5 ms·

Remember the PR disaster they had when they bundled Pocket?

• ameshkov 7y ago
  Well, yeah, but focusing on earning does not mean they should start doing stupid things like that or adding a banner place to the start page. For instance, I would have considered paying for some premium features like additional privacy-related functionality or a VPN.
  • Yoric 7y ago
    Well, Mozilla is selling VPN services (in some countries). Are you a user?
• untog 7y ago
  Remember how it really didn’t matter at all in the long run? Even “disaster” is overselling it, I doubt many outside of HN circles are aware of it at all. Did they even lose a noticeable number of users from it? I don’t mean to imply that it was absolutely nothing, but the day Mozilla gives up launching new money making features because they’re terrified of the backlash from an absolutely tiny set of vocal users is the day they should give up trying to make money at all.
• endorphone 7y ago
  It wasn't so much of a disaster as a poorly-considered move. Speaking of Pocket, the Pocket you see on the fresh Firefox instance often provided me interesting, enjoyable articles. I went to sign up -- keep this good stuff coming, I thought -- to learn that Pocket demanded the social element, requiring that I link up with other Pocket users to drive my feed. Yet it had done a great job without that, and now had turned completely stupid. Which of course is by design to drive engagement, and it is absolutely obnoxious. Fuck social as a trend. If the only way a network gains users is by trying to make them pitchmen to other people, the network should die.