5 ms·

The general tech community is a tiny fraction of their user base, though. Put simply, they don’t care.

by untog 6y ago

airstrike 6y ago
I subscribe to the idea that the tech community overlaps with the definition of "early adopters", who become zealots driving everyone else's adoption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_adoption_life_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_adoption_life_cycle
- ezconnect 6y ago
  The problem is they don't need early adopters anymore, almost everyone already adopted their thing.
- craftinator 6y ago
  I subscribe to this idea too. Unfortunately, I think Google is too large, too influential, and too entrenched for the standard tech adoption life cycle to be the dominant factor.
- axaxs 6y ago
  Agreed. I've turned my wife, daughter, and Mom, none of whom are tech oriented at all, into Brave converts on mobile.
  - Conan_Kudo 6y ago
    Unfortunately, that helps exactly zilch. Brave, along with all other Blink/Chromium based browsers and frameworks, further entrenches Chrome as the platform. Either use Firefox on Android or give up. For desktop, you have at least Firefox, Otter Browser, and Epiphany as options.
    - axaxs 6y ago
      I see your point, but I wasn't listing my example as helping or hurting any cause, just how 'techies' can have influence on the broader community. If it helps, you could replace the word Brave with Firefox, for example. If I show three people, and they show three people, etc, we can have big influences on market shares. Now as a reply to this specific comment, I've tried Firefox multiple times on Android and always hated it. So I obviously can't advocate people use something I hate. But I do wish there were more...options.
    - userbinator 6y ago
      ...and you can keep using IE too, or even the NetSurf/Dillo/etc. if you want to be really against "big browsers".
    - mindfulhack 6y ago
      I'm a browser junkie. I have about 20 browsers installed in my macOS - some Firefox-based, some Google-based, others weird little ones, and of course Safari. I really try to support everything that exists, especially non-Chrome. And yet, I am not excited to download Otter Browser. Its website and SourceForge (i.e. the very fact they're using Sourceforge) do not inspire confidence that they're not modern and up-to-date enough to actually be safe to even use (browser attack surface is massive). Am I wrong in translating this first impression to a judgement on safety?
- smoe 6y ago
  I agree. But I think the early adoptors mattered back in 2008.I reckon, with the dominance they now have, they are fine with some developers moving to firefox while still having time to react if they pull too many "normal" users with them. Especially since Mozilla isnt exactly peak popularity in terms of vision either.
  - airstrike 6y ago
    IE was also absurdly dominant back then. I appreciate the fact that we now live in a world where everything is integrated, so the costs of switching are higher, but it's not impossible
    - smoe 6y ago
      Sure but IE back then was also severely lacking in pretty much every regard and stopped any tangible development. At least every developer I know back then switched away from it primarly because of developer tooling available in other browsers secondarly because of lack of other features. With todays major browsers landscape the differences are much more subtle. From a developer productivity perspectice I don't think it matters that much anymore, none is really a 10x or even a 3x browser over the others. So I don't see a huge developer exodus happing for Chrome as long as they don't completely cripple their web dev experience.
hipsterstal1n 6y ago
Exactly. Those that care and / or know enough to care are a tiny fraction of the population, in the same vein as those who care enough to use Linux instead of Windows. Google knows that with their high usage numbers (partly thanks to Android and Firefox's mistakes in the 2000s to mid 2010's, they can do pretty much anything and will still keep their Chrome browser popularity. This is thanks to Android and the general population across the world who don't care enough about their privacy. Plus, if someone uninstalls Chrome where will they go? To Brave (Chromium), Opera(Chromium), Edge(Chromium), Vivaldi(Chromium), or Firefox.
DoingIsLearning 6y ago
This is actually my worry with the new direction of Firefox on Android which I assume is mostly a push from the Mozilla 'Foundation'/corp. It feels like they are just force-feeding the 'UX features' of Chrome and ignoring all the feedback from the tech community. Things like truncating url sub-domains and hiding the url address bar with dynamictoolbar are not necessarily wrong features. However, to me they should always be opt-in, they should never be fixed defaults as what we have now in the latest upgrade of Firefox for Android. Firefox used to be about freedom and customization. If I want to break it by messing with about:config then I should be able. If I want to break it with a non-compatible add-on then I should be able to. This whole UX mindset of padding the room and "we know better than you what you should want" feels very dismaying especially for a project that exists because of community contributions.

The general tech community is a tiny fraction of their user base, though. Put simply, they don’t care.

by untog 6y ago

The general tech community is a tiny fraction of their user base, though. Put simply, they don’t care.

I subscribe to the idea that the tech community overlaps with the definition of "early adopters", who become zealots driving everyone else's adoption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_adoption_life_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_adoption_life_cycle

ezconnect 6y ago
The problem is they don't need early adopters anymore, almost everyone already adopted their thing.
craftinator 6y ago
I subscribe to this idea too. Unfortunately, I think Google is too large, too influential, and too entrenched for the standard tech adoption life cycle to be the dominant factor.
axaxs 6y ago
Agreed. I've turned my wife, daughter, and Mom, none of whom are tech oriented at all, into Brave converts on mobile.
- Conan_Kudo 6y ago
  Unfortunately, that helps exactly zilch. Brave, along with all other Blink/Chromium based browsers and frameworks, further entrenches Chrome as the platform. Either use Firefox on Android or give up. For desktop, you have at least Firefox, Otter Browser, and Epiphany as options.
  - axaxs 6y ago
    I see your point, but I wasn't listing my example as helping or hurting any cause, just how 'techies' can have influence on the broader community. If it helps, you could replace the word Brave with Firefox, for example. If I show three people, and they show three people, etc, we can have big influences on market shares. Now as a reply to this specific comment, I've tried Firefox multiple times on Android and always hated it. So I obviously can't advocate people use something I hate. But I do wish there were more...options.
  - userbinator 6y ago
    ...and you can keep using IE too, or even the NetSurf/Dillo/etc. if you want to be really against "big browsers".
  - mindfulhack 6y ago
    I'm a browser junkie. I have about 20 browsers installed in my macOS - some Firefox-based, some Google-based, others weird little ones, and of course Safari. I really try to support everything that exists, especially non-Chrome. And yet, I am not excited to download Otter Browser. Its website and SourceForge (i.e. the very fact they're using Sourceforge) do not inspire confidence that they're not modern and up-to-date enough to actually be safe to even use (browser attack surface is massive). Am I wrong in translating this first impression to a judgement on safety?
smoe 6y ago
I agree. But I think the early adoptors mattered back in 2008.I reckon, with the dominance they now have, they are fine with some developers moving to firefox while still having time to react if they pull too many "normal" users with them. Especially since Mozilla isnt exactly peak popularity in terms of vision either.
- airstrike 6y ago
  IE was also absurdly dominant back then. I appreciate the fact that we now live in a world where everything is integrated, so the costs of switching are higher, but it's not impossible
  - smoe 6y ago
    Sure but IE back then was also severely lacking in pretty much every regard and stopped any tangible development. At least every developer I know back then switched away from it primarly because of developer tooling available in other browsers secondarly because of lack of other features. With todays major browsers landscape the differences are much more subtle. From a developer productivity perspectice I don't think it matters that much anymore, none is really a 10x or even a 3x browser over the others. So I don't see a huge developer exodus happing for Chrome as long as they don't completely cripple their web dev experience.

hipsterstal1n 6y ago

Exactly. Those that care and / or know enough to care are a tiny fraction of the population, in the same vein as those who care enough to use Linux instead of Windows. Google knows that with their high usage numbers (partly thanks to Android and Firefox's mistakes in the 2000s to mid 2010's, they can do pretty much anything and will still keep their Chrome browser popularity. This is thanks to Android and the general population across the world who don't care enough about their privacy. Plus, if someone uninstalls Chrome where will they go? To Brave (Chromium), Opera(Chromium), Edge(Chromium), Vivaldi(Chromium), or Firefox.

DoingIsLearning 6y ago

This is actually my worry with the new direction of Firefox on Android which I assume is mostly a push from the Mozilla 'Foundation'/corp. It feels like they are just force-feeding the 'UX features' of Chrome and ignoring all the feedback from the tech community. Things like truncating url sub-domains and hiding the url address bar with dynamictoolbar are not necessarily wrong features. However, to me they should always be opt-in, they should never be fixed defaults as what we have now in the latest upgrade of Firefox for Android. Firefox used to be about freedom and customization. If I want to break it by messing with about:config then I should be able. If I want to break it with a non-compatible add-on then I should be able to. This whole UX mindset of padding the room and "we know better than you what you should want" feels very dismaying especially for a project that exists because of community contributions.