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Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

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Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#371

Post by tschumacher »

lxgr wrote: post #41

>> He says he could begin to block ad blockers in Firefox and estimates that’d bring in another $150 million, but he doesn’t want to do that. It feels off-mission. > It may be just me, but I read this as “I don't want to but I'll kill AdBlockers in Firefox for buckerinos ”. Yes, that does seem like a pretty uncharitable interpretation of that quote. I read it as "we won't do it, even though it would bring in $150M US…

Can someone explain how banning ad blockers from Firefox would bring in money for Mozilla? I can see how it would bring in money for other actors such as news outlets, YouTube, etc., but Mozilla doesn't have a big website where they are showing ads.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#373

Post by [deleted] »

lxgr wrote: post #41

>> He says he could begin to block ad blockers in Firefox and estimates that’d bring in another $150 million, but he doesn’t want to do that. It feels off-mission. > It may be just me, but I read this as “I don't want to but I'll kill AdBlockers in Firefox for buckerinos ”. Yes, that does seem like a pretty uncharitable interpretation of that quote. I read it as "we won't do it, even though it would bring in $150M US…

[deleted]

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#374

Post by Lutger »

asddubs wrote: post #239
Brian_K_White wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"feels off mission" exposes how little conviction there is behind this position. That is a flimsy tissue paper statement about a concept that should be a bedrock principle. It's irrationally charitable to give it any credit at all. Especially in context where anyone who's awake should understand they need to be delivering an unquestionably clear message about unquestionably clear goals and core values, because this a…

yeah, it reads to me like "we probably shouldn't do it"

which is just prep talk for "if we need it, we could do it"

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#376

Post by alex77456 »

nialv7 wrote: post #81
lxgr wrote: post #41

>> He says he could begin to block ad blockers in Firefox and estimates that’d bring in another $150 million, but he doesn’t want to do that. It feels off-mission. > It may be just me, but I read this as “I don't want to but I'll kill AdBlockers in Firefox for buckerinos ”. Yes, that does seem like a pretty uncharitable interpretation of that quote. I read it as "we won't do it, even though it would bring in $150M US…

The interpretation is not the problem. Whether he will do it, is actually secondary to the fact that he thinks cutting adblock can bringing in money. No, it will just kill the browser. The fact he thinks otherwise tells me how out of touch he is.

> The fact he thinks otherwise tells me how out of touch he is.

We don't know what he really thinks. Maybe he knows it's a risk he wouldn't want to take but presents it as a goodwill

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#377

Post by torben-friis »

matwood wrote: post #113
kuschku wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn't calculate the expected RoI of killing adblockers if killing adblockers was never considered.

Part of being CEO/running a business is considering all options, but it doesn't mean it will ever move beyond the ROI/risk phase. Ever read one of the risk assessments in a companies public filings? It's the same thing.

Part of being a CEO is also being the public face of the product, and knowing what to say and how.

On day one he’s put his appearance on the top of hacker news under “is Mozilla trying to kill himself?”.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#378

Post by mossTechnician »

lxgr wrote: post #41

>> He says he could begin to block ad blockers in Firefox and estimates that’d bring in another $150 million, but he doesn’t want to do that. It feels off-mission. > It may be just me, but I read this as “I don't want to but I'll kill AdBlockers in Firefox for buckerinos ”. Yes, that does seem like a pretty uncharitable interpretation of that quote. I read it as "we won't do it, even though it would bring in $150M US…

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman once boasted that the company hadn’t "put a sexbot avatar in ChatGPT yet." Two months later, they did[0].

Interpreting the Mozilla CEO the same way may not be charitable, but it is certainly familiar.

[0]: https://futurism.com/future-society/sam-altman-adult-ai-reve...

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#379

Post by makeitdouble »

bambax wrote: post #362
austhrow743 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their Google dependency is their existential problem. They're limited by what they can do with "making Firefox better" while effectively being a client state. An off the books Google department. Doomed to forever being a worse funded Chrome because they can't do too much to anger their patron. By selling browser UI real estate to AI companies[0] they reduce the power Google has over them. If they get to the point whe…

Yeah but is this entirely true though? It seems Google pays FF just for existing, to protect them from antitrust litigation (or what's left of it); so Google can't really stop paying FF and can't try to kill it, as its death would be extremely counter productive. FF may be freer than it thinks.

Same as for Apple, the amount Google pays will vary. Firefox will probably still exist with 10% of Google's money, except execs Mozilla execs would be in a very different situation.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#380

Post by potwinkle »

tgv wrote: post #99
twelvechess wrote: post #32

At least there are projects like ladybird coming up to fill their shows

Don't count on it. Have you ever seen how much time and effort has been put in making Firefox, Safari and Chrome compliant and performant? It'll take Ladybird ages to get anywhere near. Someone could try to merge e,g, V8 and Servo, once that's in decent shape. But even then it'll be time consuming to build an acceptable UI, cookie and history management, plugin interface, etc.

Ladybird is pretty good today. A lot of web apps, even complex ones, just work. It's reached high compliance scores for web standards in a shockingly quick period. See here: https://youtu.be/VqzbqsIlaNI?si=YPdwbApq4nVYlPMQ&t=209
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