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So this, from Firefox, is fucking toxic: https://mstdn.social/@Lokjo/112772496939724214
You might be aware Chrome— a browser made by an ad company— has been trying to claw back the limitations recently placed on ad networks by the death of third-party cookies, and added new features that gather and report data directly to ad networks. You'd know this because Chrome displayed a popup.
If you're a Firefox user, what you probably don't know is Firefox added this feature and *has already turned it on without asking you*
It was funded through a deal with an ad company. It did not become an ad company itself until much more recently. jwz had a succinct and memorable response to the the absurd idea that really it’s been ad-funded all along and that this makes things okay:
You are just another of those so-predictable people saying, “The animal shelter has always had a kitten-meat deli, why are you surprised?”
Yes, Mozilla started making absolutely horrific funding and management decisions many years ago. Today, they have taken this subtext and turned it into the actual text.
Browser development might not be sustainable with user donations, but it sure as hell is sustainable when you get 400 million bucks by Google every year.
Ah interesting. I didn’t know. I started using Firefox as a kid around version 2.
I totally want Firefox to make money, but I wonder if donations couldn’t be a significant part of that pie today. It seems a lot more people would prefer to donate to Firefox than Mozilla.
I would be happy to donate. But, the reality is… donations don’t work in my experience. One of my projects went FrontPage on all the major tech sites (and even was mentioned in Linux format magazine).
I got $300 in donations.
$250 was from a person I knew…
Backend projects often get screwed more, and I guess you probably need to hope you get supported by companies like Redhat ultimately. This may be why in my case. But backend projects always have people dissing them (frontend projects just need to look good and markety)
I think what’s more important is that it’s open source to be honest. We’re actually lucky we still have Mozilla honestly.
In Mozilla browser days (after Netscape), id imagine it would have been a struggle to get a good pay. The people still there I suspect took a massive risk, and could have moved to lots of other companies like Google instead quite easily
I feel like Mozilla could have been what NextCloud is today. Totally free, open source, and offering a vast offering of office apps, with paid hosted versions. It could be all neatly integrated into Firefox, and you would pay a premium to use them without self hosting. The only thing they did was create Firefox VPN, and the only reason most people use VPNs is because of scammy marketing.
Yes… Similarly, there are lots of browsers that failed too… KHTML for instance is what Chrome and safari was based off…
They have a huge number of projects they tried… Including their own mobile phone OS which they were actively shipping (it’s a pity it didn’t survive, would have been nice to have a 3rd OS)
It’s really a risk / time payoff here. The reality is, when you see projects like this, there are 20 more which fail.
When you have limited resources, things like Firefox VPN actually make sense, because its low risk (there’s a lot of competitors, but its fast to implement).
An office suite takes a huge amount of resources, and is a lot of work.
VPN’s do have their uses. But, I agree… 99% of it is scum marketing
Totally free, open source, and offering a vast offering of office apps, with paid hosted versions.
When Mozilla was founded the idea of hosted webapps didn’t exist. Quite the frankly web standards didn’t yet exist to allow such a thing to exist. Those were the days when you’d use Flash, Shockwave or Silverlight just to view media content on the web.
But I do agree, they could be investing right now into feature rich hosted services, but they’ve only half-assed any paid services they’ve tried to integrate and then dropped them because they couldn’t get enough users to make it worth continuing the effort (mostly due to the half-assed effort they put in to start with)
Here’s a take by a Mozilla employee :
https://fosstodon.org/@gabrielesvelto/112779506156690032
It was funded through a deal with an ad company. It did not become an ad company itself until much more recently. jwz had a succinct and memorable response to the the absurd idea that really it’s been ad-funded all along and that this makes things okay:
That’s certainly a quote that will stick with me.
Browser development might not be sustainable with user donations, but it sure as hell is sustainable when you get 400 million bucks by Google every year.
Firefox has never tried to run on donations though.
You’re actually wrong. They did when they started.
I know because I donated
The funny thing is that the people who complain most about stuff like this, tend to be the people who contribute the least.
If you don’t like them making money to support development, you’re more than welcome to work full time on developing it for free
Why would I donate to them if they are going to advertise at me either way?
Ah interesting. I didn’t know. I started using Firefox as a kid around version 2.
I totally want Firefox to make money, but I wonder if donations couldn’t be a significant part of that pie today. It seems a lot more people would prefer to donate to Firefox than Mozilla.
Yeah. Maybe I’m just old (I’m 40).
I would be happy to donate. But, the reality is… donations don’t work in my experience. One of my projects went FrontPage on all the major tech sites (and even was mentioned in Linux format magazine).
I got $300 in donations.
$250 was from a person I knew…
Backend projects often get screwed more, and I guess you probably need to hope you get supported by companies like Redhat ultimately. This may be why in my case. But backend projects always have people dissing them (frontend projects just need to look good and markety)
I think what’s more important is that it’s open source to be honest. We’re actually lucky we still have Mozilla honestly.
In Mozilla browser days (after Netscape), id imagine it would have been a struggle to get a good pay. The people still there I suspect took a massive risk, and could have moved to lots of other companies like Google instead quite easily
I think they deserve to get rewarded…
I feel like Mozilla could have been what NextCloud is today. Totally free, open source, and offering a vast offering of office apps, with paid hosted versions. It could be all neatly integrated into Firefox, and you would pay a premium to use them without self hosting. The only thing they did was create Firefox VPN, and the only reason most people use VPNs is because of scammy marketing.
Yes… Similarly, there are lots of browsers that failed too… KHTML for instance is what Chrome and safari was based off…
They have a huge number of projects they tried… Including their own mobile phone OS which they were actively shipping (it’s a pity it didn’t survive, would have been nice to have a 3rd OS)
It’s really a risk / time payoff here. The reality is, when you see projects like this, there are 20 more which fail.
When you have limited resources, things like Firefox VPN actually make sense, because its low risk (there’s a lot of competitors, but its fast to implement).
An office suite takes a huge amount of resources, and is a lot of work.
VPN’s do have their uses. But, I agree… 99% of it is scum marketing
When Mozilla was founded the idea of hosted webapps didn’t exist. Quite the frankly web standards didn’t yet exist to allow such a thing to exist. Those were the days when you’d use Flash, Shockwave or Silverlight just to view media content on the web.
But I do agree, they could be investing right now into feature rich hosted services, but they’ve only half-assed any paid services they’ve tried to integrate and then dropped them because they couldn’t get enough users to make it worth continuing the effort (mostly due to the half-assed effort they put in to start with)
Exactly because Mozilla was around to see the Internet grow and mature they should have been fit to create such a suite.
Yeah. I want to donate directly towards the development of FF, but I can’t. I know several other people who of a similar disposition.
« Ad funded » ? Don’t they mean « Google funded » ?