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> Instead of giving users the choice to install this add-on, we initially pushed an update to Firefox that installed the “Looking Glass” add-on for English spea

> Instead of giving users the choice to install this add-on, we initially pushed an update to Firefox that installed the “Looking Glass” add-on for English speaking users. This add-on was installed and set to ‘OFF’ and made no changes in the user experience unless it was explicitly turned on by a user, but it was added. Why was this done over asking the user to install the add-on themselves? Given relatively few people were going to use this, why push it to every English speaking user? It's not like enabling an extension or installing one is much different in terms of UX but allowing the former is much more intrusive for everyone not interested in "Looking Glass".

QAPereo 9y ago
Do you really need to ask? They did that, because that is what they sold for money to a client. The money made them stupid, short-sighted, and ultimately led to a bad judgement call.
- mintplant 9y ago
  I really doubt money had much to do with this. It was meant to feature into a broader cross-promotional, privacy-themed campaign between Mr. Robot and Firefox, that exposed the latter to the former's viewing audience.
- frankacter 9y ago
  Unless you believe they are lying, it specifically states in the blog post: >we developed an unpaid collaboration to engage our users and viewers of the show in a new way
  - a_imho 9y ago
    You are certainly right, that implies money is not directly involved. Assuming no other non-monetary favours (in which case this apology would be pretty disingenuous), I don't think spending resources on a marketing campaign for a TV show the majority of the users do not care about for free is a good and responsible thing to do as a non profit. Not to mention the circumventing the end user part.
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    I believe there must be something like a monetary reward, or a reward worth money, or Mozilla was insane to do this. Volunteer advertising seems like a strange position for Mozilla.
Vinnl 9y ago
These kinds of things usually happen due to people being so focused on their project at hand, that they become unable to see how the experience would be for people not involved in the project. You can see this happening all the time if you work in a semi-large organisation.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  And the FOSS world seems to have attracted a megaton of this myopia in recent years it seems. Victim of its own success?
remus 9y ago
From a security perspective asking users to install specific extensions is pretty poor behaviour to encourage. Just yesterday I had to stop my girlfriend from installing a dodgy extension from a 'just install this one extension to view this content' site. Not to say that Mozilla's decision was the right one but there's a lot of factors to consider.

QAPereo 9y ago

Do you really need to ask? They did that, because that is what they sold for money to a client. The money made them stupid, short-sighted, and ultimately led to a bad judgement call.

mintplant 9y ago
I really doubt money had much to do with this. It was meant to feature into a broader cross-promotional, privacy-themed campaign between Mr. Robot and Firefox, that exposed the latter to the former's viewing audience.
frankacter 9y ago
Unless you believe they are lying, it specifically states in the blog post: >we developed an unpaid collaboration to engage our users and viewers of the show in a new way
- a_imho 9y ago
  You are certainly right, that implies money is not directly involved. Assuming no other non-monetary favours (in which case this apology would be pretty disingenuous), I don't think spending resources on a marketing campaign for a TV show the majority of the users do not care about for free is a good and responsible thing to do as a non profit. Not to mention the circumventing the end user part.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  I believe there must be something like a monetary reward, or a reward worth money, or Mozilla was insane to do this. Volunteer advertising seems like a strange position for Mozilla.

Vinnl 9y ago

These kinds of things usually happen due to people being so focused on their project at hand, that they become unable to see how the experience would be for people not involved in the project. You can see this happening all the time if you work in a semi-large organisation.

digi_owl 9y ago
And the FOSS world seems to have attracted a megaton of this myopia in recent years it seems. Victim of its own success?

remus 9y ago

From a security perspective asking users to install specific extensions is pretty poor behaviour to encourage. Just yesterday I had to stop my girlfriend from installing a dodgy extension from a 'just install this one extension to view this content' site. Not to say that Mozilla's decision was the right one but there's a lot of factors to consider.