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They can keep it going for several years, but Firefox marketshare is already sinking into irrelevancy territory, and they have NEVER had a real plan to do anyth

by flomo 2y ago

They can keep it going for several years, but Firefox marketshare is already sinking into irrelevancy territory, and they have NEVER had a real plan to do anything about that. Mozilla philosophy has been just to ride it down. Just trail chrome most of the time. Just out of habit, I still test my stuff in Firefox (nobody above me cares). But market share is already getting into "only weirdos use this" territory. And "weirdos" also like a bunch of weirdo extensions. (And I frequently see HNers complaining about this.) So eventually, its like we just don't support weirdos.

notpushkin 2y ago
I mean, that’s the problem isn’t it? If we want Firefox to even have a fighting chance, they have to ditch Google and completely rethink their strategy. (Obviously, that means complete change of management, which is really unlikely to happen until the very minute it all comes crashing down.) > Just out of habit, I still test my stuff in Firefox (nobody above me cares). Personally, I develop on Firefox, then test on Chrome (and other browsers). I get the sentiment though.
- flomo 2y ago
  I generally agree, but that's not what Mozills is arguing at all. > The last unicorn–the web can’t afford to lose Mozilla’s browser engine Their stated plan is to be the "endagered species", like the Dodo of browsers. Can you find enough weirdos to care about that?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
kelnos 2y ago
Sure, but not sure how that's related to whether or not the Mozilla Foundation can fund development off $37.5M per year. Marketing and evangelism isn't free, but I find it hard to believe $37.5M per year wouldn't cover everything they need to do. At an average of $200k per employee, that's 187 people. As you point out, it's their strategy that's the problem. I'm not convinced they need more money to come up with and implement a better strategy. (Yes, I know they pay for more than just employee salaries. Presumably they have other income apart from that $37.5M that doesn't come from Google.)
- flomo 2y ago
  "Marketing and evangelism" => the arrow has been going down for like ten years now. Better strategy?? Not in the OP. They are actually begging the government for pity. Not just now, but Mozilla's own argument here is they can't sustain themselves in the long-term without an illegal trust agreement.
- pseudalopex 2y ago
  > Marketing and evangelism isn't free, but I find it hard to believe $37.5M per year wouldn't cover everything they need to do. At an average of $200k per employee, that's 187 people. PitchBook estimated Brave had 191 employees before they cut 27 last year. Mozilla don't have a search engine. But Brave don't have a browser engine. And they couldn't commit to keep uBlock Origin working.
  - xnx 2y ago
    Mozilla doesn't have the burden of trying to be profitable that Brave does. Not sure Brave has a search engine any more than it does a browser engine. Brave search is powered by Bing.
    - notpushkin 2y ago
      They claim they do serve 92% from their own indexes, though I’m not sure we can verify that: https://dkb.blog/p/brave-search-interview https://dkb.blog/p/brave-search-interview
      - xnx 2y ago
        Interesting number. I wouldn't be surprised if ranking comes from Bing and they serve snippets of the Bing ranked results from their "independent" index.
LargoLasskhyfv 2y ago
> But market share is already getting into "only weirdos use this" territory. I think this is a self-reinforcing feedback loop because of bad analytics. Maybe initially some big, popular, otherwise important sites only supported some Chrome. Then the 'weirdos' discovered that it worked perfectly with only one mouseclick changing the user-agent. Time passed, more and more 'weirdos' spoofed their UA by default, because clicking is boring. Analytics saw less and less FF, more Chrome(simplified). Management saw less and less need to support anything else. Pseudo-Cyber-Security rose up high in the sky, shining so bright, that it seemed just right. Analytics still spitting out falsehoods... ...damagement... ...repeat.
- flomo 2y ago
  I think Firefox "weirdos" are probably under reported in general because they go to great lengths to hide themselves from analytics. Therefore I also think the number of "weirdos" who change their UA while still allowing JS analytics is basically nil. On any consumer site, mobile UAs just overwhelm the desktop ones anyway. Nobody cares about Samsung Browser, why would they care about some shit that's way below the fold.

by flomo 2y ago

notpushkin 2y ago

I mean, that’s the problem isn’t it? If we want Firefox to even have a fighting chance, they have to ditch Google and completely rethink their strategy. (Obviously, that means complete change of management, which is really unlikely to happen until the very minute it all comes crashing down.) > Just out of habit, I still test my stuff in Firefox (nobody above me cares). Personally, I develop on Firefox, then test on Chrome (and other browsers). I get the sentiment though.

flomo 2y ago
I generally agree, but that's not what Mozills is arguing at all. > The last unicorn–the web can’t afford to lose Mozilla’s browser engine Their stated plan is to be the "endagered species", like the Dodo of browsers. Can you find enough weirdos to care about that?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

kelnos 2y ago

Sure, but not sure how that's related to whether or not the Mozilla Foundation can fund development off $37.5M per year. Marketing and evangelism isn't free, but I find it hard to believe $37.5M per year wouldn't cover everything they need to do. At an average of $200k per employee, that's 187 people. As you point out, it's their strategy that's the problem. I'm not convinced they need more money to come up with and implement a better strategy. (Yes, I know they pay for more than just employee salaries. Presumably they have other income apart from that $37.5M that doesn't come from Google.)

flomo 2y ago
"Marketing and evangelism" => the arrow has been going down for like ten years now. Better strategy?? Not in the OP. They are actually begging the government for pity. Not just now, but Mozilla's own argument here is they can't sustain themselves in the long-term without an illegal trust agreement.
pseudalopex 2y ago
> Marketing and evangelism isn't free, but I find it hard to believe $37.5M per year wouldn't cover everything they need to do. At an average of $200k per employee, that's 187 people. PitchBook estimated Brave had 191 employees before they cut 27 last year. Mozilla don't have a search engine. But Brave don't have a browser engine. And they couldn't commit to keep uBlock Origin working.
- xnx 2y ago
  Mozilla doesn't have the burden of trying to be profitable that Brave does. Not sure Brave has a search engine any more than it does a browser engine. Brave search is powered by Bing.
  - notpushkin 2y ago
    They claim they do serve 92% from their own indexes, though I’m not sure we can verify that: https://dkb.blog/p/brave-search-interview https://dkb.blog/p/brave-search-interview
    - xnx 2y ago
      Interesting number. I wouldn't be surprised if ranking comes from Bing and they serve snippets of the Bing ranked results from their "independent" index.

LargoLasskhyfv 2y ago

> But market share is already getting into "only weirdos use this" territory. I think this is a self-reinforcing feedback loop because of bad analytics. Maybe initially some big, popular, otherwise important sites only supported some Chrome. Then the 'weirdos' discovered that it worked perfectly with only one mouseclick changing the user-agent. Time passed, more and more 'weirdos' spoofed their UA by default, because clicking is boring. Analytics saw less and less FF, more Chrome(simplified). Management saw less and less need to support anything else. Pseudo-Cyber-Security rose up high in the sky, shining so bright, that it seemed just right. Analytics still spitting out falsehoods... ...damagement... ...repeat.

flomo 2y ago
I think Firefox "weirdos" are probably under reported in general because they go to great lengths to hide themselves from analytics. Therefore I also think the number of "weirdos" who change their UA while still allowing JS analytics is basically nil. On any consumer site, mobile UAs just overwhelm the desktop ones anyway. Nobody cares about Samsung Browser, why would they care about some shit that's way below the fold.