4 ms·

Can't help but wonder how Brendan Eich would have fared in the job.

by jcadam 7y ago

_red 7y ago
Well, Brave started from nothing and seems to be growing. I use it now on all my devices and really like it as a daily driver. Had Brendan been able to try these ideas with the firefox userbase it could've advanced the privacy conversation much further...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- stakhanov 7y ago
  Finding a niche is one thing. If you change a product used by a portion (albeit small) of the mainstream into a product that would appeal only to a niche audience, that may well end up going against you.
  - BrendanEich 7y ago
    The causal arrow points the other way. Today Firefox finally started blocking third party cookies (some, not all as Brave does; they use Disconnect.me's 3rd party cookie blocking list) by default. This does not limit mainstream appeal, it follows Safari and Brave, who have been leading the privacy by default movement among browsers.
- tapoxi 7y ago
  I can't help but feel that a lot of Brave's userbase are pushing it because they have a financial investment in BAT from the ICO. Brave certainly doesn't help with the monoculture threat either, its just Chrome.
  - modzu 7y ago
    i duno. the other day i used a friend's computer without an adblocker and searched google for "AWS". i could not see a link to amazon AWS on the results page. it was under 5 ads for azure, gcp, and some other crap. i mean, i use an adblocker on my own devices and had no idea it had gotten that crazy. it was horrifying. the non tech-savvy people are clicking god knows what and fueling a massive industry of identity theft, not to mention the psychological pollution and interference to genuine knowledge and information that so many ads represent. sure brave is sketchy in its own way, but it's a paradigm shift in the right direction. something has got to change. so i can totally see why users and not just investors would want to give brave a try.
    - lostmsu 7y ago
      But that adblocking there is not uBlock is it? It is not controllable by me and can be turned to "acceptable ads" any day. If it only let mobile to use extensions like FF does.
      - modzu 7y ago
        of course, but what makes brave unique is that its blocking is native. only 10% of users have an adblocker (us techies live in a bubble) -- 90% of people have no idea what uBlock is. also ublock could be turned to "acceptable ads" too -- it already happened (i'm assuming you're talking about uBlock "origin")
  - borfohrex 7y ago
    Having Google as your default search engine or include Google's safe browsing inside your browser doesn't help with the monoculture threat either, but i guess mozilla thinks otherwise.
    - BrendanEich 7y ago
      They rely for most of their revenue on that Google search deal. Safe Browsing in "update" mode, with an IP hiding proxy as Brave uses, is ok.
  - BrendanEich 7y ago
    In the initial sale, <100 people bought BAT, and perhaps 186K people own it now (ignoring Uphold members) per https://etherscan.io/token/0x0d8775f648430679a709e98d2b0cb6250d2887ef https://etherscan.io/token/0x0d8775f648430679a709e98d2b0cb62..., but we have ~7M users. Check your math.
    - tapoxi 7y ago
      Is 186,000 not a lot? It doesn't need to be a large percentage of the overall, just influencers with a financial investment in it. (Yes, in theory people can also own say, Google stock, but BAT is directly tied to the browser's success.)
      - BrendanEich 7y ago
        Is 186,000 a large or small fraction of 7M? Also note the largest few accounts are liquidity pools owned by exchanges, and custodial accounts we use for cold BAT. How does a browser grow from zero share? Hint: it's not by "influence" alone, with zero benefit to the prospect being pitched by the influencer.
DonHopkins 7y ago
According to Brendan, Firefox OS would be more popular with gay marriage opponents in Indonesia, if only it were more inclusive and tolerant of anti-gay bigotry. https://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-ceo-gay-marriage-firestorm-could-hurt-firefox-cause-q-a/ https://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-ceo-gay-marriage-firestorm... >Now, in his first interview on the subject, Eich is responding with a message that Mozilla is at its core inclusive -- not just of gay-marriage supporters but also of people like him or gay-marriage opponents in Indonesia who also are part of the Mozilla cause. Those beliefs must be checked at the door on the way into Mozilla, he argues. https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/mozilla-wars-part-2-eich-hangs-tough-maggie-gallagher/ https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/mozilla-wars-part-2-ei... >"We have a strong Indonesian community. We’re developing Firefox OS to go into market there. I have people there on the other side of this particular issue. They don’t bring it into Mozilla when they work in the Mozilla community. I met a lot of them at Mozcamp 2012 in Singapore. They don’t have quite the megaphone in that part of the world. But the Mozilla mission and our inclusiveness principles really must matter to include them too.” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7514562 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7514562 byuu on Apr 2, 2014 | parent | favorite | on: Mozilla CEO Eich says gay-marriage firestorm could... This really sums it up in my book: "We have a strong Indonesian community. We're developing Firefox OS to go into market there. I have people there on the other side of this particular issue." He clearly still sees this as just being two sides of a coin, like a choice between Pepsi or Coke. It's tolerable when you have a sincere personal belief ... however misguided it may be, but it's quite another when you donate money and vote to take away someone else's rights to their own beliefs, actions, equality and dignity through the force of law. What I hate most about this whole situation is that the only action I can take is to step away from all Mozilla products, which in turn hurts all Mozilla employees, the majority of which I fully respect and support. But as CEO, he's the public face and voice of the entire company, and I can't respectfully support a company that would elect a bigot to lead their entire organization.
- jsgo 7y ago
  During that time, Firefox OS was their big push, so it would make sense that he'd discuss it. It doesn't seem like he's saying, now, Firefox OS would be a hit. He also goes on to say that the company has people of varying opinions politically. Personally, I'm for gay marriage and when it is brought up as a religious ceremony being yanked from the church, I typically say that had already happened when the various governments started applying tax benefits and the like to marriage and no one was arguing against the secular government taking a more active role on marriage then (plus, the whole divorce thing). There are those who would disagree with that stance (to varying degrees and in either direction) and that's fine. What he's advocating is that his or any of his coworkers' personal beliefs of whatever direction should not have any affect on their ability to deliver on Mozilla's goals. Honestly, he's more or less right. There have also been cases where people have been steered from beliefs and/or actions because they had conversations with people of differing views (Chickfila's CEO in some of his donations to programs that were directly detrimental to LGBT for one [1]). If you kick all of the people out who disagree with you, you create tribes. And it is highly unlikely those tribes are going to start drifting towards your beliefs at that point. In fact, it is more likely to harden their beliefs. [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dan-cathy-chick-fil-a_b_2564379 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dan-cathy-chick-fil-a_b_25643...

Can't help but wonder how Brendan Eich would have fared in the job.

by jcadam 7y ago

Can't help but wonder how Brendan Eich would have fared in the job.

_red 7y ago

Well, Brave started from nothing and seems to be growing. I use it now on all my devices and really like it as a daily driver. Had Brendan been able to try these ideas with the firefox userbase it could've advanced the privacy conversation much further...

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
stakhanov 7y ago
Finding a niche is one thing. If you change a product used by a portion (albeit small) of the mainstream into a product that would appeal only to a niche audience, that may well end up going against you.
- BrendanEich 7y ago
  The causal arrow points the other way. Today Firefox finally started blocking third party cookies (some, not all as Brave does; they use Disconnect.me's 3rd party cookie blocking list) by default. This does not limit mainstream appeal, it follows Safari and Brave, who have been leading the privacy by default movement among browsers.
tapoxi 7y ago
I can't help but feel that a lot of Brave's userbase are pushing it because they have a financial investment in BAT from the ICO. Brave certainly doesn't help with the monoculture threat either, its just Chrome.
- modzu 7y ago
  i duno. the other day i used a friend's computer without an adblocker and searched google for "AWS". i could not see a link to amazon AWS on the results page. it was under 5 ads for azure, gcp, and some other crap. i mean, i use an adblocker on my own devices and had no idea it had gotten that crazy. it was horrifying. the non tech-savvy people are clicking god knows what and fueling a massive industry of identity theft, not to mention the psychological pollution and interference to genuine knowledge and information that so many ads represent. sure brave is sketchy in its own way, but it's a paradigm shift in the right direction. something has got to change. so i can totally see why users and not just investors would want to give brave a try.
  - lostmsu 7y ago
    But that adblocking there is not uBlock is it? It is not controllable by me and can be turned to "acceptable ads" any day. If it only let mobile to use extensions like FF does.
    - modzu 7y ago
      of course, but what makes brave unique is that its blocking is native. only 10% of users have an adblocker (us techies live in a bubble) -- 90% of people have no idea what uBlock is. also ublock could be turned to "acceptable ads" too -- it already happened (i'm assuming you're talking about uBlock "origin")
- borfohrex 7y ago
  Having Google as your default search engine or include Google's safe browsing inside your browser doesn't help with the monoculture threat either, but i guess mozilla thinks otherwise.
  - BrendanEich 7y ago
    They rely for most of their revenue on that Google search deal. Safe Browsing in "update" mode, with an IP hiding proxy as Brave uses, is ok.
- BrendanEich 7y ago
  In the initial sale, <100 people bought BAT, and perhaps 186K people own it now (ignoring Uphold members) per https://etherscan.io/token/0x0d8775f648430679a709e98d2b0cb6250d2887ef https://etherscan.io/token/0x0d8775f648430679a709e98d2b0cb62..., but we have ~7M users. Check your math.
  - tapoxi 7y ago
    Is 186,000 not a lot? It doesn't need to be a large percentage of the overall, just influencers with a financial investment in it. (Yes, in theory people can also own say, Google stock, but BAT is directly tied to the browser's success.)
    - BrendanEich 7y ago
      Is 186,000 a large or small fraction of 7M? Also note the largest few accounts are liquidity pools owned by exchanges, and custodial accounts we use for cold BAT. How does a browser grow from zero share? Hint: it's not by "influence" alone, with zero benefit to the prospect being pitched by the influencer.

DonHopkins 7y ago

According to Brendan, Firefox OS would be more popular with gay marriage opponents in Indonesia, if only it were more inclusive and tolerant of anti-gay bigotry. https://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-ceo-gay-marriage-firestorm-could-hurt-firefox-cause-q-a/ https://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-ceo-gay-marriage-firestorm... >Now, in his first interview on the subject, Eich is responding with a message that Mozilla is at its core inclusive -- not just of gay-marriage supporters but also of people like him or gay-marriage opponents in Indonesia who also are part of the Mozilla cause. Those beliefs must be checked at the door on the way into Mozilla, he argues. https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/mozilla-wars-part-2-eich-hangs-tough-maggie-gallagher/ https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/mozilla-wars-part-2-ei... >"We have a strong Indonesian community. We’re developing Firefox OS to go into market there. I have people there on the other side of this particular issue. They don’t bring it into Mozilla when they work in the Mozilla community. I met a lot of them at Mozcamp 2012 in Singapore. They don’t have quite the megaphone in that part of the world. But the Mozilla mission and our inclusiveness principles really must matter to include them too.” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7514562 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7514562 byuu on Apr 2, 2014 | parent | favorite | on: Mozilla CEO Eich says gay-marriage firestorm could... This really sums it up in my book: "We have a strong Indonesian community. We're developing Firefox OS to go into market there. I have people there on the other side of this particular issue." He clearly still sees this as just being two sides of a coin, like a choice between Pepsi or Coke. It's tolerable when you have a sincere personal belief ... however misguided it may be, but it's quite another when you donate money and vote to take away someone else's rights to their own beliefs, actions, equality and dignity through the force of law. What I hate most about this whole situation is that the only action I can take is to step away from all Mozilla products, which in turn hurts all Mozilla employees, the majority of which I fully respect and support. But as CEO, he's the public face and voice of the entire company, and I can't respectfully support a company that would elect a bigot to lead their entire organization.

jsgo 7y ago
During that time, Firefox OS was their big push, so it would make sense that he'd discuss it. It doesn't seem like he's saying, now, Firefox OS would be a hit. He also goes on to say that the company has people of varying opinions politically. Personally, I'm for gay marriage and when it is brought up as a religious ceremony being yanked from the church, I typically say that had already happened when the various governments started applying tax benefits and the like to marriage and no one was arguing against the secular government taking a more active role on marriage then (plus, the whole divorce thing). There are those who would disagree with that stance (to varying degrees and in either direction) and that's fine. What he's advocating is that his or any of his coworkers' personal beliefs of whatever direction should not have any affect on their ability to deliver on Mozilla's goals. Honestly, he's more or less right. There have also been cases where people have been steered from beliefs and/or actions because they had conversations with people of differing views (Chickfila's CEO in some of his donations to programs that were directly detrimental to LGBT for one [1]). If you kick all of the people out who disagree with you, you create tribes. And it is highly unlikely those tribes are going to start drifting towards your beliefs at that point. In fact, it is more likely to harden their beliefs. [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dan-cathy-chick-fil-a_b_2564379 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dan-cathy-chick-fil-a_b_25643...