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>I find it difficult to take "Mozilla is Google by proxy" complaints seriously when the same people tend to simultaneously moan and complain any time Mozilla tr

>I find it difficult to take "Mozilla is Google by proxy" complaints seriously when the same people tend to simultaneously moan and complain any time Mozilla tries to branch out and cultivate independent revenue streams. I don't wish to cause too much argument, but it might be worth to consider that not all naysayers are from the same cloth. It could easily be several different groups of people that might not overlap. Each might complain about Mozilla, but for different reasons. I.e. Group 1: "Mozilla takes money from google, and that's bad! They rely too much on Web Browsers!" Group 2: "Mozilla is too distracted by side projects! They need to focus on what they're best at!" Both of those groups might not agree with one another, but at other times there might be some overlap in complaints, too. I could see group 1 and 2 both complain that, for instance, "AI is an untested, trendy/gimmicky idea that they shouldn't be focusing on right now." I'm not terribly wrapped up with what Mozilla does, or does not do; Mozilla can do whatever they want...I don't work there, so I don't care too terribly. I do my best to judge ideas on its merits.

dralley 2y ago
>I could see group 1 and 2 both complain that, for instance, "AI is an untested, trendy/gimmicky idea that they shouldn't be focusing on right now." If you think that Mozilla is too dependent on a search engine deal, would it not be wise to hedge against the fact that search itself may be less relevant in the future? Certainly Google, Apple and Microsoft are not ignoring AI as a browser supplement / replacement. But they're all incentivized to do it on their own proprietary systems, whereas Mozilla is incentivized to use local, open source, small models. That's potential differentiation.
- registeredcorn 2y ago
  I was using an example of criticism I've heard regarding Mozilla. As I stated: >I'm not terribly wrapped up with what Mozilla does, or does not do; Mozilla can do whatever they want...I don't work there, so I don't care too terribly. I don't think GAI (generative AI), in the commercial sense that it has been marketed in the last year or two, has been around long enough to critique it with any verifiable wisdom or insight - ChatGPT for example only launched around mid 2022 - we aren't far enough removed from its hype to make any kind of neutral assessment. In more broad terms as a field of computer science ala machine learning, computer vision, deep learning, etc. it's far too niche an area for me to really assert any insight on - I'm at the kids table. As an overview, I typically favor optimism over the long-term (15-20 year) on technological advancements - spellcheck is in a better spot than it was in 2004 for example, however, I have also been exceedingly dismissive over some things: online video (YouTube), streaming (Netflix, Hulu, etc.), and microblogging when they were new. They, of course then became explosively successful several seconds after the words tumbled out between my lips. GAI is simply too new a technology in its current form to say if it is a: positive, negative, neutral, or somewhere in-between. And if it doesn't seem smart to speculate one way or another about GAI, it seems even more ill-advised to speculate whether it is profitable to invest in GAI.

dralley 2y ago

>I could see group 1 and 2 both complain that, for instance, "AI is an untested, trendy/gimmicky idea that they shouldn't be focusing on right now." If you think that Mozilla is too dependent on a search engine deal, would it not be wise to hedge against the fact that search itself may be less relevant in the future? Certainly Google, Apple and Microsoft are not ignoring AI as a browser supplement / replacement. But they're all incentivized to do it on their own proprietary systems, whereas Mozilla is incentivized to use local, open source, small models. That's potential differentiation.

registeredcorn 2y ago
I was using an example of criticism I've heard regarding Mozilla. As I stated: >I'm not terribly wrapped up with what Mozilla does, or does not do; Mozilla can do whatever they want...I don't work there, so I don't care too terribly. I don't think GAI (generative AI), in the commercial sense that it has been marketed in the last year or two, has been around long enough to critique it with any verifiable wisdom or insight - ChatGPT for example only launched around mid 2022 - we aren't far enough removed from its hype to make any kind of neutral assessment. In more broad terms as a field of computer science ala machine learning, computer vision, deep learning, etc. it's far too niche an area for me to really assert any insight on - I'm at the kids table. As an overview, I typically favor optimism over the long-term (15-20 year) on technological advancements - spellcheck is in a better spot than it was in 2004 for example, however, I have also been exceedingly dismissive over some things: online video (YouTube), streaming (Netflix, Hulu, etc.), and microblogging when they were new. They, of course then became explosively successful several seconds after the words tumbled out between my lips. GAI is simply too new a technology in its current form to say if it is a: positive, negative, neutral, or somewhere in-between. And if it doesn't seem smart to speculate one way or another about GAI, it seems even more ill-advised to speculate whether it is profitable to invest in GAI.