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Mozilla 2023 annual report: CEO pay skyrockets, Firefox market share nosedives

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Re: Mozilla 2023 annual report: CEO pay skyrockets, Firefox market share nosedives

#51
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not affiliated with Mozilla in any way, but their mission isn't to create a browser. It's to "ensure the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all." (1) Given that Firefox has kinda lost the browser war it seems obvious that they should be focusing efforts on other things that further that mission besides dumping money into a browser a tiny slice of people want to use. (1) https://www.mozilla.o…

> their mission isn't to create a browser Aaaand that's why I don't use Firefox.

That makes you part of the problem.

Re: Mozilla 2023 annual report: CEO pay skyrockets, Firefox market share nosedives

#53
Governments have been creating web/native/mobile apps for some time, which is a trend that continues to accelerate. Firefox continues to limp along but seemingly can't even retain its most ardent fans, and there's no sign of this changing.

What if the EU were to fork Firefox (Openfox?) and fund its evolution of a privacy-first alternative? Among other benefits, this would:

• Help ensure that key digital infrastructure is not solely dependent on non-European entities.

• Balance the US's outsized role as a gatekeeper for web innovation.

• Support the EU's user privacy and data protection values and comply-by-default with EU regulations.

• Help bolster Europe's economic and tech independence.

What else?

Re: Mozilla 2023 annual report: CEO pay skyrockets, Firefox market share nosedives

#55
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal is obvious and not new. Firefox as a product is only useful to them as a handout from google to use as an antitrust defense. The problem is that Mozilla hasn’t been able to find any product that generates any meaningful revenue. It makes perfect sense for them to try to be an entity that can exist without their biggest competitor tossing them scraps. How they should achieve that is certainly up for debate bu…

I think the situation is simple. They are rendering one service that their users value, and it is making Firefox. They should ask (not require) payment for that service. Yes, what they should do is basically to run a Patreon subscription, clearly marked "For the continued development of Firefox". At a very accessible level of $3 / mo on average , and merely 5M subscribers over the world, they'd have $15M monthly, or…

>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 money isn't going back into Firefox development. This is why it is borderline criminal that they choose to focus on everything except Firefox.

Alternatively, what are they without Firefox?

Re: Mozilla 2023 annual report: CEO pay skyrockets, Firefox market share nosedives

#56

This Mozilla "situation" comes up here from time to time, unfortunately as a long time Firefox user all I have to say is: Mitchell Baker and their clique will only leave when Mozilla is completely dead and even by that time she'll retire and will make a wonderful post about her "legacy" in opensource and the Web. I will not go further because it will turn into an all-bashing post, but Mozilla ( as you like to think o…

Honestly these kinds of posts are tiresome and unhelpful. Yes, Mozilla is different now, yes the CEO makes too much money but if more people used their browser more they might invest more in it in instead of seeing it as a money sink to satisfy people who can’t be satisfied.

Seriously, Mozilla cant win. A large voice of people constantly scold Mozilla for anything it does. We’ve heard from Firefox devs on how this bash fest affects them and we expect them to crank out awesome software despite the abuse. Instead of picking the lesser of two evils they say oh, Firefox is N milliseconds slower than Chrome so I’ll use the greater of two evils.

Can we stop beating a dead horse? If you don’t like Firefox or Mozilla fine but don’t act like it’s unusable as a browser. It’s fine, it works, I don’t why everyone is so bothered by minor details when their goals and clearly better than their competition.

Sure it may be slow for YOU (whatever your use case is) or maybe your extensions broke but average users who rely power users to recommend a browser don’t care. If they can open Facebook and Netflix it’s fine. So use Chrome yourself and recommend Firefox to the people this crap doesn’t matter to. And maybe, if they see the numbers tick up, they’ll change course.

Re: Mozilla 2023 annual report: CEO pay skyrockets, Firefox market share nosedives

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Importantly, that was also the reason that Brendan Eich used Chromium as a base for Brave, rather than Firefox. Had that even not occurred, we might be in a position where more than one organization had a business interest is Firefox, which would be a complete game changer.

I really doubt that is true. Speaking from the experience of working in a project that tried to build "enterprise Chrome OS, but based on Firefox instead", I can tell you that Firefox is still a lot harder to fork and customize than Chromium is.

Re: Mozilla 2023 annual report: CEO pay skyrockets, Firefox market share nosedives

#59
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the article,"Transitioning Mozilla away from Firefox." is the current organisation goal. She have done her job great. why was it a goal, I have bo idea

They likely view the idea off competing with Chrome - a key chess piece of the company keeping Mozilla around merely as a pet to ward of regulators - as impossible if not counterproductive to their mid-term survival at this point. Which is to say, at some point they might become annoying enough for Google to not want to pay them anymore, and then Mozilla would cease to exist shortly thereafter. So with that in mind,…

Right. What would be lost if they used Chromium as well? Sure, there would be a lack of competition but at this point the browser is the fuel of the internet. We don't have multiple different type of gasoline, or home heating oil. The browser - sans Google Chrome's "spyware" - is a commodity. I'd rather see Mozilla focus on privacy, etc.

My dream is for them to add a privacy-centric email product, a robust enough office suit (e.g., Google Docs) and then a bundle with those and Relay and their VPN.

Re: Mozilla 2023 annual report: CEO pay skyrockets, Firefox market share nosedives

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No absolutely not... That would be the worst thing for the web. Blink is objectively bad in the first place, and we need more than just chromiumum skins in the market. I wish they would finish and move to Servo. I wish Brave or some of the other Chromium Skins would become Firefox based. Everyone consolidating down to Blink and Chromium is about the worst thing that could happen to anyone that desires an open Web

>I wish Brave or some of the other Chromium Skins would become Firefox based. This hurts because Firefox should have been that embedded framework powering browsers like Brave and electron apps. But that would have required them to invest in R&D to match performance but also to make their rendering engine easily embeddable (with a corresponding investment in documentation and outreach).

I believe that was a goal of servo, however it was starved for resources (just like the documentation project) in favor of foolish endeavors like Pocket, VPN Services, FireFox OS, and of course there many missteps in the world of Political Social Activism.
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