justify consumers maintaining separate subscriptions just for them.

Re: Mozilla pulls Bypass Paywalls from Firefox add-ons store

#229

Post by codezero »

JustFinishedBSG wrote: post #16
ileitch wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this is the idea behind the Brave browser and their Basic Attention Token https://basicattentiontoken.org

What Brave is doing is highly unethical. If you don't want to see ads then fine it's your computer. But Brave is hijacking ads by force then strong-arming websites to sign up to their own shitty crypto currency if they want to be paid. It's basically an extortion scheme, or a mafia stye "protection scheme"

I've read a few threads on this and while I don't want to be absolutist and say you are wrong, I believe it's a lot more nuanced than what you described. My understanding is that the Brave injected ads are strictly opt-in at this point for the user, not the default, which makes it a lot less of a racket imho, but I dislike Brave simply because I don't need it, which seems like a good enough reason to grumble about it.

Re: Mozilla pulls Bypass Paywalls from Firefox add-ons store

#230

Post by codezero »

logfromblammo wrote: post #205
yason wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like you could just paraphrase it as "Spotify for newspapers".

If you insist on reducing a perfectly readable story to just a three-word sentence, journalism is already doomed.

Journalism is already doomed.
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