4 ms·

Firefox will always be around in some form subsiding off Google scraps to give Google plausible deniability regarding browser monopoly. If Firefox does implode

Firefox will always be around in some form subsiding off Google scraps to give Google plausible deniability regarding browser monopoly. If Firefox does implode, it will be because of Mozilla's garbage leadership/product vision, not market conditions.

make3 5y ago
I'm not sure how you can be certain of this
- JohnWhigham 5y ago
  Mozilla's main source of revenue has always been the money Google gives them to have Google as the default search engine. They could stop this at any time to effectively kill Mozilla. So, why haven't they? Because there's this case called United States v. Microsoft Corporation that deals with this very issue of browser monopolies. Now usually a lawsuit wouldn't mean dick to Google because they already have a litany of lawsuits against them that their star legal team is hired to handle. But in this one narrow instance a precedent case is massive, and were Google to kill Mozilla, there would be a league of lawyers jumping over themselves to sue Google on this. Why? Because it's a slam dunk, and would at best force Google to say "hey, you can download Chrome, or you can use these alternative browsers" everywhere there's a Chrome download prompt, or at worst force them to split up. They don't want that. Regarding Mozilla's direction, we already have years of evidence. It all starts with Brendan Eich's resigning. Whether you agree the reasoning is immaterial; that decision lead him to start a direct competitor that is now fighting them for the ever-shrinking demographic of people that don't use Chrome. And then there's stuff like acquiring Pocket, something completely antithetical to Firefox's core values. Money-wasters like FoxOS (or whatever that mobile OS was called) that distracted from Firefox. And then lots of tick-tacky stuff like FF devtools being inferior to Chrome for years (people say it's better now, but I don't care to check it out, I've been using Chrome's for years), over-focusing on frivolous things like social justice issues. It will be death by 1000 cuts that kills Mozilla from the inside.
  - gnomewascool 5y ago
    "Money-wasters" like FirefoxOS were a gamble to get onto the mobile phone bandwagon, to reduce Google's Android/Chrome moat. If they had worked, it'd have been a huge gain both for Firefox and for users. > And then there's stuff like acquiring Pocket, something completely antithetical to Firefox's core values. Pocket itself isn't antithetical to Firefox's values. It not being open source is, but from what I understand they're still working on making the server open source, though at disappointingly low priority.
    - ptman 5y ago
      Boot2Gecko seems to have worked for KaiOS
  - NL807 5y ago
    I still don't know wtf is Pocket supposed to be doing.
    - goohle 5y ago
      Pocketing? My wild guess. (Lifelong Firefox user).
    - _fat_santa 5y ago
      Simply put it combines "article view" with pinterest style saving. Find an article online, save it to pocket, revisit it later and read it in an "article view".
    - michaelt 5y ago
      Chrome syncs things like bookmarks and credit card numbers across browsers whenever a user logs into a Google property. Pocket is Firefox trying not to fall behind on features. And presumably from Mozilla's perspective, if it has some sponsored content giving them some non-Google income, so much the better.
      - orangeoxidation 5y ago

make3 5y ago

I'm not sure how you can be certain of this

JohnWhigham 5y ago
Mozilla's main source of revenue has always been the money Google gives them to have Google as the default search engine. They could stop this at any time to effectively kill Mozilla. So, why haven't they? Because there's this case called United States v. Microsoft Corporation that deals with this very issue of browser monopolies. Now usually a lawsuit wouldn't mean dick to Google because they already have a litany of lawsuits against them that their star legal team is hired to handle. But in this one narrow instance a precedent case is massive, and were Google to kill Mozilla, there would be a league of lawyers jumping over themselves to sue Google on this. Why? Because it's a slam dunk, and would at best force Google to say "hey, you can download Chrome, or you can use these alternative browsers" everywhere there's a Chrome download prompt, or at worst force them to split up. They don't want that. Regarding Mozilla's direction, we already have years of evidence. It all starts with Brendan Eich's resigning. Whether you agree the reasoning is immaterial; that decision lead him to start a direct competitor that is now fighting them for the ever-shrinking demographic of people that don't use Chrome. And then there's stuff like acquiring Pocket, something completely antithetical to Firefox's core values. Money-wasters like FoxOS (or whatever that mobile OS was called) that distracted from Firefox. And then lots of tick-tacky stuff like FF devtools being inferior to Chrome for years (people say it's better now, but I don't care to check it out, I've been using Chrome's for years), over-focusing on frivolous things like social justice issues. It will be death by 1000 cuts that kills Mozilla from the inside.
- gnomewascool 5y ago
  "Money-wasters" like FirefoxOS were a gamble to get onto the mobile phone bandwagon, to reduce Google's Android/Chrome moat. If they had worked, it'd have been a huge gain both for Firefox and for users. > And then there's stuff like acquiring Pocket, something completely antithetical to Firefox's core values. Pocket itself isn't antithetical to Firefox's values. It not being open source is, but from what I understand they're still working on making the server open source, though at disappointingly low priority.
  - ptman 5y ago
    Boot2Gecko seems to have worked for KaiOS
- NL807 5y ago
  I still don't know wtf is Pocket supposed to be doing.
  - goohle 5y ago
    Pocketing? My wild guess. (Lifelong Firefox user).
  - _fat_santa 5y ago
    Simply put it combines "article view" with pinterest style saving. Find an article online, save it to pocket, revisit it later and read it in an "article view".
  - michaelt 5y ago
    Chrome syncs things like bookmarks and credit card numbers across browsers whenever a user logs into a Google property. Pocket is Firefox trying not to fall behind on features. And presumably from Mozilla's perspective, if it has some sponsored content giving them some non-Google income, so much the better.
    - orangeoxidation 5y ago