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Is there some secret FAANG-driven effort to just mess with the Mozilla CEO every couple years? They’re a seemingly worthless company to attract so much heat for

Is there some secret FAANG-driven effort to just mess with the Mozilla CEO every couple years? They’re a seemingly worthless company to attract so much heat for their executives.

dchftcs 3y ago
It's not worthless; many people still want to like the product and would like the company to improve. Alas it seems to be a lost cause given what's discussed over the years, better move on and use the energy to support a browser focused on user experience that actually has a future.
Jensson 3y ago
> They’re a seemingly worthless company to attract so much heat for their executives. Most nerds used Firefox so they didn't use to be worthless, and those nerds care about what happened to the company.
naremu 3y ago
I think many people here probably use Firefox to some degree and are concerned at the sustainability of the entity that makes it, especially since it seems to follow a for-profit trend of higher executive pay even though it's non-profit and not on the most stable, defensible grounds compared to competing software.
- MBCook 3y ago
  That’s the bit that really burns for me. I don’t know if they can make enough money for Firefox to survive. But over the years they’ve spent money on an email client basically no one uses, trying to make a social network, trying to make a phone operating system, and who knows what else. Just huge amounts of money going to what often looks like a complete fools errand. I understand Thunderbird but a phone OS? Money that could’ve gone to either make Firefox better or to advertise/promote it. If FF was doing great in the market and they had millions of spare dollars, pursuing other things that match their goals would make sense. But that really doesn’t seem like where they are. Instead it feels a lot more like if private equity bought an open source project.
  - grodriguez100 3y ago
    > But over the years they’ve spent money on an email client basically no one uses, trying to make a social network, trying to make a phone operating system, and who knows what else. Just huge amounts of money going to what often looks like a complete fools errand. I understand Thunderbird but a phone OS? Keep in mind that both Firefox and Thunderbird started life as an evolution of the original “Mozilla Suite” which itself was an evolution of Netscape Communicator, which included a browser and an email client. So originally both were part of the core mission of Mozilla. Thunderbird failed to gain much traction though and it was later spun off — it is now developed by a separate company (a Mozilla subsidiary). > but a phone OS? Yes, this does not make much sense to me either.
    - MBCook 3y ago
      Honestly I don’t expect that Thunderbird ever cost too much when they were still developing it, but even at the time I’m not sure it would’ve been worth it. The other stuff is just me-too insanity from what I can tell. And now of course they’re talking about AI.
MBCook 3y ago
Even if you’re not a Firefox user, Firefox and Safari are the only two things keeping Chrome from total dominance. A lot of people don’t like Safari because it’s from Apple, the priorities they choose, or the fact that is not fully open source like Firefox is. There are basically three rendering engines right now. One dominates massively and one looks not long for the world. That doesn’t seem like a good situation to me. So I don’t want Firefox to die even though it’s not my daily browser.
- ramesh31 3y ago
  >That doesn’t seem like a good situation to me. So I don’t want Firefox to die even though it’s not my daily browser. ...so make it your daily browser? Seriously, there's no reason at all to still be using Chrome. There was a dip in the mid/late 2010s where FF was a joke in comparison, but they're more or less identical in performance at this point.
  - MBCook 3y ago
    I don’t use Chrome. I use Safari. It is and has always been my choice since it was released. But I still think it’s better if Firefox exists. —— My experience has been kind of odd compared to most. I switched to the Mac before Chrome or Safari came out. When Safari arrived it was vastly faster than anything else at the time. So it became my browser. People on Windows or Linux couldn’t use Safari (I tried the Windows version, let’s not talk about that, ouch). So when Chrome came out, and they left IE/FF, they got the same giant performance jump that I liked so much but associated it with a different product. I’m sure I would’ve done the same thing if I was still on Windows. Firefox eventually got way better, becoming what it is today. But almost everyone had already moved to Chrome. I’m left with this sort of weird view of the world. When I did try Chrome it wasn’t noticeably faster than Safari because it was using the same rendering engine at the time, but it had a really different UI design that I didn’t like. So a huge amount of people really love Chrome because of their experiences, and I hate it for the same reason. All because of the order I ended up using browsers in.
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  >Firefox and Safari are the only two things keeping Chrome from total dominance. Safari yes, but truthfully nobody gives a damn about Firefox at this point. >A lot of people don’t like Safari because it’s from Apple, the priorities they choose, or the fact that is not fully open source like Firefox is. "A lot" meaning a minority of a minority of people. Lest we forget, iOS is superior to Android in at least the US and Japan, and MacOS continues to gain market share at the cost of Windows. Most people like (or at least want) Apple.
boomboomsubban 3y ago
Most companies aren't connected to a nonprofit, so don't need to publish their financial information in such detail.
plsbenice34 3y ago
I think it makes perfect sense that money would be flowing from powerful entities in a way that cripples Mozilla. The CEO is getting rewarded for their lack of performance as a competitor to Google Chrome. Controlled opposition and so on.

Is there some secret FAANG-driven effort to just mess with the Mozilla CEO every couple years? They’re a seemingly worthless company to attract so much heat for their executives.

dchftcs 3y ago

It's not worthless; many people still want to like the product and would like the company to improve. Alas it seems to be a lost cause given what's discussed over the years, better move on and use the energy to support a browser focused on user experience that actually has a future.

Jensson 3y ago

> They’re a seemingly worthless company to attract so much heat for their executives. Most nerds used Firefox so they didn't use to be worthless, and those nerds care about what happened to the company.

naremu 3y ago

I think many people here probably use Firefox to some degree and are concerned at the sustainability of the entity that makes it, especially since it seems to follow a for-profit trend of higher executive pay even though it's non-profit and not on the most stable, defensible grounds compared to competing software.

MBCook 3y ago
That’s the bit that really burns for me. I don’t know if they can make enough money for Firefox to survive. But over the years they’ve spent money on an email client basically no one uses, trying to make a social network, trying to make a phone operating system, and who knows what else. Just huge amounts of money going to what often looks like a complete fools errand. I understand Thunderbird but a phone OS? Money that could’ve gone to either make Firefox better or to advertise/promote it. If FF was doing great in the market and they had millions of spare dollars, pursuing other things that match their goals would make sense. But that really doesn’t seem like where they are. Instead it feels a lot more like if private equity bought an open source project.
- grodriguez100 3y ago
  > But over the years they’ve spent money on an email client basically no one uses, trying to make a social network, trying to make a phone operating system, and who knows what else. Just huge amounts of money going to what often looks like a complete fools errand. I understand Thunderbird but a phone OS? Keep in mind that both Firefox and Thunderbird started life as an evolution of the original “Mozilla Suite” which itself was an evolution of Netscape Communicator, which included a browser and an email client. So originally both were part of the core mission of Mozilla. Thunderbird failed to gain much traction though and it was later spun off — it is now developed by a separate company (a Mozilla subsidiary). > but a phone OS? Yes, this does not make much sense to me either.
  - MBCook 3y ago
    Honestly I don’t expect that Thunderbird ever cost too much when they were still developing it, but even at the time I’m not sure it would’ve been worth it. The other stuff is just me-too insanity from what I can tell. And now of course they’re talking about AI.

MBCook 3y ago

Even if you’re not a Firefox user, Firefox and Safari are the only two things keeping Chrome from total dominance. A lot of people don’t like Safari because it’s from Apple, the priorities they choose, or the fact that is not fully open source like Firefox is. There are basically three rendering engines right now. One dominates massively and one looks not long for the world. That doesn’t seem like a good situation to me. So I don’t want Firefox to die even though it’s not my daily browser.

ramesh31 3y ago
>That doesn’t seem like a good situation to me. So I don’t want Firefox to die even though it’s not my daily browser. ...so make it your daily browser? Seriously, there's no reason at all to still be using Chrome. There was a dip in the mid/late 2010s where FF was a joke in comparison, but they're more or less identical in performance at this point.
- MBCook 3y ago
  I don’t use Chrome. I use Safari. It is and has always been my choice since it was released. But I still think it’s better if Firefox exists. —— My experience has been kind of odd compared to most. I switched to the Mac before Chrome or Safari came out. When Safari arrived it was vastly faster than anything else at the time. So it became my browser. People on Windows or Linux couldn’t use Safari (I tried the Windows version, let’s not talk about that, ouch). So when Chrome came out, and they left IE/FF, they got the same giant performance jump that I liked so much but associated it with a different product. I’m sure I would’ve done the same thing if I was still on Windows. Firefox eventually got way better, becoming what it is today. But almost everyone had already moved to Chrome. I’m left with this sort of weird view of the world. When I did try Chrome it wasn’t noticeably faster than Safari because it was using the same rendering engine at the time, but it had a really different UI design that I didn’t like. So a huge amount of people really love Chrome because of their experiences, and I hate it for the same reason. All because of the order I ended up using browsers in.
Dalewyn 3y ago
>Firefox and Safari are the only two things keeping Chrome from total dominance. Safari yes, but truthfully nobody gives a damn about Firefox at this point. >A lot of people don’t like Safari because it’s from Apple, the priorities they choose, or the fact that is not fully open source like Firefox is. "A lot" meaning a minority of a minority of people. Lest we forget, iOS is superior to Android in at least the US and Japan, and MacOS continues to gain market share at the cost of Windows. Most people like (or at least want) Apple.

boomboomsubban 3y ago

Most companies aren't connected to a nonprofit, so don't need to publish their financial information in such detail.

plsbenice34 3y ago

I think it makes perfect sense that money would be flowing from powerful entities in a way that cripples Mozilla. The CEO is getting rewarded for their lack of performance as a competitor to Google Chrome. Controlled opposition and so on.