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Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

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Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#91

Post by master-lincoln »

theasisa wrote: post #37
jowea wrote: post #8

A decent chunk of the users who bothered installing an adblock would also be bothered enough to install a FF fork with adblock, so I doubt the revenue increase would be much. As for calling it "off-mission": yes, what's even the point of FF if that's the route it goes on?

Do any of these forks have the ability to sync, either with Firefox or something self hosted? Or are they all just basically reskins with a single toggle added or such?

I don't see how your 2 questions are related to each other.

> Do any of these forks have the ability to sync, either with Firefox or something self hosted?

The Firefox Sync web service is provided by Mozilla but can be self hosted: https://github.com/mozilla-services/syncstorage-rs. That could also be used in forks. See e.g. https://librewolf.net/docs/faq/#can-i-use-firefox-sync-with-... . I don't understand what you mean by sync with Firefox.

> Or are they all just basically reskins with a single toggle added or such?

Hard to generalize, but definitely not all of them. see e.g. https://lwn.net/Articles/1012453/

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#93

Post by swiftcoder »

ghusto wrote: post #68
herobird wrote: post #17

It's kinda frustrating that Mozilla's CEO thinks that axing ad-blockers would be financially beneficial for them. Quite the opposite is true (I believe) since a ton of users would leave Firefox for alternatives.

Which alternatives though? On Mac at least, I'm not aware of any viable non-Chromium alternatives.

> On Mac at least, I'm not aware of any viable non-Chromium alternatives

Surely Mac is the only place there is a viable non-Chromium alternative (Safari)?

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#95

Post by torben-friis »

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…

“I wouldn’t sell sexual services. I’ve spent an evening checking the going market rate for someone my age in my area and it’s 2k! Can you believe that? That’s a ton of money! Totally not going to do it though”.

It’s an eyebrow raising comment at the very least.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#96

Post by boomboomsubban »

kuschku wrote: post #72
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…

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

It's not hard to imagine the last default search contract negotiation had Google go "we'll give you $x if you kill manifest v2, $x-$150 million if you don't."

edited to correct my misunderstanding.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#98

Post by NothingAboutAny »

concinds wrote: post #43
dom96 wrote: 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?

You can't monetize a browser. They have to keep trying to create new products, but they inevitably fail. Pocket, FirefoxOS, Persona, all dead. This new stuff will fail too, because Mozilla has no USP and no way to create a best-in-class product in any market. So they rely on imitating what everyone else is doing, but with more "crunchy" vibes ("values", "trust", "we're a nonprofit") because that's the only angle they…

I'd pay $10 a month for a browser, I pay that much for music and TV shows and I spend more time in a browser. I'm sure the market doesn't agree with me but I pay more for things that are less useful.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#99

Post by tgv »

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.

Re: Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?

#100

Post by pas »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #20
K0nserv wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No knowledge of the business. But I think it's because of the underlying question that plagues Mozilla: How will that make money?

They don't really need money. Look at Mozilla's CEO compensation for example. It was 7 million USD in 2022. Seven. Million. For ruining a bastion of the open internet. The problem is the MBAs.

multiple things can be true at once.

is that too much money for one person? well, apparently it depends on who do you ask. and even if the board members who approved it might thought it's too much, it still could have been cheaper than to fire the CEO and find a new one and keep Mozilla on track.

CEO compensation is usually a hedge against risks that are seen as even more costly, even if the performance of the CEO is objectively bad.

https://www.ecgi.global/sites/default/files/working_papers/d...

framing Mozilla/Firefox as some kind of bastion is simply silly - especially if it's supplied by the gigantic fortress kingdom of G, and makes more money on dividends and interest than on selling any actual products or services.

it's a ship at sea with a sail that's too big and a rudder that's unfortunately insignificant.

but whatever metaphor we pick it needs to transform into a sustainable ecosystem, be that donation or sales based.

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