[jddj]

According to the issues trackers, various forms of "self-hosting would be more work for a lesser product".

I'm not sure that would still be the case if the decision were being made today, and would quietly hope not, but I guess we can charitably say that the reason now is "inertia".

Personally, I think they may have underestimated (or failed to fully predict) the anti-google, pro-privacy sentiment in the wings, and it's clear even from this thread and the issues on bugzilla that it's probably cost them enough privacy-capital at this stage to have justified the extra work required to self-host.

But hindsight is 20-20. There are sunk costs now which also must play into the decisions.

[swebs]

Or just don't load any "analytics" scripts at all. Do you really need to know the aggregate mouse positions of every user on your addon page?

[jddj]

Definitely not, but I can see how it might be useful to know aggregates of the Firefox version and locale information for people visiting that particular page.

[buildzr]

Sure, but you can do that with just your web server log.

[spookthesunset]

> Personally, I think they may have underestimated (or failed to fully predict) the anti-google, pro-privacy sentiment in the wings, and it's clear even from this thread and the issues on bugzilla that it's probably cost them enough privacy-capital at this stage to have justified the extra work required to self-host.

Or maybe the "anti-google, pro-privacy sentiment" isn't really all that big. Could be a relatively small but vocal set of people.

[lonelappde]

> self-hosting would be more work for a lesser product".

The same argument applies to the whole of Firefox. It's more work and it's a lesser product. If Firefox can be a better product, than Mozilla Analytics could be too.

At this point it's clear that Mozilla is a business (with well paid management and staff) like Google that is using Privacy as a promo like Google used Don't Be Evil. Mozilla might be better in practice today, but it's not on a principled foundation. It looks like a Google Lite - Firefox vs Chrome, Rust vs Go, etc.