5 ms·

I also worked for Mozilla in that time period (I left just before they canceled FxOS) and found Mitchell to be an inspiring leader. OTOH, the track record over

I also worked for Mozilla in that time period (I left just before they canceled FxOS) and found Mitchell to be an inspiring leader. OTOH, the track record over the last few years suggests she's not as great an executor.

paulryanrogers 3y ago
It was an impossible situation. Chrome can be funded and promoted by some of the most dominant web properties in the world. Even Microsoft is struggling to get a foothold with Edge, and that's after turning it into a Chrome reskin. Not saying the comp package was justified. But it was a job doomed to fail.
- acdha 3y ago
  Yeah, to the extent that I’d criticize her it’s for not calling more for antitrust enforcement and since that’s basically asking Google to cut the lifeline, I don’t see how that could have worked in the current climate.
  - paulryanrogers 3y ago
    Mozilla sold defaults to a variety of vendors, most notably Yahoo, and others outside the US. Arguably they should have refused Google money from the jump.
    - acdha 3y ago
      The thing is, they’re in a really expensive place and almost everyone on the web has been trained to think of browsers as free. I don’t know what alternatives they could have picked at the time.
      - paulryanrogers 3y ago
        My point is they had no way out. It was a glass cliff. Only regulations can stand up to competitors as powerful as Google and Apple.
- jodrellblank 3y ago
  > "Even Microsoft is struggling to get a foothold with Edge, and that's after turning it into a Chrome reskin." New Edge was released in January 2020 with Chrome around 70% of the browser market. By May 2022 new Edge was the second most popular at like 10%. Safari gained and took second in 2023, Edge reached record high browser share 11% last month, with Safari also growing leading second place. Chrome is down to 65%. Yes Edge hasn't crushed Chrome, but it's going toe-to-toe with Apple, and is far ahead of any other contender (FireFox, Opera, Brave, and the rest). Microsoft has started aggressive tactics like opening links in Edge even when it's not the default browser [I'm observing, not defending that] and it results in things like this on Reddit[1]: "When did everyone switch to Microsoft Edge, and why? I work in cybersecurity for a software vendor and over the last 3-6 months have noticed Edge has completely dominated my customers' web browsing choices. [...] the last six or so months it's been nearly 100% Edge." Chrome grew by being better, faster, and signing in with your Google account to sync state between devices, and with ChromeBooks. Today, Apple is knocking it out of the park and Microsoft can underhandedly force many businesses over to Edge and is jumping on the hype with "your AI powered browser enhanced with GPT-4" and "prioritises your privacy with adblock and tracking prevention". What's Google doing which could push Chrome back up or stop it sliding down by tempting people away from Apple/Microsoft? [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1ah5yv6/when_did_everyone_switch_to_microsoft_edge_and_why/ https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1ah5yv6/when_did_...
- geoelectric 3y ago
  I personally tend to think if Moz had focused on desktop browser development rather than thrashing around on mobile versions on restricted platforms where they’d always be second-class citizens, smartphone OS moonshots well after that was very likely to succeed, Pocket at a time OSes were introducing their own reading lists, etc. that they could have at least sustained the open web standards goal Firefox used to achieve. Instead they freaked out about overall browser usage going to mobile, and threw shit against the wall trying to make some kind of mobile strategy stick no matter how late they were to the table. But I personally still use desktop universally at work, and sometimes browse that way at home too. Maybe Moz could have maintained significant market share in just that space and still be more relevant today. To be fair, that was more Gary Kovacs and immediate successors as CEOs than Mitchell. But Mitchell had a lot of influence on direction even then, and could have decided to pivot back to core competencies once she did take the reins directly. Servo looked pretty promising to me. At least we got Rust’s success out of it. Maybe she could have leveraged that more. Fabrice seems pretty convinced that embracing feature phones would have made the difference, and KaiOS shows that the FxOS platform certainly is more well-suited for that than for smartphones. She was involved in the decision-making around killing FxOS right as Mozilla started exploring pivoting to feature. Whether that would’ve helped drive Mozilla’s higher-level goals of browser synergy and making sure the web stayed open, I don’t know, but you’d at least still know their name as a thriving organization. Or if data privacy is the way to go, maybe pivoting to that focus years ago would have been successful. I guess we’ll see how much potential it has, but I bet it would be even more if Mozilla and Firefox still commanded the respect they used to. I just think Mozilla had way more routes to success than the routes they picked. Almost everything they tried either struck me as too late, too unlikely, or something nobody really wanted. That’s what I meant by questionable execution.
  - kbrosnan 3y ago
    By the time FirefoxOS first demise was announced in the Florida all hands Telefonica, ZTE, Sony and every other partner said they were pulling funding. I don't see what else the board could do. The OS folks tried to spin it into a few different things. Shipped a Firefox TV OS but that only lasted for a year or so. In parallel there was the IoT plans that never really took off.
jdlshore 3y ago
Or that making money and increasing market share while building an open-source browser for people who don’t like ads, don’t spend money on software, and think they always know better than you… is damn near impossible.

paulryanrogers 3y ago

It was an impossible situation. Chrome can be funded and promoted by some of the most dominant web properties in the world. Even Microsoft is struggling to get a foothold with Edge, and that's after turning it into a Chrome reskin. Not saying the comp package was justified. But it was a job doomed to fail.

acdha 3y ago
Yeah, to the extent that I’d criticize her it’s for not calling more for antitrust enforcement and since that’s basically asking Google to cut the lifeline, I don’t see how that could have worked in the current climate.
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  Mozilla sold defaults to a variety of vendors, most notably Yahoo, and others outside the US. Arguably they should have refused Google money from the jump.
  - acdha 3y ago
    The thing is, they’re in a really expensive place and almost everyone on the web has been trained to think of browsers as free. I don’t know what alternatives they could have picked at the time.
    - paulryanrogers 3y ago
      My point is they had no way out. It was a glass cliff. Only regulations can stand up to competitors as powerful as Google and Apple.
jodrellblank 3y ago
> "Even Microsoft is struggling to get a foothold with Edge, and that's after turning it into a Chrome reskin." New Edge was released in January 2020 with Chrome around 70% of the browser market. By May 2022 new Edge was the second most popular at like 10%. Safari gained and took second in 2023, Edge reached record high browser share 11% last month, with Safari also growing leading second place. Chrome is down to 65%. Yes Edge hasn't crushed Chrome, but it's going toe-to-toe with Apple, and is far ahead of any other contender (FireFox, Opera, Brave, and the rest). Microsoft has started aggressive tactics like opening links in Edge even when it's not the default browser [I'm observing, not defending that] and it results in things like this on Reddit[1]: "When did everyone switch to Microsoft Edge, and why? I work in cybersecurity for a software vendor and over the last 3-6 months have noticed Edge has completely dominated my customers' web browsing choices. [...] the last six or so months it's been nearly 100% Edge." Chrome grew by being better, faster, and signing in with your Google account to sync state between devices, and with ChromeBooks. Today, Apple is knocking it out of the park and Microsoft can underhandedly force many businesses over to Edge and is jumping on the hype with "your AI powered browser enhanced with GPT-4" and "prioritises your privacy with adblock and tracking prevention". What's Google doing which could push Chrome back up or stop it sliding down by tempting people away from Apple/Microsoft? [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1ah5yv6/when_did_everyone_switch_to_microsoft_edge_and_why/ https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1ah5yv6/when_did_...
geoelectric 3y ago
I personally tend to think if Moz had focused on desktop browser development rather than thrashing around on mobile versions on restricted platforms where they’d always be second-class citizens, smartphone OS moonshots well after that was very likely to succeed, Pocket at a time OSes were introducing their own reading lists, etc. that they could have at least sustained the open web standards goal Firefox used to achieve. Instead they freaked out about overall browser usage going to mobile, and threw shit against the wall trying to make some kind of mobile strategy stick no matter how late they were to the table. But I personally still use desktop universally at work, and sometimes browse that way at home too. Maybe Moz could have maintained significant market share in just that space and still be more relevant today. To be fair, that was more Gary Kovacs and immediate successors as CEOs than Mitchell. But Mitchell had a lot of influence on direction even then, and could have decided to pivot back to core competencies once she did take the reins directly. Servo looked pretty promising to me. At least we got Rust’s success out of it. Maybe she could have leveraged that more. Fabrice seems pretty convinced that embracing feature phones would have made the difference, and KaiOS shows that the FxOS platform certainly is more well-suited for that than for smartphones. She was involved in the decision-making around killing FxOS right as Mozilla started exploring pivoting to feature. Whether that would’ve helped drive Mozilla’s higher-level goals of browser synergy and making sure the web stayed open, I don’t know, but you’d at least still know their name as a thriving organization. Or if data privacy is the way to go, maybe pivoting to that focus years ago would have been successful. I guess we’ll see how much potential it has, but I bet it would be even more if Mozilla and Firefox still commanded the respect they used to. I just think Mozilla had way more routes to success than the routes they picked. Almost everything they tried either struck me as too late, too unlikely, or something nobody really wanted. That’s what I meant by questionable execution.
- kbrosnan 3y ago
  By the time FirefoxOS first demise was announced in the Florida all hands Telefonica, ZTE, Sony and every other partner said they were pulling funding. I don't see what else the board could do. The OS folks tried to spin it into a few different things. Shipped a Firefox TV OS but that only lasted for a year or so. In parallel there was the IoT plans that never really took off.

jdlshore 3y ago

Or that making money and increasing market share while building an open-source browser for people who don’t like ads, don’t spend money on software, and think they always know better than you… is damn near impossible.