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> Thank goodness. Mitchell Baker was running Mozilla into the ground while stuffing her pockets. Can you please elaborate more on this and ideally provide som

> Thank goodness. Mitchell Baker was running Mozilla into the ground while stuffing her pockets. Can you please elaborate more on this and ideally provide some examples ?

xnx 3y ago
2008 to 2022: Firefox market share down 90%. Mozilla CEO pay up 700%.
- _kwef 3y ago
  Just a quick note; the market share decrease is relative to FF's original market share, in 2008. This may seem obvious to some but its really easy to get confused about absolute/relative changes when talking about percentages of percentages.
  - csdvrx 3y ago
    Relative is all that matters. A rising tide lifts all boats. Microsoft has grown faster and larger than Google from 2013 to 2013: 1000% compared to Google 400% Firefox relative market share down by 90% is a ripple effect of Google generous donations, creating a disincentive for innovation.
tux3 3y ago
The title chart from this article caught on like wildfire a few years ago: https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html "Firefox usage is down 85% despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up 400%".
- Night_Thastus 3y ago
  I'm not sure that FF going down in usage can be put on the CEO at this point. There's way too many forces against them, it is not a "fair" fight against the only other option. Google is way larger and has deals set in place to ensure that basically everyone ends up with it as the default. Let that go on for a generation or two and people forget all about FF. They cannot compete against that. As for CEO pay, that's typical. Asking or expecting for it to not go up exponentially is pointless, that's just how it works now.
  - tux3 3y ago
    Without trying to pin everything on the CEO, I don't think it's also fair to treat Firefox as helpless and doomed. For another data point we can look at Thunderbird, another Mozilla project. Thunderbird had started stagnating. It was borderline abandoned for a while, until Mozilla made it official. The community tried to catch the discarded codebase and keep it alive, Thunderbird got a new home. Remember we're talking about a desktop email client in the age where a couple major companies entirely own email, as a concept. Email _is_ Gmail and Outlook, it's not even close to a fair fight for a small third party email client to compete against that. Nevertheless, Thunderbird is growing again. https://fosdem.org/2024/events/attachments/fosdem-2024-2728-thunderbird-why-visual-change-is-good/slides/22295/FOSDEM_-_Why_Visual_Change_Is_Good_5pNtd9J.pdf#page=21 https://fosdem.org/2024/events/attachments/fosdem-2024-2728-...
    - nozzlegear 3y ago
      Am I crazy, or is there no label for the Y-axis on those graphs? Do we know how much Thunderbird has actually grown?
      - leipert 3y ago
        Probably screenshots from here: https://stats.thunderbird.net/ https://stats.thunderbird.net/
  - amanzi 3y ago
    Even us die-hard Firefox users are forced to use other browsers just to get full PWA support. If Mozilla makes it difficult for fans of their browser to stick with Firefox, it's not surprising that non-Firefox users won't bother sticking with it or even trying it in the first place.
    - zelphirkalt 3y ago
      It is not really Mozilla doing anything to make it difficult to get the same experience, but rather uninformed or ignorant web developers building Chromium/Chrome-only experiences. For examples just check out the uninformed tech stack of Slack, MS Teams, and similar that so many companies use. None of those tools work properly in FF, since their devs do not create a cross browser experience adhering to standards. While I am not particularly a fan of Discord, I want to mention, that already years ago they had a working voice and video chat working in the browser in FF. No idiotic gaslighting attempt of "having to change the browser". A notification on a website stating that one must use another browser is a sign of utter incompetence or ignorance.
- wand3r 3y ago
  Tangential, but this spurred an interest in reading a few of their annual reports. It seems general purpose LLMs are bad at doing this, at least when I asked what annual revenue was it confidently said $466m for 2020 but the report said 496867 so basically $497m. Anyone have a blogpost/video/guide on the basics of reading financial statements? I definitely could brush up on whats important within these statements and how to better interpret them.... Edit: the reason I replied here, was because I wanted to see how the company did during her tenure as CEO. That was the leap my brain took.
justinclift 3y ago
This should cover it pretty well: https://www.reddit.com/r/browsers/comments/yy986k/can_someone_explain_why_mozillas_ceo_salary/ https://www.reddit.com/r/browsers/comments/yy986k/can_someon...
_xivi 3y ago
I'm not OP, but here're the highlights: - Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24563698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24563698 - Mozilla CEO says layoffs needed amid shift from browser: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23332810 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23332810 - Mozilla cuts 250 jobs, says Firefox development will be affected: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/08/firefox-maker-mozilla-lays-off-250-workers-says-covid-19-lowered-revenue/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/08/firef...
- wolverine876 3y ago
  Lots of tech companies are laying off people, and generally not all layoffs are wrong. How do you distinguish whether Mozilla's layoffs, etc, are wrong? I agree about the pay.
  - _xivi 3y ago
    > Lots of tech companies are laying off people, and generally not all layoffs are wrong. How do you distinguish whether Mozilla's layoffs, etc, are wrong? No one is complaining about Mozilla's layoffs in a void. Even if they were no layoffs whatsoever, the facts remains: 1. Firefox was neglected and lost a massive market share. 2. Executives were flourishing while the ship was going under Mozilla's layoffs were just a more tangible symptom of her strategy that the browser is a low-priority.
    - wolverine876 3y ago
      > the facts remains: / 1. Firefox was neglected and lost a massive market share. What is the factual basis for saying that Firefox was neglected? Lots of stuff is repeated around here, but it's not impression from any facts.
      - _xivi 3y ago
        > What is the factual basis for saying that Firefox was neglected? Lots of stuff is repeated around here, but it's not impression from any facts. Interesting, what do you attribute Firefox's bleeding out marketshare steadily over the past decade to if not neglect from leadership? Strategy is at the core of the CEO role and other executives. Mitchell Baker actually stated herself, I think in 2020 at the time of layoffs, that Mozilla needed to focus on stuff like decentralized web, artificial intelligence, security and privacy network, etc. So yes it seems evident that the browser was neglected to pursue other endeavors, that mind you, didn't see much success either.

> Thank goodness. Mitchell Baker was running Mozilla into the ground while stuffing her pockets. Can you please elaborate more on this and ideally provide some examples ?

xnx 3y ago

2008 to 2022: Firefox market share down 90%. Mozilla CEO pay up 700%.

_kwef 3y ago
Just a quick note; the market share decrease is relative to FF's original market share, in 2008. This may seem obvious to some but its really easy to get confused about absolute/relative changes when talking about percentages of percentages.
- csdvrx 3y ago
  Relative is all that matters. A rising tide lifts all boats. Microsoft has grown faster and larger than Google from 2013 to 2013: 1000% compared to Google 400% Firefox relative market share down by 90% is a ripple effect of Google generous donations, creating a disincentive for innovation.

tux3 3y ago

The title chart from this article caught on like wildfire a few years ago: https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html "Firefox usage is down 85% despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up 400%".

Night_Thastus 3y ago
I'm not sure that FF going down in usage can be put on the CEO at this point. There's way too many forces against them, it is not a "fair" fight against the only other option. Google is way larger and has deals set in place to ensure that basically everyone ends up with it as the default. Let that go on for a generation or two and people forget all about FF. They cannot compete against that. As for CEO pay, that's typical. Asking or expecting for it to not go up exponentially is pointless, that's just how it works now.
- tux3 3y ago
  Without trying to pin everything on the CEO, I don't think it's also fair to treat Firefox as helpless and doomed. For another data point we can look at Thunderbird, another Mozilla project. Thunderbird had started stagnating. It was borderline abandoned for a while, until Mozilla made it official. The community tried to catch the discarded codebase and keep it alive, Thunderbird got a new home. Remember we're talking about a desktop email client in the age where a couple major companies entirely own email, as a concept. Email _is_ Gmail and Outlook, it's not even close to a fair fight for a small third party email client to compete against that. Nevertheless, Thunderbird is growing again. https://fosdem.org/2024/events/attachments/fosdem-2024-2728-thunderbird-why-visual-change-is-good/slides/22295/FOSDEM_-_Why_Visual_Change_Is_Good_5pNtd9J.pdf#page=21 https://fosdem.org/2024/events/attachments/fosdem-2024-2728-...
  - nozzlegear 3y ago
    Am I crazy, or is there no label for the Y-axis on those graphs? Do we know how much Thunderbird has actually grown?
    - leipert 3y ago
      Probably screenshots from here: https://stats.thunderbird.net/ https://stats.thunderbird.net/
- amanzi 3y ago
  Even us die-hard Firefox users are forced to use other browsers just to get full PWA support. If Mozilla makes it difficult for fans of their browser to stick with Firefox, it's not surprising that non-Firefox users won't bother sticking with it or even trying it in the first place.
  - zelphirkalt 3y ago
    It is not really Mozilla doing anything to make it difficult to get the same experience, but rather uninformed or ignorant web developers building Chromium/Chrome-only experiences. For examples just check out the uninformed tech stack of Slack, MS Teams, and similar that so many companies use. None of those tools work properly in FF, since their devs do not create a cross browser experience adhering to standards. While I am not particularly a fan of Discord, I want to mention, that already years ago they had a working voice and video chat working in the browser in FF. No idiotic gaslighting attempt of "having to change the browser". A notification on a website stating that one must use another browser is a sign of utter incompetence or ignorance.
wand3r 3y ago
Tangential, but this spurred an interest in reading a few of their annual reports. It seems general purpose LLMs are bad at doing this, at least when I asked what annual revenue was it confidently said $466m for 2020 but the report said 496867 so basically $497m. Anyone have a blogpost/video/guide on the basics of reading financial statements? I definitely could brush up on whats important within these statements and how to better interpret them.... Edit: the reason I replied here, was because I wanted to see how the company did during her tenure as CEO. That was the leap my brain took.

justinclift 3y ago

This should cover it pretty well: https://www.reddit.com/r/browsers/comments/yy986k/can_someone_explain_why_mozillas_ceo_salary/ https://www.reddit.com/r/browsers/comments/yy986k/can_someon...

_xivi 3y ago

I'm not OP, but here're the highlights: - Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24563698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24563698 - Mozilla CEO says layoffs needed amid shift from browser: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23332810 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23332810 - Mozilla cuts 250 jobs, says Firefox development will be affected: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/08/firefox-maker-mozilla-lays-off-250-workers-says-covid-19-lowered-revenue/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/08/firef...

wolverine876 3y ago
Lots of tech companies are laying off people, and generally not all layoffs are wrong. How do you distinguish whether Mozilla's layoffs, etc, are wrong? I agree about the pay.
- _xivi 3y ago
  > Lots of tech companies are laying off people, and generally not all layoffs are wrong. How do you distinguish whether Mozilla's layoffs, etc, are wrong? No one is complaining about Mozilla's layoffs in a void. Even if they were no layoffs whatsoever, the facts remains: 1. Firefox was neglected and lost a massive market share. 2. Executives were flourishing while the ship was going under Mozilla's layoffs were just a more tangible symptom of her strategy that the browser is a low-priority.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    > the facts remains: / 1. Firefox was neglected and lost a massive market share. What is the factual basis for saying that Firefox was neglected? Lots of stuff is repeated around here, but it's not impression from any facts.
    - _xivi 3y ago
      > What is the factual basis for saying that Firefox was neglected? Lots of stuff is repeated around here, but it's not impression from any facts. Interesting, what do you attribute Firefox's bleeding out marketshare steadily over the past decade to if not neglect from leadership? Strategy is at the core of the CEO role and other executives. Mitchell Baker actually stated herself, I think in 2020 at the time of layoffs, that Mozilla needed to focus on stuff like decentralized web, artificial intelligence, security and privacy network, etc. So yes it seems evident that the browser was neglected to pursue other endeavors, that mind you, didn't see much success either.