10 ms·
For context, here's the original tweet (still up): https://twitter.com/mozilla/status/1476951030638260225 https://twitter.com/mozilla/status/1476951030638260225
by minimaxir 5y ago
For context, here's the original tweet (still up): https://twitter.com/mozilla/status/1476951030638260225 https://twitter.com/mozilla/status/1476951030638260225
> Dabble in @dogecoin? HODLing some #Bitcoin & #Ethereum?
> We’re using @BitPay to accept donations in #cryptocurrency
The tweet prompted a strong reaction from Mozilla founder jwz: https://twitter.com/jwz/status/1478022085737803776 https://twitter.com/jwz/status/1478022085737803776
> Hi, I'm sure that whoever runs this account has no idea who I am, but I founded @mozilla and I'm here to say fuck you and fuck this. Everyone involved in the project should be witheringly ashamed of this decision to partner with planet-incinerating Ponzi grifters.
- xvector 5y agoYikes, well that eliminates any respect I had for the "founder of Mozilla."
- gspr 5y agoIt elevates mine.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- donkarma 5y agoDude must have an ego the size of a planet to say something like that
- iqanq 5y agoOne of the most histrionic characters in the tech scene, and that's a lot to say.
- waffle_maniac 5y agoBrave is on track to destroy his legacy. https://brave.com/transparency/ https://brave.com/transparency/
- woodruffw 5y agoWhy would this be the case? Chrome's rise didn't destroy Firefox or Mozilla's legacy, so it's not clear why a fork would.
- waffle_maniac 5y agoThe past doesn't always define the future. Younger folks are more interested in privacy. And Brave is more than just a "fork."
- woodruffw 5y ago> Younger folks are more interested in privacy. I believe this. I'd like to understand how, exactly, moving from a non-profit foundation's browser to a for-profit corporation's fork of that browser with a built in ad marketplace is a net win for my privacy. That seems like a net loss: the incentive is now to make money off of me, and the browser is actually running non-website code with that goal in mind.
- waffle_maniac 5y ago* Brave ads are optin * Machine learning for ads is done locally; can't be evil * Trackers and third party ads are blocked. When is FireFox going to block third party ads and trackers?
- woodruffw 5y agoMy understanding is that Firefox has supported in-browser blocking of third-party ads, trackers, fingerprinters, &c., for a while now[1]. > * Machine learning for ads is done locally; can't be evil There are too many moving pieces to this to dissect in a single comment. But to roughly sum them up: just about every adtech company that promises "privacy preserving targeted advertising" via ML uses some information-theoretical definition of privacy that doesn't align with normal user's intuitions about the word "private." We saw this with k-anonymity schemes, and we'll see it again when these schemes attract more scrutiny. And on top of that: Brave's own site implies that local ad ML is currently opt-in only[2]. [1]: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-protection-firefox-desktop https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-prote... [2]: https://brave.com/intro-to-brave-ads/ https://brave.com/intro-to-brave-ads/
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- drewzero1 5y agoThought I recognized the name, check out what his website shows when linked from HN: https://cdn.jwz.org/images/2016/hn.png https://cdn.jwz.org/images/2016/hn.png Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely not a fan of cryptocurrency, but I'm also less than impressed with jwz's maturity. If I didn't know he founded Mozilla, I would've taken him for an angry teenage kid trying to be edgy on the internet.
- donkarma 5y agothank you for reminding me to disable referrers in Firefox :)
- cypherpunks01 5y agoAhem, I believe the correct term may be referers :)
- salt-thrower 5y agoIf he left out "fuck you and fuck this," the rest of the tweet is still incendiary enough to send the message without the edginess. Might have come across better that way. Regardless, it's sad to watch Mozilla debase themselves, not only by supporting crypto at this stage of the game, but with cringeworthy meme language like "HODL." That was funny for about a week during the Gamestop fiasco; a year later it's another "how do you do, fellow kids" moment.
- rchaud 5y agoYou have to meet the customer where they are. Dogecoin IS a meme and has/had a multi-billion dollar cap. Can't blame Mozilla for openly scraping the bottom of the barrel with their marketing.
- salt-thrower 5y ago> Can't blame Mozilla for openly scraping the bottom of the barrel with their marketing. Yes I can. It makes them look cheap and corny, and weakens their credibility. > Dogecoin IS a meme and has/had a multi-billion dollar cap Sure, for about a month, a year ago. It's old news. Anyone still "HODLing" Doge is just a speculator who missed the last wave and is desperately hoping it'll come back so they can sell out. Point is, Mozilla is wasting their time by marketing to that crowd. Scraping the bottom of the barrel is a bad look.
- tasha0663 5y agoHe's one of the more entertaining figures of that generation. IIRC there were some huge flamewars between him and rms during the Xemacs fork. He still maintains XScreensaver, but now his day job is the ownership of a bar/pizza/venue establishment.
- buildbuildbuild 5y agoIf someone wants to give you money, take it. They can mandate more environmentally conscious PoS cryptocurrencies if they want. If I call Mozilla and offer to donate a million shares of the dirtiest Earth-polluting company, they should take them. Exit the position. Their mission is not to be picky about how legal money arrives.
- woodruffw 5y agoThe Mozilla Foundation's "mission," as a 501(c)3, is whatever they decide. They're not beholden to any obligations to maximize donations (already a dubious claim, absent evidence that people were actually donating with cryptocurrencies) in manners they consider unacceptable. Put another way: you wouldn't be surprised if the ASPCA refused donations in the form of shares in PuppyKicker Inc. Mozilla's decision here warrants a similar response.
- buildbuildbuild 5y agoWhat’s uninformed is caving to a blanket rejection of all cryptocurrency despite there being many eco-friendlier alternatives to Bitcoin, and many ways to offset approximate carbon footprints. If you’re a “privacy company,” you better learn about privacy coins. They’re essentially saying “PuppyKicker Inc. is a stock. Therefore, all stocks are bad.” What’s the carbon footprint of accepting a large donation from Google? How many flights, full time staff are involved with ensuring this? Their decision is short sighted for many reasons, including the unpopular truth that in the long term they will need to natively support cryptocurrency “Web 3” features to survive as a competitive browser.
- smsm42 5y agoSurely, the mission of "looking good on twitter" is as noble as any. They probably have enough money from Google anyway, why would they need any other?
- woodruffw 5y ago> They probably have enough money from Google anyway, why would they need any other? If I was in charge of Mozilla's finances (which I'm not), I would be perpetually anxious about Google yanking their money as soon as its lawyers are sufficiently convinced that another browser vendor's marketshare sufficiently deflates any accusations of monopoly.
- jasonhansel 5y agoPerfect response from @jwz. "Planet-incinerating Ponzi grifter" is an excellent phrase. I suggest we turn "PIPG" into an acronym. edit: For example: "Tesla used to accept Bitcoin as payment, but once Elon Musk realized that it was making him look like a PIPG, he had to reverse course."
- salt-thrower 5y agoThe only catch is it doesn't have intuitive pronunciation. "Pip gee?" Why not just "Planet-Incinerating Grifter," or PIG. Then it also applies to Big Oil executives :)
- mistrial9 5y agodefinitely direct all rage at crypto people and ignore Big Oil at YNews, where people have a say with crypto but not at all with Big Oil. makes sense when viewed that way
- rchaud 5y agoThis is a software forum, and crypto is software. Perhaps a message board for geological engineers might be better for finding criticisms of Big Oil.
- throwaway946513 5y agoI thought by the nature of the forum submissions that it was essentially any STEM-related links or posts would be applicable. Geological Engineers are still considered STEM.
- salt-thrower 5y agoEasier to make fun of crypto because at least oil has obvious real-world utility, and (unfortunately) still props up our economy. Crypto is like a sideshow. It's also a hot new topic which makes it fun to argue about. That's not to defend Big Oil or its shills. That industry should've been hamstrung years ago like the poison market it is. But it might be why HN gets extra riled up about crypto while letting other things slide.
- riffic 5y agojwz, for context, is Jamie Zawinski. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski
- jordigh 5y agoSeeing the other replies here, kids these days got no respect for their elders. Hey, let me check if he still checks the HN referer and insults us if we follow links from HN to his blog: https://www.jwz.org/blog/2022/01/today-on-sick-sad-world-how-the-cryptobros-have-fallen/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2022/01/today-on-sick-sad-world-how... Edit: Aw, nope, looks like he got rid of it
- bellyfullofbac 5y agoIt insulted me (correction: it redirected me to the image meant to insult), seems like your browser could be blocking referers by default (maybe they block it if it's an external link?)
- jnwatson 5y agoHilarious. Some people just don’t mature past 15 years old.
- twic 5y agoI confirm i also saw the Egg.
- partomniscient 5y agoEven more context: Project Code Rush - The Beginnings of Netscape / Mozilla Documentary [1] [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q7FTjhvZ7Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q7FTjhvZ7Y
- dboreham 5y agoI'm just behind the camera at 1:48
- thesausageking 5y ago
- steelstraw 5y agoHe should be ashamed of displaying such a combination of ignorance and arrogance. Having alternative currencies is incredibly important for those living under corrupt regimes and/or hyperinflation and/or unbanked, and most cryptocurrencies don't use proof of work. They could just not accept Bitcoin and Eth1 then. A single Google Search: 1,080 J A single Solana transaction: 1,837 J One eth2 transaction: 126,000 J Watching an hour of television on a 40 inch+ LCD TV: 540,000 J https://solana.com/news/solana-energy-usage-report-november-2021 https://solana.com/news/solana-energy-usage-report-november-...
- gspr 5y agoI really do sympathize with people living under corrupt regimes. And I sympathize with them having to use a metal pipe to whack someone in the head to survive. Does that mean that non-profits should start embracing head-whacking?
- RC_ITR 5y agoI think the poster isn't actually living under a corrupt regime because (and I always come back to this), you can't really buy crypto with currencies outside of USD/EUR/JPY/KRW/sometimes RMB and if you have access to those, then you already have hyper-inflation protection taht has historically preformed much better than any crypto has.
- mey 5y agoI notice you are avoiding listing Bitcoin and PoW Eth here. If https://www.statista.com/statistics/881541/bitcoin-energy-consumption-transaction-comparison-visa/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/881541/bitcoin-energy-co... is to be believed 1779.11 kWh per single Bitcoin transaction would be One Bitcoin Edit: Block Mined: 6,404,796,000 J One Bitcoin Transaction on a Block: 2,287,427 J One Credit Card Transaction: 5,351 J Edit: Since the source isn't exactly clear if one transaction is a reference to one block mined or one transaction on that block, I'm going to assume it is for one block mined. I'm going to estimate one block contains 2800 transactions.
- 5y ago
- tejohnso 5y ago> Ponzi grifters You want to talk about Ponzi? Crypto has nothing on the Fed. The global financial structure is a planet-incinerating Ponzi scheme, so the point of targeting one minuscule subset of it is suspect.
- kyleee 5y agoIroncially backed by an ungodly amount of violence and emissions
- pygy_ 5y agoThat's crypto's weak point. Blockchains are effective as long as gun toting folks let the miners mine. I'd be surprised if Uncle Sam decided to drop the dollar and lose the influence it provides.
- phatfish 5y agoThe US will never "drop the dollar" while it continues to exist as a nation. Why would the US government allow a system they don't control to run their economy? A blockchain based "e-dollar" is certainly possible, but Bitcoin will forever be a hugely wasteful online casino.
- cowpig 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
- slices 5y agonot whataboutism, as US dollars would be the obvious alternative to accepting crypto
- input_sh 5y agoI mean, sure, but replacing it with another ponzi scheme with even less checks and balances isn't really gonna solve anything, but make things worse.
- Shadonototra 5y ago> The tweet prompted a strong reaction from Mozilla founder jwz wrong, the tweet prompted a strong reaction from people, founder jwz then reacted too few days later