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by dao- 331 days ago
There's for sure a lesson to be learned in here. The product owner who had decided and pushed for making it seem like colorways were ephemeral has long left Mozilla, so you're preaching to the choir at this point.

I still don't consider colorways a failure, all things considered. To me, the fact that colorways are still some of the most used themes outweighs you remembering that you were angry three or so years ago, but thanks for the feedback.
1 comments
margalabargala 331 days ago
I think perhaps we are using the same words to talk about different things.

It may well be that colorways are used and loved by many users and that's a success. You made something people like; well done!

That we are having this conversation at all I think could be considered evidence, though, that it was a strategic failure for Mozilla. How much public opinion is worth burning for how much increased usage of a new theme feature? In my opinion, very little.

That colorways work well, that the people who use them continue to do so, that they were technically well designed and well engineered, is one yardstick by which to measure success/failure. By that measure they are certainly a success. But another yardstick is "did they have a net-positive or net-negative effect on the organization", which is where I think it came up short.

Based on the things you've said it sounds like you and I are more or less on the same page.

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dao- 330 days ago
> How much public opinion is worth burning for how much increased usage of a new theme feature? In my opinion, very little.

I think we're squarely in the "very little" range here in terms of how much public backlash we saw. You might be overestimating how widely folks got angry the same way you got angry, or perhaps we weren't monitoring the right forums and channels when releasing the feature, who knows.

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traverseda 330 days ago
Most of the Firefox adoption I've seen has been driven by tech evangelists pushing it. It's a vocal minority that is upset but it's also a vocal minority that was responsible for a lot of growth.

Firefox Mobile is great, it has uBlock Origin. I'm not recommending it to people though.

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