I disabled everything from Pocket I possibly can when I downloaded and setup Firefox, in the `about:config`. That integration annoys me to no end. Who decided I needed pocket in my browser?
The belief most people have that Mozilla puts things in the browser they expect to be useful to users is mistaken and needs to die. They didn't decide you needed Pocket in your browser. They wanted Pocket in your browser, so that they could sell story spots (read: ads) to the highest bidder.
Note the PR-speak in that article. Advertising, by its very nature, cannot "provide value to users". If a publisher is paying to promote a story, it's because they want the story to capture more of users' attention than the users themselves want.
I agree but I didn’t want to say that as it seemed obvious (at least to me).
Mozilla, a non-profit, which produces primarily a browser with currently a small market share, needs to do something to bring in some revenue. Having Google as the default search at one time (and may still be) a revenue stream for them.
But on the last point about advertising. I disagree with your statement. In many cases, advertising allows consumers to know about services and goods they might otherwise not know about. This isn’t inherently bad. I believe the adtech way, though, is because it puts at harm a lot of people’s data for, often times, a very negligible benefit in reaching consumers.
> In many cases, advertising allows consumers to know about services and goods they might otherwise not know about.
I agree that advertising can help in that way, but I'm not sure how often that actually happens. The largest markets tend to be for products where everyone is generally aware that they exist (otherwise the market woulndn't be large) and most products are only differentiated by brand (e.g. fashion) instead of novel features. Because generic internet advertising follows the money, it ends up as a zero-sum game about moving market share between brands.
If there were a site that allowed only ads for completely novel products, or if the ad is just a link to a double-blinded study comparing along a measurable dimension against a competitor, I might subscribe voluntarily to be advertised to. Until then, HN comes close enough.
I will absolutely take the Pocket integration in Firefox over ad-banners any day of the week. I've used browsers with ad banners in the past, and this is infinitely better.
I see three links (on mobile) of actual content; articles or blogs with substance that I may or may not find interesting. They fall below the list of my most visited sites, and they're eminently missable. Depending on how I open Firefox I will not even see them due to bypassing the start page.
I've read several of those articles and found them interesting. It's value added to me, and I don't have to see ad banners for stupid crap in the bargain.
They could even be adventurous and offer multiple downloads with different extension bundles. These would be easy to implement; because extension bundling already exists as "collections"[1]. Something like:
- Standard Firefox with our officially recommended extension. (use for the front-page/default download)
- Minimal Firefox without any extensions or other optional features. ("Try this on older/slower computers")
- Developer Starter Kit with a selection of extensions related to web development.
- Social Media Special with more extensions like Pocket plus quality-of-life features for people that spend z lot of time on Facebook/etc.
Having a variety of options is important, because there isn't a universal spaghetti sauce[2].
They discuss advertising in the browser chrome here: https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2018/04/30/a-privacy...
Note the PR-speak in that article. Advertising, by its very nature, cannot "provide value to users". If a publisher is paying to promote a story, it's because they want the story to capture more of users' attention than the users themselves want.