311–320 of 349 posts
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I can read. The point is that the number doesn't translate: 7.5 million lost users over 2023 doesn't correspond to a 0.75% decline in global browser presence. 7.5 million is a tiny fraction of that.
7.5M out of 193M is 0.39%, so it's off by about a half. Hardly a "tiny fraction". Presumably the growth in internet users in the period would increase the relative decline in market share, too.
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I would assume that Firefox revenue is proportional to usage and revenue is only down a few percent. This implies that Firefox usage is declining much slower than people say.
I don’t understand how to read their “assets” table; but it looks like most of their revenue comes from “royalties,” which I’m sure has some specific meaning for these kinds of reports, but I’m not sure if it scales with numbers of users or not. If that’s the money they get from Google (huge guess alert, I’m probably wrong!), then I’m not sure if it would scale in the short there with the number of users; I guess the…
> Mozilla intends to focus on A.I. -- so we can expect more A.I. investment, and possible A.I. services, in the year ahead. back in March Moziila announced $30m for A.I. services [0] what's weird is that wound business strategy is usually "what are our core strengths?" instead we get > A little over two years ago, Mozilla started an ambitious project: deciding where we should focus our efforts to grow the movement of…
I think they mean content recommendation systems used by social media. Mozilla Foundation likes to larp as a social media startup or something. Their big angle is that existing social media doesn't shut out 'bad people' e.g. people with opinions to the right of wherever the American west coast zeitgeist is this year. They want recommendation engines that only serve 'good people', or which engineer people's opinions to be more 'good'.
But of course they don't actually have a social media platform worth a damn for them to impose their own agenda onto, so it'll end up tacked onto a mastadon instance nobody uses, or incorporated into the 'New Page' of Firefox, or maybe turned into a browser extension that tries to block or inject stories on other social media websites. All a huge waste of time and money.
In a previous thread (these "Mozilla is dead" threads appear perennially) someone pointed out that Firefox's apparent marketshare drop is potentially indistinguishable from their deployment of privacy-improving features, including stubbing out Google Analytics when "Enhanced Tracking Protection" is enabled. I'm a Firefox user, so I have a vested interest in Mozilla's long term health and financial viability. But "mar…
There is definitely a downward usage trend from Mozilla own stats. https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity
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>They should ask (not require) payment for that service. Sure - let them squeeze out the last drop of their one and only cash cow before it becomes utterly irrelevant - instead of investing in it and making it a core pillar of their strategy. >See how Wikimedia Foundation is basically flush with cash, Mozilla was (is?) flush with cash. Browser market share and corresponding user eyeballs are immensely valuable. That…
With Mitchel Baker at helm, all the initiatives that would make Firefox more embeddable were cancelled to cut cost. Now Firefox can't be used to make webapps effectively, the only alternative is to use Electron and fortify Chromium's monopoly.
Will you name them? Mozilla cut embedding when Gary Kovacs was CEO. XULRunner, Graphene, and Positron were cut when Chris Beard was CEO. GeckoView was not cut.
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An additional critique is that surely one of the many true-believers in old-school Internet ideals of freedom and openneess could lead for 1/10th the compensation Then put the money saved towards allocating tens more top, full-time, aligned engineers to projects. When I see leaders of a non-profit personally drawing more than is necessary to lead a comfortable life, I see a conflict between the mission and personal e…
> An additional critique is that surely one of the many true-believers in old-school Internet ideals of freedom and openneess could lead for 1/10th the compensation That doesn't translate. A believer in freedom and openness should be compensated more than a counterpart in the private sector so they can work even harder for the causes. They may not be in it for the money, but they shouldn't be punished financially bec…
The list of major charities with much larger and more complex interests that Mozilla, yet lower executive pay, is quite long. Here is a sample: https://www.charitywatch.org/nonprofit-compensation-packages...
She's massively overpaid, not only when you consider her performance but particularly so.
> Mozilla intends to focus on A.I. -- so we can expect more A.I. investment, and possible A.I. services, in the year ahead. back in March Moziila announced $30m for A.I. services [0] what's weird is that wound business strategy is usually "what are our core strengths?" instead we get > A little over two years ago, Mozilla started an ambitious project: deciding where we should focus our efforts to grow the movement of…
> Is there a eshop somewhere lamenting "our recommendation system is not people centric" ? I think they mean content recommendation systems used by social media. Mozilla Foundation likes to larp as a social media startup or something. Their big angle is that existing social media doesn't shut out 'bad people' e.g. people with opinions to the right of wherever the American west coast zeitgeist is this year. They want…
They tried hopping on Blockchain train and ended up jumping back off after getting roasted by JWZ [0] "we are reviewing if and how our current policy on crypto donations fits with our climate goals. ... [although] decentralized web technology continues to be an important area for us to explore."
I guess AI is gee whizz enough to escape the Planet Burning argument for now.
A piece of software - with climate goals.
They had a stab at VR with Mozilla Hubs [1] - and copied off Meta by also not including legs in the avatars! Your personal Hub for only $10 a month. Judging by the code commits it is, er, stable [2]. No-one explained how a GPU driven chatroom meets the climate goals!
Imagine if they put all that effort into innovating the browser.
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/6/22870787/mozilla-pauses-cr...
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The article states that Mozilla is far from dying and that it’s diversifying itself away from Firefox.
Mozilla has been diversifying itself away from Firefox for 15 years. They're still pouring money into SeaMonkey and Thunderbird, on top of a range of more recent projects that have no realistic chance of ever generating serious revenue, such as Mozilla VPN. I think there are two realistic paths for the company. One is to make the browser amazing and edgy in ways that Google and Microsoft can't match (out of the fear…
What is serious revenue?
Google and Microsoft are betting AI will be very relevant to web use. And what amazing and edgy features would Google and Microsoft be unable to match?
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I can read. The point is that the number doesn't translate: 7.5 million lost users over 2023 doesn't correspond to a 0.75% decline in global browser presence. 7.5 million is a tiny fraction of that.
7.5M out of 193M is 0.39%, so it's off by about a half. Hardly a "tiny fraction". Presumably the growth in internet users in the period would increase the relative decline in market share, too.
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>Oh wait, she probably doesn’t read HN does she? Oh, but the Firefox devs probably do. All the more reason to insist that Firefox is the important bit then? What does a Firefox dev get from "Ah yes sure we only care about Firefox, but if that's what Mozilla wants to do they have all my support in continuing their path to irrelevancy"
I’m unconvinced that Firefox can compete purely by being the better browser now that Chrome exists and I hear no one complaining about Brave doing more than just a browser (crypto, ads, brave wallet, brave vpn, brave talk, brave search) so even Brendan doesn’t believe that a browser without diversification can compete and likely would have done the same stuff the current CSuite did if he were in charge. You might arg…
Cryptocurrency and ads are common complaints about Brave. But your main point was right. Eich said Firefox OS was the highest priority. And services or partnerships were needed for user sovereignty.[1]
> Brendan choosing to build on Chrome instead of Firefox probably says more about Chrome’s dominance than Firefox’s technical merits.
Brave's CTO said filling gaps in the Gecko framework would have cost months.[2]
[1] https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/brendan-eich...