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> - Mozilla should develop revenue independent of Google. > - Mozilla should respect Firefox’s users.

These are contradictory, because how, exactly, do you expect them to make money?

They push and advertise a paid VPN service and everyone loses their minds and acts like Mozilla is the evilest company there ever darn was. But they do nothing, and then they "respect users", but they rely on Google for revenue.

> - Mozilla should focus mainly on Firefox. > - Mozilla should not kill wildly successful side projects, especially when they complement Firefox.

These are also contradictory and even contradict the first two. These side projects were not very successful, they were just well-liked. There's a difference.

If they push these side-projects, they're not focusing on Firefox, and they're disrespecting users, AND they're irresponsibly using their revenue. Oops.

And, on the topic of side projects, it seems to me that everyone rallies around them and calls them stupid and unnecessary... until they're killed. Then suddenly, magically, everyone and their Mom was using them. Really? Where was this support before? Are the supporters just unusually silent?

Like Pocket. I heard nothing, NOTHING, but ridicule for Pocket. Until it got discontinued. Then everyone loved it, it was the darling child of Mozilla, it was the best, and everyone used it. Really? Yeah, okay.

[pseudalopex]

> And, on the topic of side projects, it seems to me that everyone rallies around them and calls them stupid and unnecessary... until they're killed. Then suddenly, magically, everyone and their Mom was using them. Really? Where was this support before? Are the supporters just unusually silent?

> Like Pocket. I heard nothing, NOTHING, but ridicule for Pocket. Until it got discontinued. Then everyone loved it, it was the darling child of Mozilla, it was the best, and everyone used it. Really? Yeah, okay.

I agreed with you before this. I saw positive comments about Pocket before Mozilla announced they would shut it down. And HN comments after the announcement were more mixed than your summary.

Few complaints about Pocket were about the reading list service. They were about Mozilla integrating it. Or buying it. Or breaking their promise to open the source. Or lying about privacy. Or trying to hide Pocket paid them. Or the chum box on the new tab page. Almost any discussion of Mozilla or Firefox would prompt 1 or more of these complaints.

[const_cast]

Frankly I think people are going to be mad at Mozilla no matter what, and at this point I treat the discourse like a psyop.

Does Mozilla make mistakes? Of course. But when their competitors, Chrome, make the same mistakes but orders of magnitude worse, and nobody says anything, I can't take it seriously.

Does Mozilla disrespect their users? A bit, sometimes, in specific circumstances. Google's entire business model is disrespecting their users. So, if that's your gauge, then you're actually arguing in favor of Firefox. Same thing goes for ads. Same things go for shady payments.

This is not to say that we shouldn't critique Mozilla or Firefox. We should. But, I can't help but feel that the critique is disproportionate. And, it makes me wonder how much of it is critique, and how much of it is suspicious praise towards Google.

It's this sort of expectation problem. Maybe there's a word for it. But, since Google has shown so much bad behavior, they've set that expectation for themselves. And now, they're off the hook. They're playing a different game all together. Mozilla has one set of standards, and Chrome has another.

In this universe, Mozilla is a PhD student and Chrome is a toddler. We don't knock the toddler for shitting their pants because it's what we expect. And, we certainly wouldn't expect the toddler to construct a bibliography!