10 ms·

Mozilla: Please please please just concentrate on making an awesome browser people want to use. Then market it.

by preinheimer 4y ago

umeshunni 4y ago
They have failed at that, so now they're just figuring out ways to spend the free money they have.
- buscoquadnary 4y ago
  They didn't fail they were sabatoged by an incompetent CEO.
  - umeshunni 4y ago
    which one?
    - account42 4y ago
      Perhaps the one that has multiplied her own salary while the browser gets less and less relevant. https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html
multiplegeorges 4y ago
So, where in your plan do they make money?
- claudiulodro 4y ago
  Same way anyone with a platform product makes money: premium tiers or paid extensions.
  - paulryanrogers 4y ago
    And yet the market leader by a wide margin doesn't do any of that. They are bankrolled by a near monopoly on ads in various markets.
- nmilo 4y ago
  They're a non-profit.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
    They still have bills to pay. Being a non-profit doesn't mean they don't need revenue.
    - thrown_22 4y ago
      For starters they can fire the CEO that's seen their market share decrease by an order of magnitude while seeing her pay increase by an order of magnitude. After that go down the org chart and fire everyone not coding for the browser. Then you can live off donations until the end of time.
      - paulryanrogers 4y ago
        This strategy won't work if no one is organizing the work ahead. They can't be coding full time and administrating a project as complex as a modern browser. Especially not when competing against a complex beast like Chrome. (Though I do agree there may be too much money going into admin.)
        thrown_22 4y ago
        Well it isn't working now so not much will change.
      - pacifika 4y ago
        You can’t live off donations unless you make it look like a subscription
  - Rebelgecko 4y ago
    Mozilla Corp (the company that does most of the dev work) isn't a non-profit, although given their relationship with Mozilla Foundation (which is a non profit) maybe it's not a big distinction.
- prepend 4y ago
  Apache had $3M in revenue and $1.5M in expenses in 2021 [0] with about $1M in donations. Mozilla spent $262M in 2020 [1]. They manage money poorly. [0] https://www.apache.org/foundation/docs/FY2021AnnualReport.pdf https://www.apache.org/foundation/docs/FY2021AnnualReport.pd... [1] https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2020/mozilla-fdn-2020-short-form-0926.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2020/mozilla-fdn-202...
  - abeppu 4y ago
    I think those are comparing very different organizations with different aims. There's a big difference between employing a bunch of people to actually build a complex product that you expect normal people to actually use, vs supporting the governance of OSS projects that are built by other people, largely employed by companies using or offering services around those projects.
    - prepend 4y ago
      They are very different. But my point is that Apache is very successful and produces lots of great software. You don’t have to pay $100M in developer salaries to produce great software. Mozilla is not that great despite having lots and lots of employees. Perhaps rethinking their approach would be useful. But if their revenue goes away, it doesn’t mean Mozilla the browser goes away. Maybe Mozilla should just be a governance process rather than a software developer. The browser would probably have similar quality.
      - fabrice_d 4y ago
        The Apache Foundation doesn't produce the software, people paid by various companies do. This is quite similar to the Mozilla Foundation and Corporation relationship. Who would employ people to work on Firefox if the corp side shuts down eg. because they lose their revenue?
      - tdeck 4y ago
        It's hit or miss. Many Apache projects are basically open source abandonware. It's great that there's an organization to manage the rights to these projects but Apache doesn't have much power to keep them going.
cbtacy 4y ago
Mozilla Foundation (non profit org doing this 'venture fund') != Mozilla Corporation (folks who build firefox)
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  So what? Corp is owned by Foundation and pays Foundation millions every year. They even pay for the Foundation's legal services. Mozilla Foundation is Mozilla Corporation's albatross.
- account42 4y ago
  That the foundation doesn't seem to have any interest in the browser seems to be one of the big issues of the Mozilla setup to me. Then again the Corp and Foundation share leadership.
jitix 4y ago
I had been a Firefox user since 2009 but over the last few years general sites like news and blogs slowly started breaking layouts and events, with JavaScript heavy sites sometimes crashing, esp on m1 air. I found toggling JavaScript and installing extensions is too tedious, esp on iOS devices so I had to move to safari as my primary with brave as a backup. I still have Firefox on all my devices and seriously hope they focus on engineering instead of playing ideology when their revenue stream is shaky at best. I’d honestly pay for tab continuity and other UX improvements as a feature if they improve their css and js engines. I know that chromium has now become what IE was at one point but if Firefox can’t render properly and provide consistent js performance I find it harder and harder to recommend to non technical users. This is from someone who evangelized FF in the 2010s and got many friends on board.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  Javascript off by default makes websites better more often than it breaks websites. I find that whitelisting sites that need first party javascript doesn't take much time and covers 99% of cases; very rarely does a website actually require 3rd party javascript to be whitelisted.
godelski 4y ago
> concentrate on making an awesome browser Is it not? I honestly can't think of anything I'd want it to do more than it already does. I'll be honest, it is difficult to distinguish between browsers these days. But we have holy wars like vim vs emacs, when really the differences are quite small and rather dumb. The reason I use Firefox is literally three things: 1) I don't want Chrome to have a monopoly, 2) I get ad blocking on my phone, 3) if I'm going to install an ad blocker on my browser, I also want my browser to not be tracking me. I'll be honest, these are the only truly unique features (that I use). Otherwise it is near indistinguishable from Chrome. I'm happy with FF and while that's still true I don't mind Mozilla branching out. If I wasn't happy, then yeah, there's a priority issue. But honestly, what's so important that's missing? I don't get this holy war. It just seems like war for the sake of war, and no one benefits from that except those on top.
- jjcon 4y ago
  > Is it not? I honestly can't think of anything I'd want it to do more than it already does. Give me 4x less battery draw and I'll try Firefox again, I want to use and like Firefox but every time I give it a go power usage remains a massive issue. I get at least 4x less power draw in the same activities on chromium based browsers and safari.
- Kuinox 4y ago
  I spent my last evening, and this one, on working around the fact that firefox still doesn't support modules in WebWorkers. And yes, I have a valid reason to use webworker: I'm making writing an online compiler playground. More than half the time, the firefox debugger plainly crash when opening my app, and I have to open a new tab and retry. For some reason I can't put a breakpoint on the statement after an if on the same line. And these are my issue only on the last hour ! I'm using firefox everyday but yes, there is room for improvement. I expected them to add Time Travel Debugging: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/firefox-is-testing-time-travel-debugging/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/firefox-is-te... It was working on mac, then they fired a lot of staff, including the one who were developing it, and now they made their own company out of it: https://www.replay.io/ https://www.replay.io/ And to the one who says "you can contribute", yeah no, I tried, the official docs (back then) gave you the non-optimal ste^s (full clone of the repo (multiples hours due to upstream servers being slow), full local compilation). The worst of it is, the doc tell you to compile firefox, so multiples minutes of wait to test a change, a change made to the devtools, which is entierely written in JS. Oh and of course, you can't plug a debugger on the devtools, so you are stuck with console.logs. Edit: minutes after writing this comments, my just tab crashed: https://i.imgur.com/s1y1JsO.png https://i.imgur.com/s1y1JsO.png

Mozilla: Please please please just concentrate on making an awesome browser people want to use. Then market it.

umeshunni 4y ago

They have failed at that, so now they're just figuring out ways to spend the free money they have.

buscoquadnary 4y ago
They didn't fail they were sabatoged by an incompetent CEO.
- umeshunni 4y ago
  which one?
  - account42 4y ago
    Perhaps the one that has multiplied her own salary while the browser gets less and less relevant. https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html

multiplegeorges 4y ago

So, where in your plan do they make money?

claudiulodro 4y ago
Same way anyone with a platform product makes money: premium tiers or paid extensions.
- paulryanrogers 4y ago
  And yet the market leader by a wide margin doesn't do any of that. They are bankrolled by a near monopoly on ads in various markets.
nmilo 4y ago
They're a non-profit.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
  They still have bills to pay. Being a non-profit doesn't mean they don't need revenue.
  - thrown_22 4y ago
    For starters they can fire the CEO that's seen their market share decrease by an order of magnitude while seeing her pay increase by an order of magnitude. After that go down the org chart and fire everyone not coding for the browser. Then you can live off donations until the end of time.
    - paulryanrogers 4y ago
      This strategy won't work if no one is organizing the work ahead. They can't be coding full time and administrating a project as complex as a modern browser. Especially not when competing against a complex beast like Chrome. (Though I do agree there may be too much money going into admin.)
      - thrown_22 4y ago
        Well it isn't working now so not much will change.
    - pacifika 4y ago
      You can’t live off donations unless you make it look like a subscription
- Rebelgecko 4y ago
  Mozilla Corp (the company that does most of the dev work) isn't a non-profit, although given their relationship with Mozilla Foundation (which is a non profit) maybe it's not a big distinction.
prepend 4y ago
Apache had $3M in revenue and $1.5M in expenses in 2021 [0] with about $1M in donations. Mozilla spent $262M in 2020 [1]. They manage money poorly. [0] https://www.apache.org/foundation/docs/FY2021AnnualReport.pdf https://www.apache.org/foundation/docs/FY2021AnnualReport.pd... [1] https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2020/mozilla-fdn-2020-short-form-0926.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2020/mozilla-fdn-202...
- abeppu 4y ago
  I think those are comparing very different organizations with different aims. There's a big difference between employing a bunch of people to actually build a complex product that you expect normal people to actually use, vs supporting the governance of OSS projects that are built by other people, largely employed by companies using or offering services around those projects.
  - prepend 4y ago
    They are very different. But my point is that Apache is very successful and produces lots of great software. You don’t have to pay $100M in developer salaries to produce great software. Mozilla is not that great despite having lots and lots of employees. Perhaps rethinking their approach would be useful. But if their revenue goes away, it doesn’t mean Mozilla the browser goes away. Maybe Mozilla should just be a governance process rather than a software developer. The browser would probably have similar quality.
    - fabrice_d 4y ago
      The Apache Foundation doesn't produce the software, people paid by various companies do. This is quite similar to the Mozilla Foundation and Corporation relationship. Who would employ people to work on Firefox if the corp side shuts down eg. because they lose their revenue?
    - tdeck 4y ago
      It's hit or miss. Many Apache projects are basically open source abandonware. It's great that there's an organization to manage the rights to these projects but Apache doesn't have much power to keep them going.

cbtacy 4y ago

Mozilla Foundation (non profit org doing this 'venture fund') != Mozilla Corporation (folks who build firefox)

MichaelCollins 4y ago
So what? Corp is owned by Foundation and pays Foundation millions every year. They even pay for the Foundation's legal services. Mozilla Foundation is Mozilla Corporation's albatross.
account42 4y ago
That the foundation doesn't seem to have any interest in the browser seems to be one of the big issues of the Mozilla setup to me. Then again the Corp and Foundation share leadership.

jitix 4y ago

I had been a Firefox user since 2009 but over the last few years general sites like news and blogs slowly started breaking layouts and events, with JavaScript heavy sites sometimes crashing, esp on m1 air. I found toggling JavaScript and installing extensions is too tedious, esp on iOS devices so I had to move to safari as my primary with brave as a backup. I still have Firefox on all my devices and seriously hope they focus on engineering instead of playing ideology when their revenue stream is shaky at best. I’d honestly pay for tab continuity and other UX improvements as a feature if they improve their css and js engines. I know that chromium has now become what IE was at one point but if Firefox can’t render properly and provide consistent js performance I find it harder and harder to recommend to non technical users. This is from someone who evangelized FF in the 2010s and got many friends on board.

MichaelCollins 4y ago
Javascript off by default makes websites better more often than it breaks websites. I find that whitelisting sites that need first party javascript doesn't take much time and covers 99% of cases; very rarely does a website actually require 3rd party javascript to be whitelisted.

godelski 4y ago

> concentrate on making an awesome browser Is it not? I honestly can't think of anything I'd want it to do more than it already does. I'll be honest, it is difficult to distinguish between browsers these days. But we have holy wars like vim vs emacs, when really the differences are quite small and rather dumb. The reason I use Firefox is literally three things: 1) I don't want Chrome to have a monopoly, 2) I get ad blocking on my phone, 3) if I'm going to install an ad blocker on my browser, I also want my browser to not be tracking me. I'll be honest, these are the only truly unique features (that I use). Otherwise it is near indistinguishable from Chrome. I'm happy with FF and while that's still true I don't mind Mozilla branching out. If I wasn't happy, then yeah, there's a priority issue. But honestly, what's so important that's missing? I don't get this holy war. It just seems like war for the sake of war, and no one benefits from that except those on top.

jjcon 4y ago
> Is it not? I honestly can't think of anything I'd want it to do more than it already does. Give me 4x less battery draw and I'll try Firefox again, I want to use and like Firefox but every time I give it a go power usage remains a massive issue. I get at least 4x less power draw in the same activities on chromium based browsers and safari.
Kuinox 4y ago
I spent my last evening, and this one, on working around the fact that firefox still doesn't support modules in WebWorkers. And yes, I have a valid reason to use webworker: I'm making writing an online compiler playground. More than half the time, the firefox debugger plainly crash when opening my app, and I have to open a new tab and retry. For some reason I can't put a breakpoint on the statement after an if on the same line. And these are my issue only on the last hour ! I'm using firefox everyday but yes, there is room for improvement. I expected them to add Time Travel Debugging: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/firefox-is-testing-time-travel-debugging/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/firefox-is-te... It was working on mac, then they fired a lot of staff, including the one who were developing it, and now they made their own company out of it: https://www.replay.io/ https://www.replay.io/ And to the one who says "you can contribute", yeah no, I tried, the official docs (back then) gave you the non-optimal ste^s (full clone of the repo (multiples hours due to upstream servers being slow), full local compilation). The worst of it is, the doc tell you to compile firefox, so multiples minutes of wait to test a change, a change made to the devtools, which is entierely written in JS. Oh and of course, you can't plug a debugger on the devtools, so you are stuck with console.logs. Edit: minutes after writing this comments, my just tab crashed: https://i.imgur.com/s1y1JsO.png https://i.imgur.com/s1y1JsO.png