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Angry crowd: focus on your browser! Mozilla: what? acquire a bookmarking service? Angry crowd: no! develop your browser! Mozilla: ok, got it! I'll make a VPN

Angry crowd: focus on your browser! Mozilla: what? acquire a bookmarking service? Angry crowd: no! develop your browser! Mozilla: ok, got it! I'll make a VPN service! Angry crowd: WORK ON YOUR FUCKING BROWSER Mozilla: AI? Did I hear AI from someone over there?

MrAlex94 2y ago
Fundamentally I think having people pay for a browser is a hard sell. I do think complementary services being sold to fund the browser are a good idea though. E.g. VPN, search, bookmarking service - great. Charge for them, have the money go into browser dev, focus on privacy and be done with it.
- glenstein 2y ago
  I also don't think they necessarily were subtracting from resources necessary to maintain the browser experience (which would be the key to that whole entire argument), which probably was a significant motivator for doing them. Easy enough to spin up with little to lose.
0xbadcafebee 2y ago
I don't know if you know this, but browsers don't generate revenue (with the exception of Google paying you hush money to pretend they aren't a browser monopoly)
- rascul 2y ago
  Netscape used to.
  - pseudalopex 2y ago
    Netscape gave up trying to charge anyone to use their web browser 27 years ago.
    - rascul 2y ago
      Their last sale got them billions of dollars.
glenstein 2y ago
I know this sounds like it's making a point, but... Do we have any intuition for the resources dedicated to the side projects versus the ones dedicated to the core development and whether they subtracted from development? Was one project equivalent to 10% less resources on core browser development equivalent to 5% loss of market share? One percent? Ten percent? I feel like once you state these questions out loud it becomes clear that none of this cause and effect necessary to make the argument work is being critically thought through at all. There was a time when this complaint about core browser experience had some legitimacy and that was in the 2010s up through 2016. They rebuilt their whole engine into Quantum in 2017, which was a major leap forward. And ever since then the differences have been real, but subtle. Meanwhile Google has leveraged its dominant position in search, and it's major investments into Android and Chromebooks to push people to its browser. They've also used their revenue to invest in an embrace extend extinguish strategy in the browser space. The vast majority of the vibes about Mozilla transgressions are more like a self-perpetuating oral tradition than a thoughtful narrative grounded in causality.

MrAlex94 2y ago

Fundamentally I think having people pay for a browser is a hard sell. I do think complementary services being sold to fund the browser are a good idea though. E.g. VPN, search, bookmarking service - great. Charge for them, have the money go into browser dev, focus on privacy and be done with it.

glenstein 2y ago
I also don't think they necessarily were subtracting from resources necessary to maintain the browser experience (which would be the key to that whole entire argument), which probably was a significant motivator for doing them. Easy enough to spin up with little to lose.

0xbadcafebee 2y ago

I don't know if you know this, but browsers don't generate revenue (with the exception of Google paying you hush money to pretend they aren't a browser monopoly)

rascul 2y ago
Netscape used to.
- pseudalopex 2y ago
  Netscape gave up trying to charge anyone to use their web browser 27 years ago.
  - rascul 2y ago
    Their last sale got them billions of dollars.

glenstein 2y ago

I know this sounds like it's making a point, but... Do we have any intuition for the resources dedicated to the side projects versus the ones dedicated to the core development and whether they subtracted from development? Was one project equivalent to 10% less resources on core browser development equivalent to 5% loss of market share? One percent? Ten percent? I feel like once you state these questions out loud it becomes clear that none of this cause and effect necessary to make the argument work is being critically thought through at all. There was a time when this complaint about core browser experience had some legitimacy and that was in the 2010s up through 2016. They rebuilt their whole engine into Quantum in 2017, which was a major leap forward. And ever since then the differences have been real, but subtle. Meanwhile Google has leveraged its dominant position in search, and it's major investments into Android and Chromebooks to push people to its browser. They've also used their revenue to invest in an embrace extend extinguish strategy in the browser space. The vast majority of the vibes about Mozilla transgressions are more like a self-perpetuating oral tradition than a thoughtful narrative grounded in causality.