4 ms·

A job for advocacy division is to, uhm, advocate for the product and mission. We all know how that has worked out in the last decade or so (down to <3% market

A job for advocacy division is to, uhm, advocate for the product and mission. We all know how that has worked out in the last decade or so (down to <3% market share from 14% in 2014 and 31% in 2009, though I wonder about absolute numbers as number of Internet users has gone up). It's fine for Mozilla to recognize this as a failed approach (or team), without dropping their mission altogether.

mmooss 2y ago
At Mozilla, they advocate for a free and open Internet, user privacy, and more. That's part of the organizations mission. See the OP for more information.
- stackghost 2y ago
  The Internet has never been less free and open than it is today. Their advocacy has utterly failed.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    > The Internet has never been less free and open than it is today. In what ways? I'd say it was less free and open when Microsoft controlled almost everyone's browsers, when user data was sent in the open (https wasn't standard), .... It was less free and open in early days when users was restricted to specific types of work; for example, I think conducting business wasn't allowed. > Their advocacy has utterly failed. What have they advocated for that has 'utterly failed'?
    - tivert 2y ago
      >> The Internet has never been less free and open than it is today. > In what ways? In the past the internet was a collection of a multitude of relatively open and decentralized sites. Now, it's utterly dominated by a few large platforms, frequently focused on exploiting user data to the fullest. Everything else is pretty marginal.
      - psd1 2y ago
        They're are at least two different lenses looking at "the internet" ITT. I don't see how Mozilla could have shifted the needle on the rise of big web properties. In fact, I want a browser to be completely agnostic, so if Mozilla had, e.g., prevented the rise of Facebook, then I'd probably conclude that they were anti-open. What I do want is web standards. IE built its moat, partly, by breaking standards. To be charitable, perhaps standards were moving too slowly. The sane thing is ming again with chrome. Now, by my choice not to use a chrome engine, i have patches of nonfunctionality. I feel like we've been trojan'd.
        frenchy 2y ago
        Standards are great, in theory, but a standards group can easily be co-opted by throwing enough people and money at it. That's basically what happened with DRM.
        mmooss 2y ago
        > a standards group can easily be co-opted by throwing enough people and money at it. The word 'easily' does a lot of work there. How easy? Many standards work well. The Internet, an incredibly successful engineering project, is built on standards.
      - pjmlp 2y ago
        We are back to MSN, Compuserve and AOL days, before Internet became widespread. Apparently centralization is what most regular folks rather adopt.
    - Xelbair 2y ago
      This time Google controls everyone's browsers, and has perverse conflict of interest between advertising and users - which Microsoft didn't had(yet). also internet has become more and more centralized compared to it's heyday. even that alone makes it less free and open.
      - mmooss 2y ago
        > Google controls everyone's browsers Apple has a large market share, unless we exclude mobile users.
    - stackghost 2y ago
      We're back to a browser monoculture, Chrome, and Google controls browsers to maliciously cripple ad blocking because it affects their bottom line. DRM is rampant. Network neutrality is moribund at best. Power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few megacorps so you and I can't, for example, run our own email servers if we expect to actually be able to communicate with users of Google or Microsoft. AI companies get rich doing things that would be illegal for you and me, such as hoovering up copyrighted works without paying for them. Surveillance is pervasive. That's just off the top of my head.
      - mmooss 2y ago
        There are many problems, but that's not evidence that Mozilla's programs are ineffective. People have many health problems and diseases, but that doesn't mean the healthcare system in ineffective. What it shows is that we need Mozilla and healthcare. > We're back to a browser monoculture, Chrome, and Google controls browsers Don't forget Apple's browsers, including all the iPhone users.
        stackghost 2y ago
        >People have many health problems and diseases, but that doesn't mean the healthcare system in ineffective. This is a deeply flawed analogy, and the two situations are superficially similar at best.
        mmooss 2y ago
        Unless you share your reasoning, it's just a baseless claim. Also, what about the issue, whether or not you happen to like the analogy?
        stackghost 2y ago
        HN is a very poor medium for this type of conversation, so I'm just going to move on
    - JohnFen 2y ago
      > I'd say it was less free and open when Microsoft controlled almost everyone's browsers Now it's Google, so that situation hasn't changed any. > What have they advocated for that has 'utterly failed'? Privacy and keeping the web open, mostly. The privacy situation is worse now than ever, and the open web is continuing to shrink. > It was less free and open in early days when users was restricted to specific types of work; for example, I think conducting business wasn't allowed. When was this? I've been on the internet since before it was open to the general public, and I don't remember a time when users were restricted to specific types of work, nor a time when conducting business was not allowed.
  - Anthony-G 2y ago
    One huge success that doesn’t seem to have been mentioned in this discussion is the Let’s Encrypt project which was started by Mozilla staff and has had remarkable success in setting up a public key infrastructure that makes it free – and easy – for server admins to configure TLS on their web servers. 20 years ago HTTP was the default protocol for web traffic; now HTTPS is the default.
- akira2501 2y ago
  Then they take Google's money and fail to influence open standards meaningfully.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    > fail to influence open standards meaningfully I'm not sure what you are referring to: What open standards have they tried and failed to influence, and where have they succeeded?
    - pm3003 2y ago
      Failing to influence Manifest v3?
    - ffsm8 2y ago
      > What open standards have they tried and failed to influence, That's most definitely a reference to the comitees Mozilla is part of, i.e. the W3C, but never actually meaningfully influence their decisions. Google just does whatever it wants, and the rest need to chase their implementation or become less relevant as website start using the new features. > and where have they succeeded? I thought their point was that Mozilla doesn't...?
      - mmooss 2y ago
        > I thought their point was that Mozilla doesn't...? If their argument that Mozilla has failed at everything, then it's ridiculous. If they want to evaluate Mozilla overall, then that includes both Mozilla's successes and failures.
- intelVISA 2y ago
  Hmm, if true that's a weird mission they'd claim to support after what they've done to Firefox
- hoseja 2y ago
  They should advocate for independence from Google and a good browser. These parasite efforts are just so disgusting.
- necovek 2y ago
  Firefox is a tool they use to achieve that mission: success of it should correlate with them achieving free and open internet. If that is not the case, and they have achieved their mission with Firefox being a non-factor, they should instead stop funding FF development.

mmooss 2y ago

At Mozilla, they advocate for a free and open Internet, user privacy, and more. That's part of the organizations mission. See the OP for more information.

stackghost 2y ago
The Internet has never been less free and open than it is today. Their advocacy has utterly failed.
- mmooss 2y ago
  > The Internet has never been less free and open than it is today. In what ways? I'd say it was less free and open when Microsoft controlled almost everyone's browsers, when user data was sent in the open (https wasn't standard), .... It was less free and open in early days when users was restricted to specific types of work; for example, I think conducting business wasn't allowed. > Their advocacy has utterly failed. What have they advocated for that has 'utterly failed'?
  - tivert 2y ago
    >> The Internet has never been less free and open than it is today. > In what ways? In the past the internet was a collection of a multitude of relatively open and decentralized sites. Now, it's utterly dominated by a few large platforms, frequently focused on exploiting user data to the fullest. Everything else is pretty marginal.
    - psd1 2y ago
      They're are at least two different lenses looking at "the internet" ITT. I don't see how Mozilla could have shifted the needle on the rise of big web properties. In fact, I want a browser to be completely agnostic, so if Mozilla had, e.g., prevented the rise of Facebook, then I'd probably conclude that they were anti-open. What I do want is web standards. IE built its moat, partly, by breaking standards. To be charitable, perhaps standards were moving too slowly. The sane thing is ming again with chrome. Now, by my choice not to use a chrome engine, i have patches of nonfunctionality. I feel like we've been trojan'd.
      - frenchy 2y ago
        Standards are great, in theory, but a standards group can easily be co-opted by throwing enough people and money at it. That's basically what happened with DRM.
        mmooss 2y ago
        > a standards group can easily be co-opted by throwing enough people and money at it. The word 'easily' does a lot of work there. How easy? Many standards work well. The Internet, an incredibly successful engineering project, is built on standards.
    - pjmlp 2y ago
      We are back to MSN, Compuserve and AOL days, before Internet became widespread. Apparently centralization is what most regular folks rather adopt.
  - Xelbair 2y ago
    This time Google controls everyone's browsers, and has perverse conflict of interest between advertising and users - which Microsoft didn't had(yet). also internet has become more and more centralized compared to it's heyday. even that alone makes it less free and open.
    - mmooss 2y ago
      > Google controls everyone's browsers Apple has a large market share, unless we exclude mobile users.
  - stackghost 2y ago
    We're back to a browser monoculture, Chrome, and Google controls browsers to maliciously cripple ad blocking because it affects their bottom line. DRM is rampant. Network neutrality is moribund at best. Power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few megacorps so you and I can't, for example, run our own email servers if we expect to actually be able to communicate with users of Google or Microsoft. AI companies get rich doing things that would be illegal for you and me, such as hoovering up copyrighted works without paying for them. Surveillance is pervasive. That's just off the top of my head.
    - mmooss 2y ago
      There are many problems, but that's not evidence that Mozilla's programs are ineffective. People have many health problems and diseases, but that doesn't mean the healthcare system in ineffective. What it shows is that we need Mozilla and healthcare. > We're back to a browser monoculture, Chrome, and Google controls browsers Don't forget Apple's browsers, including all the iPhone users.
      - stackghost 2y ago
        >People have many health problems and diseases, but that doesn't mean the healthcare system in ineffective. This is a deeply flawed analogy, and the two situations are superficially similar at best.
        mmooss 2y ago
        Unless you share your reasoning, it's just a baseless claim. Also, what about the issue, whether or not you happen to like the analogy?
        stackghost 2y ago
        HN is a very poor medium for this type of conversation, so I'm just going to move on
  - JohnFen 2y ago
    > I'd say it was less free and open when Microsoft controlled almost everyone's browsers Now it's Google, so that situation hasn't changed any. > What have they advocated for that has 'utterly failed'? Privacy and keeping the web open, mostly. The privacy situation is worse now than ever, and the open web is continuing to shrink. > It was less free and open in early days when users was restricted to specific types of work; for example, I think conducting business wasn't allowed. When was this? I've been on the internet since before it was open to the general public, and I don't remember a time when users were restricted to specific types of work, nor a time when conducting business was not allowed.
- Anthony-G 2y ago
  One huge success that doesn’t seem to have been mentioned in this discussion is the Let’s Encrypt project which was started by Mozilla staff and has had remarkable success in setting up a public key infrastructure that makes it free – and easy – for server admins to configure TLS on their web servers. 20 years ago HTTP was the default protocol for web traffic; now HTTPS is the default.
akira2501 2y ago
Then they take Google's money and fail to influence open standards meaningfully.
- mmooss 2y ago
  > fail to influence open standards meaningfully I'm not sure what you are referring to: What open standards have they tried and failed to influence, and where have they succeeded?
  - pm3003 2y ago
    Failing to influence Manifest v3?
  - ffsm8 2y ago
    > What open standards have they tried and failed to influence, That's most definitely a reference to the comitees Mozilla is part of, i.e. the W3C, but never actually meaningfully influence their decisions. Google just does whatever it wants, and the rest need to chase their implementation or become less relevant as website start using the new features. > and where have they succeeded? I thought their point was that Mozilla doesn't...?
    - mmooss 2y ago
      > I thought their point was that Mozilla doesn't...? If their argument that Mozilla has failed at everything, then it's ridiculous. If they want to evaluate Mozilla overall, then that includes both Mozilla's successes and failures.
intelVISA 2y ago
Hmm, if true that's a weird mission they'd claim to support after what they've done to Firefox
hoseja 2y ago
They should advocate for independence from Google and a good browser. These parasite efforts are just so disgusting.
necovek 2y ago
Firefox is a tool they use to achieve that mission: success of it should correlate with them achieving free and open internet. If that is not the case, and they have achieved their mission with Firefox being a non-factor, they should instead stop funding FF development.