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Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

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Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I've once said in a relationship "Look, sure, she maybe pretty, but I want to be with you, so no, I am not going to reach out to her, don't worry". Apparently, it was a poor way to word this idea.

"Fucking her brains out would feel off mission"

Yes, people tend to try to dig out additional information from the particular wording (talk about a hidden channel) based on how they would phrase the same message themselves. That's why communication is hard.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#382
post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazing how they continue not to cater to their core audience. Who is Mozilla's core audience? From what I remember, it's not addon-users, as most users never have used even just a single addon. > They literally have lost 90% of their market share from their peak, To be fair, it's not entirely their own fault. Competition is strong, especially from Google and Apple. Even with perfect decisions, they likely would st…

> From what I remember, it's not addon-users, as most users never have used even just a single addon. Source?

Ublock Origin has 10,488,339 Users listed on it's Mozilla store-page at the moment, AdBlock Plus has 3,188,401 Users. And Firefox has surely still far more than those ~14 million users.

There was an article from Mozilla, some years ago, going more into the details about this, but I'm not sure where. Though, I found another one[1] from 2021, which starts with only one third of the users having installed an addon.

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/blog/firefoxs-most-popular-innova...

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#384
post #220
post #6

Genuinely can someone with knowledge of the business explain why they aren't simply doubling down on making Firefox better? Is there an existential problem facing them that they are trying to solve by adding AI into the browser?

Please enlighten me. How does one make a browser "better" these days? - They were ahead of the game with extensions. Then everyone copied them. - They were ahead of the game with tabs. Then everyone copied them. - They were ahead of the game with containers. Then everyone copied them. - They are still the best browser to use for an ad free internet experience. - The only flaw I can think of, is they are not leaders i…

Make Firefox fully and exclusively a tool in service of the user.

Eliminate - both in code and by policy - anything that compromises privacy. If a new feature or support of a new technology reduces privacy, make it optional. Give me a switch to turn it off.

Stop opting the user into things. No more experiments. No more changing of preferences or behavior during upgrade.

Give the user more control; more opportunities for easy and powerful automation and integration.

Not only would this win me back as a user, I'd pay for the privilege. I'm paying for Kagi and happy to be doing so. I'd love to pay for an open source browser I could trust and respect.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#385
post #72
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…

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

You wouldn't calculate a figure and publish it as the first step in any reasonable price negotiation. Any pricing you mention publicly would be double or triple the number you are willing to accept. By the time you are talking publicly about realistic numbers you are well into the private negotiations.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#386
post #81
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 current pattern in software is, sadly:

1. Innovate

2. Dominate

3. Enshitify to cash in.

You can't skip step #2.

Right now, Firefox's market share is a rounding error compared to Chrome. Users are starting to switch away from Chrome because it's currently in step 3 (in spades). That trend will not continue if Firefox beats Chrome to the bottom of the pig-pen. Firefox's current focus on AI is concerning enough, but mirroring Chrome's shift to Manifest v3 (i.e. What killed full-blooded ad blocking in Chrome) would be outright suicide.

Mozilla needs to listen to their users. Most don't particularly want "let me run that through an AI for you" popups everywhere. Practically nobody running Firefox wants to be cut off from effective ad blocking.

Monetization is hard, for Mozilla in particular. It was always weird that most of their funding came from Google. Now that Google is yanking it, Mozilla needs to find alternative sources of filthy lucre. However, if they destroy their product's only competitive advantages, there will be nothing left to monetize. If Firefox remains a browser that can provide decent privacy and ad-blocking then Mozilla has a chance to find alternative revenue streams. If, instead, Mozilla throws those advantages away to make a quick buck, that's the last buck they'll ever make.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It feels off-mission. That's supposedly The Verge paraphrasing the CEO (Unfortunately I can't verify because the full article requires subscription.) I would like to know what the CEO actually said because "it feels off-mission" is a strange thing for the leader of the mission to say. I would hope that they know the mission inside out. No need to go by feels.

Here's that part of the article: > In our conversation, Enzor-DeMeo returns often to two things: that Mozilla cares about and wants to preserve the open web, and that the open web needs new business models. Mozilla’s ad business is important and growing, he says, and he worries “about things going behind paywalls, becoming more closed off.” He says the internet’s content business isn’t exactly his fight, but that Moz…

I thought the "free" in "free web" was supposed to mean "free as in freedom," not "free as in beer." Have we really reached the point where the CEO of Mozilla no longer understands or cares about that distinction?

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#388
post #221
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Australia and I can't log into government services using my myGov account on Firefox. Works fine on Chromium.

Wow. Force-Supporting the same company they're battling daily, on multiple issues.

Lack of joined up thinking.

While governments battle big tech on some issues, they are very much on the same side on others. They both want more tracking for example - the governments want to regulate it, and there is a battle for control of the data, but both want the data to be collected by someone.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#389
post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazing how they continue not to cater to their core audience. Who is Mozilla's core audience? From what I remember, it's not addon-users, as most users never have used even just a single addon. > They literally have lost 90% of their market share from their peak, To be fair, it's not entirely their own fault. Competition is strong, especially from Google and Apple. Even with perfect decisions, they likely would st…

> From what I remember, it's not addon-users, as most users never have used even just a single addon. Source?

[deleted]

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#390
post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From what I remember, it's not addon-users, as most users never have used even just a single addon. Source?

I looked up "firefox addon usage" and this was the second result https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/usage-behavior > over 40% of Firefox users have at least 1 installed add-on

Before they changed their ToS to allow selling my data I had spent the last 2 decades with telemetry disabled and adblocker installed
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