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> Forcing Pocket into the browser Fun fact: by subscribing to Pocket, you're directly contributing to Firefox's development. Mozilla found itself in a situati

> Forcing Pocket into the browser Fun fact: by subscribing to Pocket, you're directly contributing to Firefox's development. Mozilla found itself in a situation of damned if they do, damned if they don't. People scream at them for depending on Google, and then they scream at them for trying to diversify their revenue. Nobody wants to pay for a browser, browsers are essentially incredibly complex nowadays, and I have yet to hear how in the world are browsers supposed to get funding. And of course they want to cater to advertisers because it is advertising that maintains the open web, and it is advertising that is paying for all browser development, actually, including Safari. And the open web is also dying, because people have been moving to mobile apps, where all pretence that "the user agent must act on your behalf" is gone. In other words, even if you get what you wish for, in a couple of years it may not matter at all.

rpastuszak 2y ago
> And of course they want to cater to advertisers because it is advertising that maintains the open web As someone who worked both on advertiser and publisher sides (incl. content monetisation): advertisers like to say that they support publishers and the open web, but in fact, they are keeping it hostage. We've had the means/tech to support publishers directly for years (I don't mean crypto). It's in the interest of companies like Google to keep users (and publishers, and brands) in the dark. And one of the issues here is that they have so much impact on the discourse. There are only few places, where I saw more people using ad blockers than the adtech businesses I worked with or at. > Nobody wants to pay for a browser True, but I don't think people would have an issue with paying for browsers if they understood the value of it. At this stage, I think the only solution would involve: 1) education 2) regulation/better legislation
- bad_user 2y ago
  > As someone who worked both on advertiser and publisher sides (incl. content monetisation): advertisers like to say that they support publishers and the open web, but in fact, they are keeping it hostage. I know what you're saying, I agree, as I worked (in the past) on advertising platforms as well, but both of those statements can be true at the same time. The open web was built on advertising, but the perverse incentives in advertising are also poisoning the open web. I don't think we've ever had a good solution. People like free stuff, and also, micro-transactions are not possible given the huge banking fees. What we're seeing, the alternative, are subscription-based services behind closed hardens, and mobile apps whose ads can no longer be blocked, so here we are. I also think that Google isn't the greater evil, because Google has an incentive to keep the web going. For instance, what happens with local newspapers, when they die, besides depriving ad networks of revenue, is that the audience of these newspapers moves to walled gardens like Facebook. The failure of advertising on the web right now results in more centralisation.
  - hn_version_0023 2y ago
    > micro-transactions are not possible given the huge banking fees. We can change this via legislation. The “financialization” of everything feels related to the adtech conundrum. Bringing banks to heel for the good of society is long overdue IMO.
  - rpastuszak 2y ago
    > micro-transactions are not possible given the huge banking fees I actually worked on several projects like this and we found a few ways of making this work. A simple example would be having a wallet you can top up, so you can pay per article. The fee was _roughly_ 2x the CPM for a post, and the cost for an average user ca. $5 per month IIRC. There's a bunch of companies doing this stuff, but their usual issue was scale/publisher relationships. After a few years of trying and 3 companies later I ended up in a situation where this wasn't a problem. Apologies for being vague here. > I also think that Google isn't the greater evil, because Google has an incentive to keep the web going True, but the web Google wants to "keep going" is _very_ unlikely the same as the one that's good for users. Chrome or Android serve as storefronts, hence consent assumed by default (think Manifest V3, FLOC, etc...). Example: think of the deal they signed with Conde Nast (and earlier Reddit). Nowadays, Google has exclusive access to search results from Reddit. > For instance, what happens with local newspapers, when they die, besides depriving ad networks of revenue, is that the audience of these newspapers moves to walled gardens like Facebook. The failure of advertising on the web right now results in more centralisation. I witnessed it in 2010s when working with publishers (EU, UK, and some US-based). It wasn't much different than what happened during the "cookiegeddon" around '17 '18 (IIRC): moving to new platforms, pushing towards subscriptions, bundles, or focussing on premium/high quality content. The publishers I spoke with (again, as a vendor working in publishing and then, later, in adtech) generally would be more than happy to drop the ads if we had any other way to let people pay for stuff without using dark patterns (e.g. subscriptions people tend to forget about). The only people who created pushback were not even their advertising partners, it was _their own sales people_, responsible for pushing their inventory via direct sales. It makes perfect sense, from a people/internal politics point of view. I'd be happy to elaborate on that, but it's getting a bit late! People like free stuff, but they're also happy to pay for stuff if they understand its value. Imagine walking into a coffee shop and asking for a free americano promising that you'll stare at their ads on your phone for 5 minutes. (This idea only makes sense if you're running an adtech / marketing startup.) Then, we have more interesting examples like The Guardian, where many of the people supporting them did so because they wanted _other_ people to have access to it. So yeah, I agree that people like free stuff, and that the current situation is messy to say the least, but I think we need to take a step back and reconsider the things/ideas we take for granted.
- greenchair 2y ago
  When I was a kid you could buy a browser in an electronics store :)
Y_Y 2y ago
> Mozilla found itself in a situation of damned if they do, damned if they don't. People scream at them for depending on Google, and then they scream at them for trying to diversify their revenue. People didn't like Pocket as a product. It wasn't as if they just didn't like it because Firdfox wanted to make money out of it. Sure they should diversify, but with something that isn't otherwise (so) objectionable. Like their VPN, or sponsorship, or just let go of all the upper management.
- krzyk 2y ago
  What people? Do you have source for that? Anectodal one: I liked it.
autoexec 2y ago
> Fun fact: by subscribing to Pocket, you're directly contributing to Firefox's development. That's not true. It isn't directly supporting anything except surveillance capitalism. Allowing yourself to be exploited in that way may indirectly support Firefox, but it's not the same thing as direct support. Firefox users have literally begged Mozilla to let them actually directly support Firefox's development in the form of donations explicitly for that purpose alone, but Mozilla has always refused to allow it. > Mozilla found itself in a situation of damned if they do, damned if they don't. People scream at them for depending on Google, and then they scream at them for trying to diversify their revenue. People scream at them when they involve themselves in surveillance capitalism so yeah, spending a ton of money that could have gone into firefox development to instead buy an ad company so they can start spying on us while we use the internet isn't helping. > Nobody wants to pay for a browser, browsers are essentially incredibly complex nowadays, and I have yet to hear how in the world are browsers supposed to get funding. Are web browsers more "incredibly complex" than linux? I don't understand how people assume that web browsers are impossible to develop without selling users to the marketing industry while somehow linux and countless other open source projects have never once needed to do that. Mozilla could at the very least try letting users pay for firefox development like users have been asking them to before they jump to selling firefox users out to the ad industry. > And of course they want to cater to advertisers because it is advertising that maintains the open web Advertising doesn't maintain the open web, it poisons it. > And the open web is also dying, because people have been moving to mobile apps, That's because many people don't own even computers anymore. Even where computers haven't been entirely replaced by devices that are designed for data collection and mindless content consumption, the cell phone is the computer that people have with them at all times. The dire situation around computing in general wouldn't be so bleak if we could get some decent and affordable mobile devices that weren't designed to spy on us, but I guess you might see it as that spying being what maintains the computer industry.

rpastuszak 2y ago

> And of course they want to cater to advertisers because it is advertising that maintains the open web As someone who worked both on advertiser and publisher sides (incl. content monetisation): advertisers like to say that they support publishers and the open web, but in fact, they are keeping it hostage. We've had the means/tech to support publishers directly for years (I don't mean crypto). It's in the interest of companies like Google to keep users (and publishers, and brands) in the dark. And one of the issues here is that they have so much impact on the discourse. There are only few places, where I saw more people using ad blockers than the adtech businesses I worked with or at. > Nobody wants to pay for a browser True, but I don't think people would have an issue with paying for browsers if they understood the value of it. At this stage, I think the only solution would involve: 1) education 2) regulation/better legislation

bad_user 2y ago
> As someone who worked both on advertiser and publisher sides (incl. content monetisation): advertisers like to say that they support publishers and the open web, but in fact, they are keeping it hostage. I know what you're saying, I agree, as I worked (in the past) on advertising platforms as well, but both of those statements can be true at the same time. The open web was built on advertising, but the perverse incentives in advertising are also poisoning the open web. I don't think we've ever had a good solution. People like free stuff, and also, micro-transactions are not possible given the huge banking fees. What we're seeing, the alternative, are subscription-based services behind closed hardens, and mobile apps whose ads can no longer be blocked, so here we are. I also think that Google isn't the greater evil, because Google has an incentive to keep the web going. For instance, what happens with local newspapers, when they die, besides depriving ad networks of revenue, is that the audience of these newspapers moves to walled gardens like Facebook. The failure of advertising on the web right now results in more centralisation.
- hn_version_0023 2y ago
  > micro-transactions are not possible given the huge banking fees. We can change this via legislation. The “financialization” of everything feels related to the adtech conundrum. Bringing banks to heel for the good of society is long overdue IMO.
- rpastuszak 2y ago
  > micro-transactions are not possible given the huge banking fees I actually worked on several projects like this and we found a few ways of making this work. A simple example would be having a wallet you can top up, so you can pay per article. The fee was _roughly_ 2x the CPM for a post, and the cost for an average user ca. $5 per month IIRC. There's a bunch of companies doing this stuff, but their usual issue was scale/publisher relationships. After a few years of trying and 3 companies later I ended up in a situation where this wasn't a problem. Apologies for being vague here. > I also think that Google isn't the greater evil, because Google has an incentive to keep the web going True, but the web Google wants to "keep going" is _very_ unlikely the same as the one that's good for users. Chrome or Android serve as storefronts, hence consent assumed by default (think Manifest V3, FLOC, etc...). Example: think of the deal they signed with Conde Nast (and earlier Reddit). Nowadays, Google has exclusive access to search results from Reddit. > For instance, what happens with local newspapers, when they die, besides depriving ad networks of revenue, is that the audience of these newspapers moves to walled gardens like Facebook. The failure of advertising on the web right now results in more centralisation. I witnessed it in 2010s when working with publishers (EU, UK, and some US-based). It wasn't much different than what happened during the "cookiegeddon" around '17 '18 (IIRC): moving to new platforms, pushing towards subscriptions, bundles, or focussing on premium/high quality content. The publishers I spoke with (again, as a vendor working in publishing and then, later, in adtech) generally would be more than happy to drop the ads if we had any other way to let people pay for stuff without using dark patterns (e.g. subscriptions people tend to forget about). The only people who created pushback were not even their advertising partners, it was _their own sales people_, responsible for pushing their inventory via direct sales. It makes perfect sense, from a people/internal politics point of view. I'd be happy to elaborate on that, but it's getting a bit late! People like free stuff, but they're also happy to pay for stuff if they understand its value. Imagine walking into a coffee shop and asking for a free americano promising that you'll stare at their ads on your phone for 5 minutes. (This idea only makes sense if you're running an adtech / marketing startup.) Then, we have more interesting examples like The Guardian, where many of the people supporting them did so because they wanted _other_ people to have access to it. So yeah, I agree that people like free stuff, and that the current situation is messy to say the least, but I think we need to take a step back and reconsider the things/ideas we take for granted.
greenchair 2y ago
When I was a kid you could buy a browser in an electronics store :)

Y_Y 2y ago

> Mozilla found itself in a situation of damned if they do, damned if they don't. People scream at them for depending on Google, and then they scream at them for trying to diversify their revenue. People didn't like Pocket as a product. It wasn't as if they just didn't like it because Firdfox wanted to make money out of it. Sure they should diversify, but with something that isn't otherwise (so) objectionable. Like their VPN, or sponsorship, or just let go of all the upper management.

krzyk 2y ago
What people? Do you have source for that? Anectodal one: I liked it.

autoexec 2y ago

> Fun fact: by subscribing to Pocket, you're directly contributing to Firefox's development. That's not true. It isn't directly supporting anything except surveillance capitalism. Allowing yourself to be exploited in that way may indirectly support Firefox, but it's not the same thing as direct support. Firefox users have literally begged Mozilla to let them actually directly support Firefox's development in the form of donations explicitly for that purpose alone, but Mozilla has always refused to allow it. > Mozilla found itself in a situation of damned if they do, damned if they don't. People scream at them for depending on Google, and then they scream at them for trying to diversify their revenue. People scream at them when they involve themselves in surveillance capitalism so yeah, spending a ton of money that could have gone into firefox development to instead buy an ad company so they can start spying on us while we use the internet isn't helping. > Nobody wants to pay for a browser, browsers are essentially incredibly complex nowadays, and I have yet to hear how in the world are browsers supposed to get funding. Are web browsers more "incredibly complex" than linux? I don't understand how people assume that web browsers are impossible to develop without selling users to the marketing industry while somehow linux and countless other open source projects have never once needed to do that. Mozilla could at the very least try letting users pay for firefox development like users have been asking them to before they jump to selling firefox users out to the ad industry. > And of course they want to cater to advertisers because it is advertising that maintains the open web Advertising doesn't maintain the open web, it poisons it. > And the open web is also dying, because people have been moving to mobile apps, That's because many people don't own even computers anymore. Even where computers haven't been entirely replaced by devices that are designed for data collection and mindless content consumption, the cell phone is the computer that people have with them at all times. The dire situation around computing in general wouldn't be so bleak if we could get some decent and affordable mobile devices that weren't designed to spy on us, but I guess you might see it as that spying being what maintains the computer industry.