There's also this fun story [0], which was discussed here [1]. Fits nicely with Mozilla saying: "We’re here to prove that you can have an ethical tech business." Start by caring for your workers first, instead of giving pay raises to CEOs, under whose leadership the company's been struggling.
I get the impression that Mozilla is a bloated organisation that's resting on goodwill it built up back when Firefox was a compelling user experience.
I think one of the main reasons anyone uses Firefox nowadays is because they believe in the mission and find good values alignment with a player that has more independence than Google.
With a constant string of red flags and negative press, I wonder what the next version of Mozilla will look like. Personally, I wouldn't bet on them surviving and thriving for much longer.
I feel a core part of the Firefox-using crowd vouch for it because they believe in the Mozilla mission from years back, and feel a strong value alignment with the company. I don't think they've got enough goodwill built up to ride things out forever.
Part of the problem here though is that there are exactly three meaningfully fully independent web browsers: Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. Everything else is beholden to one of those three, nearly all of them Chrome. Making a browser engine is an unbelievably massive undertaking, and every browser that deviates from its upstream has two choices: deviate mostly cosmetically and add new features or remove unsavory features, or deviate substantially and be left thoroughly in the dust by the rapid pace of the living web. Google will make decisions that benefit them as the leading ad provider and data seller, Apple will make decisions that benefit them as a hardware and platform vendor, and Mozilla is left, regardless of their values, as the only browser vendor with decision-making power that isn't using their browser as a means to another business goal.
The real problem is though as always: users don't actually think very much about what browser they use. The vast majority of Google Chrome and Safari users don't use those browsers because of performance or features, they use them because that's the one they know about. Safari comes with your computer and Google pesters you to install Chrome at all times.
My point being: Mozilla does need to figure out a way to get people's attention, and IMO it should involve an expression of the values people associate with them, but it needs to stand to actually draw attention towards them and those values.
The browser is already made though. It would be possible for a motivated group to fork one of the existing browsers and start a new organization with refocused values around its further development. Of course, that really depends on someone, or a crowd, being sufficiently motivated by a new vision to bankroll the endeavour.
The crowd doesn't even have to be from somewhere new though. There could be a scenario where current Firefox developers suddenly revolt against their managers and say that they're going to create a new worker-coorperative independent of Mozilla. The managers can't really control them because the source code isn't really their "own". The new org would still have to change their logo and branding since Firefox is still trademarked, and they would have to rebuild their testing/CI infrastructure. They would also have to find new sources of revenue; will donations be enough?
Personally, I use it because it’s privacy focused/not run by Google, and Safari has this weird issue where it will hang the UI thread of the computer itself (is freeze mouse) when one has lots of tabs open.
AFAIK, they still have those privacy centric values, and have been working on a number of projects in that vein.
Often CEOS don’t know when to quit. I don’t mean they aren’t competent, but they simply aren’t the right one for the job and they don’t want to leave, or unable to change their ways.
I really wish Firefox the best but even though I love their blogs and how they communicate, their branding needs adaption as well recapture the hearts of developers and the crowd.
The CEO might know that they’re not doing great, but has a personal incentive to continue extracting value from their extremely lucrative position. When executives are overpaid, and the employees are being let go, the board needs to step in and sort things out.
Sorry for a somewhat late reply. It’s interesting because on the whole that was the time I feel Firefox started a slow descent (with a few upticks here and there, like Quantum) . I have been an avid FF user since at least a decade.
I mean Firefox has been “there” , but it has and is on a knifes edge when it comes to capturing the hearts and minds of developers (now on chrom/ium) and the regular user.
I remember a real buzz after the demise of IE and and uptick in the early part of the decade.
While I love the FF blogs and privacy work you’ve been doing, it’s hard to get the non user back into the fold.
What I hope to see is a more involved model like Blender. Developers are missing features with the devtools is what I hear most when they dont or can’t switch.
For users, it’s different, I have now installed FF for a lot of people, but they often don’t even know they have choice beyond what was installed (Safari, Chrome, Edge)
A more incentive based campaign might be great here, show how FF does thing better in many ways.
You say "back when" but Firefox has a very compelling user experience today. It's extremely fast since the Quantum update, and the anti-tracking features and lack of Google-login nonsense make it a much more pleasant experience than Chrome.
Firefox is fast, don't get me wrong, but with usage dropping every month it clearly isn't compelling people to use it like it once did. The demographic of Firefox users is constantly shrinking with no sign of things picking back up again.
But is that just a sign that nobody can compete with Google's marketing behemoth?
I'm not sure what people want Mozilla to do. They've built a technically outstanding browser, but they don't control the top two domains on the internet to push everyone to use it. And there's a vicious cycle where webdevs only test in Chrome, so sites only work properly in Chrome, so people only want to use Chrome. We've seen this before with Internet Explorer, and the only thing that killed IE was Microsoft getting bored with developing it.
The only thing I could imagine helping their usage stats would be entering some kind of partnership with Apple to replace the laggard Safari with Firefox on Apple devices.
>I get the impression that Mozilla is a bloated organisation that's resting on goodwill it built up back when Firefox was a compelling user experience.
Great observation. Viewing it through a business lens, their competitors caught up to them and offer a better product, meanwhile they have not kept up with them and have no compelling, competing product to offer.
FF used to be great because the alternatives were garbage. Then Chrome came out, and outmaneuvered FF in many business and technical ways.
Yes - I know dear reader. The way FF handles 3000 tabs at once is superior to Chrome. The market has already spoken on such topics.
Yeah, as Firefox growth it attracted people too focused on their monthly bonuses instead of sharing the freedom ideals of their user base, the CEO should be someone like Linus Torvalds or Jeremy Hordward, but still getting business people in the team (e.g. the CFO) but never letting them be the majority of decision makers.
I get the intuition re CEO pay raises too, but in the market for CEOs you've got to be competitive, right? If you're offering considerably less than market, you aren't going to get top talent. And imagining hiring a CEO, I'd be worried about that.
I'm sure Mozilla gets a benefit from being not-evil in that they can successfully pay a little less, but I'm also sure it's not all that big a benefit.
You can put together a competitive package to attract talent but there's no reason to be offering the current CEO and board more money whilst FF market share & revenue is declining & are having to make huge redundancies. Their pay should be tied to their performance otherwise Mozilla looks like they're being run by fat cats exploiting a sinking ship which IMO is hurting their brand as a pure non-profit organization worth rallying behind.
The only way Mozilla is going to remain relevant is through better products which are only going to be created by a highly talented technical team, laying them off whilst paying the people more who laid them off & led FF's multi-year downturn isn't going to reverse their trajectory.
I'd prefer more messaging around a renewed focus + leadership team before any PR marketing campaigns.
I'm not certain about if mozilla needs a CEO that picks the job because it is well paid. Maybe a decent pay and a meaningful mission is a better way to get a well fitting CEO, when the company's goal is not to maximize profit.
I think one of the main reasons anyone uses Firefox nowadays is because they believe in the mission and find good values alignment with a player that has more independence than Google.
With a constant string of red flags and negative press, I wonder what the next version of Mozilla will look like. Personally, I wouldn't bet on them surviving and thriving for much longer.
I feel a core part of the Firefox-using crowd vouch for it because they believe in the Mozilla mission from years back, and feel a strong value alignment with the company. I don't think they've got enough goodwill built up to ride things out forever.