Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/08/11/changing-world-changing-mozilla/ <comment><USER3> There have been multiple submissions. I guess this one wins because it's the original source and was posted first. But since corporate press releases leave much to be desired ([https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=corporate%20press%20release%20by:dang)), I've pilfered the title from [https://www.zdnet.com/article/mozilla-lays- off-250-employees...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/mozilla-lays- off-250-employees-while-it-refocuses-on-commercial-products/) via [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24121166](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24121166).

Please note that this thread has multiple pages of comments. You can get to the later pages via the More link at the bottom, or like this:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24120336&p=2](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24120336&p=2)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24120336&p=3](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24120336&p=3)

</comment><comment><USER4> [I am a Mozilla employee, and yes, I _do_ recognize how my position influences my perspective.]

One thing that always frustrates me a bit whenever Mozilla comes up on HN or elsewhere is that we are always held to impossibly high standards. Yes, as a non-profit, we _should_ be held to _higher_ standards, but not _impossible_ standards.

OTOH, sometimes it just seems unreasonable and absurd. Stuff like, to paraphrase, "Look at the corporate doublespeak in that press release. Fuck Mozilla, I'm switching to Chrome."

Really? That's what's got you bent out of shape?

Sure, Mozilla has made mistakes. Did we apologize? Did we learn anything? Did we work to prevent it happening again?

People want to continue flogging us for these things while giving other companies (who have made their own mistakes, often much more consequential than ours, would never be as open about it, and often learn nothing) a relatively free pass.

I'm certainly not the first person on the planet whose employer has been on the receiving end of vitriol. And if Mozilla doesn't make it through this next phase, I can always find another job. But what concerns me about this is that Mozilla is such an important voice in shaping the future of the internet. To see it wither away because of people angry with what are, in the grand scheme of things, minor mistakes, is a shame.

EDIT: And lest you think I am embellishing about trivial complaints, there was a rant last week on r/Firefox that Mozilla was allegedly conspiring to hide Gecko's source code because we self-host our primary repo and bug tracking instead of using GitHub, despite the fact that the Mozilla project predates GitHub by a decade.

<comment><USER5> Haha, this is what it looks like to cater to the privacy/security crowd. They have a picture of ideological purity. They don't actually use your product. Essentially if these were customers you'd want to fire them.

People in this business always discover this stuff and then they're always like "Why do they hate me?". The answer is "they never wanted to love you. They want to watch you fall". Like DDG with their favicon service (which HN billed as some sort of nefarious tracker).

Vanta bypassed all this by not playing to the Security Puffery crowd. Usually a quick way to do that is to require money because the Security/Privacy Puffery crowd doesn't have any.

I'm a happy Firefox and Chrome user. Honestly, it's been working fine for me.

<comment><USER6> I use Firefox. I have used it since it was called Phoenix, and I still use it today, extensively, on macOS, Linux, and Windows.

I'm just disappointed about what Mozilla has become over the years. It wasn't supposed to be an "agile" tech company, with slick marketing and UI/UX, making deals to try to get market share.

It was supposed to be a non-profit foundation, making an open-source cross- platform browser engine, pushing for open protocols and standards. It enabled a few niche open-source operating systems to have a viable browser, it put a big dent in IE's market share, I would say it paved the way for Safari on iOS to be viable way back in 2009, and that obviously changed the world.

It still could have done that. It was making 100s of millions of dollars per year from the default search provider deal, for over a decade. It could have saved most of that money, spending it only on 50 to 100 browser engineers. Branching out to MDN and websocket or webrtc libraries would also make sense. But the rest of the crap, the marketing, the rebranding, the Pocket purchase and integration, Firefox OS, the voice recognition and AI stuff (and notice the announcement, they're keeping the AI division, really need that part apparently), stuff that nobody remembers, that's all a waste of money that could be saved by the non-profit foundation to just support the low-level engine keeping the open web viable.

<comment><USER7> Each time somebody mentions, that 'libxslt2' is on an XPath 1.0 level (20 years old, we are at v3.1, currently) and how nice an update would be, the common agreement is the same: " _lots_ of work, which nobody pays for."

Just thinking about all the money they burned through, how great would it have been, to bring XML up to current standards, and to support it well in Firefox. I mention this, because it _is_ important, that we have at least one browser in the market, that understands XML native.

Or what would be if "Ubiquity" would have become an integral part of Firefox? Wow, just wow! I hate these people. They totally ignored the desire of many folks for a WYSIWYG XUL IDE back in the day as well... Instead they made Firefoxy parties, sold T-Shirts and coffee-mugs, implemented 'Persona', 'Hello' and what not! Did you just say, they bought 'Pocket'? Holy moly! I thought it was just a strategic relationship.

<comment><USER8> What has XML to do with anything?

<comment><USER7> XML is the only serious, modern document format we have and well within the realm of web browsers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Mozilla management has me puzzled. They have a position that is incredibly strong, lots of dedicated users that would rather quit the web than switch to Chrome or Edge.

"But we know we also need to go beyond the browser to give people new products and technologies that both excite them and represent their interests"

Is exactly what they should stay away from. Work on the bloody browser, forget about the rest. There are bugs open for the browser that cost them marketshare every day (WebMIDI for instance) driving people to Chrome.

Spreading their focus thinly, causing their main product to be somewhat neglected and behind when it comes to comparing it with other browsers. And that's before we get into the re-write and forced upgrade and breakage of lots of important plug-ins.

It's not so much the changing world that is the problem here, but a ship that has become rudderless and that does not treat the browser landscape like the war it really is.

The world needs Mozilla, healthy and under good management. I'm not sure if that is a luxury we will have for much longer if they are going down hill this fast. On the plus side, it's open source and will - hopefully - continue to work for many years as long as there are people willing to keep it alive.

So as far as I'm concerned this post highlights the problem in the post itself, this is _not_ what's needed.

Laser focus on the browser at the expense of all the fluff. Forget about 'internet activism' and 'building new products'.

Get the most secure and most user friendly, privacy first, standards compatible and feature rich browser out there and you'll survive for another decade at least. Get distracted by new and shiny stuff and I'd be surprised if it lasts another five years.

<comment><USER10> A common refrain, but is anything but obvious. Focusing on the browser could be a losing strategy. I'd argue it probably is. The trajectory is terrible: the tech is being commoditized (WebKit, Chromium) and the market share picture is bleak. The opportunity cost is huge: maintaining a web engine, one which basically just tries to keep up with the others put out by Google et al, takes armies of people that could perhaps otherwise be leveraged elsewhere towards creating something disruptive which could carry Mozilla forward into the future. The entire revenue model is held up by, of all companies, Google. And that model is backed up by market share which is going down continuously, is under attack on all sides, and is morally compromised by being powered by by ads. The biggest counterincentive to Google pulling the plug isn't one of ending a transaction of mutual value exchange, but potential legal impact by regulators. Not exactly the most robust business model.

When companies struggle with a failing product, the answer usually is to evolve. Not to double down on what has (thankfully for us) worked for several decades but now is starting to fail systemically.

What you're saying here presumes to be the answer to the most important question Mozilla is struggling with: in 10 years, is a browser-focused Mozilla viable? Nobody knows the answer to this, there are strong reasons to think the answer is a strong "No." So stop pretending like you know the answer.

<comment><USER11> Counterpoint: Apple when Jobs came back.

Sometimes the answer to a company which is trying too many things at random is to drastically reduce the dispersion of effort, and focus ruthlessly.

It's very hard to do psychologically, though.

IMO Mozilla would probably be better served, business-wise, as being "the customizable Chrome". It would be a much smaller business (i.e. less IP under development), but it could be profitable and it leverages their USP in a way that Chrome doesn't seem able or willing to follow.

Finding different products to sell simply leads to Firefox going away, IMO. I don't care about Mozilla; I care about what Firefox does that Chrome does not. And at the end of the day, that's mostly Tree Style Tabs, uBlock and a menu bar.

<comment><USER10> I think one challenge is a lot of Mozilla's users see Mozilla as a browser company, whereas Mozilla sees itself as an Internet company. The users may be right. Your Apple analogy is a tough one - if Apple had just stayed focused on PCs, and not the higher level mission of the company around comput-ing-, they would have not invented new kinds of computers. Focus makes sense, once you've locked in on something. The trick of _what_ to focus on is hard though, and the scope of things to consider as possible to focus on is informed by the mission of the company and its fundamental thesis for existing. When the iPod came out it was often chastised as being off-mission for Apple, and many Mac enthusiasts yelled that it would detract away from having them fix whatever the problem of the day was bothering them about their Mac. This kind of complaint is obviously very familiar in the Mozilla case - things other than Firefox are often considered 'distractions' much like the iPod (which led to the iPhone) was by similar people who were heavily invested in the company's existing product line. Time will tell if Mozilla survives if it turns out they should, unlike Apple, listen to them and accept they can't do more than one thing.

Mozilla's thesis is about unlocking the potential of the Internet and ensuring it remains a public resource. Its purpose for existing is not about tree style tabs or ad blockers. But this makes for a tough process of determining how to foster innovative products since the mission is so broad.

<comment><USER9> > I think one challenge is a lot of Mozilla's users see Mozilla as a browser > company, whereas Mozilla sees itself as an Internet company.

Spot on. In fact, I think that without FireFox Mozilla might as well be dead, even if it survives as a legal entity and employs people. That's it's whole reason for existence as far as I'm concerned.

<comment><USER12> Agree. I use Firefox for all the usual reasons. I've considered donating to Mozilla in the past, but have always decided not to -- because my impression is that most of that money would be spent on experiments and signaling, not work on the core product that I care about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Over the past decade, Mozilla has capitulated over and over again on critical issues. They failed their users and the ecosystem by not standing up to industry pressure for h.264 and EME. They also ended up following rather than leading on key privacy issues like third-party cookie behavior.

In every case, they defended these decisions by saying that they couldn't risk losing users, arguing that these issues weren't hills worth dying on. And now, because Mozilla didn't choose a hill to die on, they are going to die on no hill at all.

When they aren't the browser that is standing up for interoperability and the freedom and privacy of their users, they have no way to differentiate themselves. Firefox is just another browser, and it's one that is architecturally dated and under-resourced compared to its rivals.

I had assumed that when Mozilla had nothing left to lose as Firefox marketshare crashed, they would go back to being the scrappy underdog who advocates for the right thing. The fact that they've chosen to focus on revenue instead says everything you need to know about how far Mozilla has fallen.

<comment><USER14> They may have made mistakes over EME but would _you_ have sacrificed netflix or other stuff and continued to use pure OSS?

<comment><USER15> Computers are powerful enough these days to have multiple browsers installed and running simultaneously. One could have used Firefox for general browsing and just used Chrome for Netflix.

<comment><USER16> Power users might do it, but most people don't.

<comment><USER15> There are enough power users in the world to keep Firefox relevant.

<comment><USER17> Judging from market share, does anyone who's not a power user even run Firefox these days? I know I stopped religiously installing it on non-nerd relatives' computers and stopped evangelizing it to my friends years ago, when it stopped being a clear usability and safety win. They're certainly not installing it themselves.

[EDIT] basically I have no reason to bother a friend or relative to install Firefox if they're gonna open it and go "well, that's... fine". Non-nerds could immediately tell Phoenix/Firebird/early-FF were better than IE. For real. These days, to convince my uncle to install FF instead of Edge, what's the sell? What about FF makes it seem to them like I didn't just make them do this for no reason? Unless you _also_ install some extensions, the only difference is that they advertise different add-on services at you. If FF doesn't make bold choices that improve the default browsing experience, I have _no reason whatsoever_ to recommend them to non-nerds, or to install FF when I set up a computer for someone, or whatever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "We need to focus..." followed by 5 different areas to focus on.

That's not focusing.

"[We] need to go beyond the browser to give people new products and technologies that both excite them and represent their interests."

What? Mozilla needs to build great products that solve people's problems better than Google or whomever else does. That's what Firefox did when it came out. It was objectively better than IE in ways that people could immediately grasp.

"Representing interests?" WTF are you even taking about? If you mean privacy and ownership of my personal data than say that.

"To start, that means products that mitigate harms or address the kinds of the problems that people face today. Over the longer run, our goal is to build new experiences that people love and want, that have better values and better characteristics inside those products."

Mitigate harms? Again, WTF are we even talking about? Better values? Maybe this is the open source roots showing? But the majority of your business is based on selling default search engine rights to one of the most invasive harvesters of personal info, so let's not pull that "values" thread too much here Mozilla.

Make awesome products and solve people problems better than your competitors. If you competition is doing scummy stuff, then tell people why your approach is better. Apple is doing an awesome job messaging the importance of privacy.

Come on Mozilla. Get in the damn game

</comment><comment><USER19> That's the last call for anybody who thinks "it's good that Mozilla exists, and its mission is important, but I'm still using Chrome and derivatives". Mozilla can't exist solely because people think it has a good mission: it needs products that can pay the bills, or at least a large population of active users.

<comment><USER20> Also, please make a monthly donation to Mozilla if you can. You will contribute to saving the world.

[https://donate.mozilla.org/](https://donate.mozilla.org/)

<comment><USER15> I wonder how many more people would donate if they knew the donation would be spent on making Firefox better and not on political activism.

<comment><USER21> That doesn't work with their current structure. Foundation can receive donations, Corporation (itself a subsidiary of the foundation) can sell products (like Mozilla VPN).

<comment><USER15> I wonder why the current structure is set up like that. I mean I don't think it's by accident – if it were set up like that by accident, surely, it could have been set up so people could direct donations directly at Firefox, if the CEO wanted that.

<comment><USER22> The structure is set up that because it reflects the goals of Mozilla. Firefox the browser is not the end goal, it's a means to making the internet a better place. And that's what the Foundation is about. The corporation also pays dividends to the Foundation in order to help fund their efforts, because it's the Foundation's work that matters more (in the long term) than Firefox.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Mozilla, with revenue of $27M last year, is mainly responsible for Firefox and a few related applications [0].

Apache meanwhile, has revenue of less than $1M, and has over 350 projects with huge adoption like Cassandra and Kafka and Lucene and Maven and that eponymous HTTP server [1].

In 2017 Mozilla paid their CEO $2.3M and their treasurer (who only worked 6 months) $1.2M [2].

Mozilla is a foundation which owns a for-profit corporation. That corporation had revenues of $450M in 2018 [3]. I double checked this shocking amount.

Most of that revenue comes from their search partner, which was switched back to Google recently [4].

How is all of this possible given the relative contributions of these software non-profits?

[0] [https://support.mozilla.org/en- US/products](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/products) [1] [https://projects.apache.org/projects.html](https://projects.apache.org/projects.html) [2] [https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2017/mozilla-2017-fo...](https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2017/mozilla-2017-form-990.pdf) [3] [https://www.ghacks.net/2019/11/26/mozilla-revenue-dropped- in...](https://www.ghacks.net/2019/11/26/mozilla-revenue-dropped-in-2018-but- it-is-still-doing-well/) [4] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation#Google](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation#Google)

<comment><USER24> Apache projects are generally developed by a combination of interested volunteers and corporate-funded teams, not by employees of the Apache foundation.

<comment><USER25> and why is that?

<comment><USER24> The Apache Foundation is organized as a legal entity to host projects, but is intentionally decentralized. Because they have chosen to organize themselves this way, many large companies have chosen to work with them to host collaborative open source projects they care about. It fills a very different niche than Mozilla.

Looking at the revenue of the Apache Foundation is about as misleading as looking at the revenue for the Mozilla Foundation. In both cases, development is generally funded through corporations, though in the Apache case the corporations are independent while in the Mozilla case the Foundation owns the Mozilla Corporation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Sounds like Servo, the next-generation browser engine that brought the world Rust, is one of the teams being destaffed:

[https://twitter.com/SimonSapin/status/1293231187167784960](https://twitter.com/SimonSapin/status/1293231187167784960)

<comment><USER27> Servo showed there was plenty of room for browser perf beyond optimizing JS engines

Mozilla getting rid of their main product's most relevant R&D makes me fear they'll eventually announce Firefox replacing its internals with chromium

<comment><USER28> Can't say I'm surprised there wasn't much movement on that project in a coordinated fashion it had all the makings of a project without adequate staffing to complete its vision.

<comment><USER29> Can you elaborate on this? Because I remember the day Firefox became _fast_ with an incredible amount of fondness, and that moment owed in large part to Servo.

<comment><USER30> Firefox is faster than it was, but it's still the slowest browser. I've gotten literally 2x benchmark scores from Safari on the same hardware, and the subjective difference is large. Servo propelled FF from "unusable" to "worth the tradeoff" but they didn't have the resources to make it _fast_.

<comment><USER29> My experience in daily use of Firefox post-Servo is that all page loads have essentially been instantaneous. This is of course subjective based in part on hardware, so I'm not disputing your assessment.

As far as I'm aware, Servo is at the bleeding edge of performance under the hood. Its hybrid glyph rendering system for example is state-of-the-art.

<comment><USER30> I'm no browser architect--I don't know how the rendering engines compare, and of course it depends on the site and the extensions used. I did just time some popular websites, and confirmed my impressions. For example, nytimes.com gives

0.5s on Safari with Adguard

1.6s on Chrome with uBlock Origin

2.5s on Firefox with uBlock Origin

which is pretty representative.

<comment><USER31> Have you tried it without ublock out of curiosity?

<comment><USER30> Without uBlock it's Chrome 2s, Firefox 3s.

<comment><USER32> Make sure it is not some extension in the background.

Because Firefox is the fastest on my Windows PC

<comment><USER30> That was in private windows with no extensions. I tried it on my Windows machine with no extensions too, and it was 1.44 to 1.51, basically margin of error. I know MacOS Firefox has really lagged on performance improvements in the past. It could be a Mac-only issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Mozilla needs to stop prattling on about being a "world-class, modern, multi- product internet organisation" and being "diverse" and "inclusive" and "battling systemic racism" and get back to developing its core products which people actually want to use.

Stop with the fluff and the airy blog posts and societal ambitions and get back to doing actual engineering which gets people back using your products. You may have a "new focus on community" but it means nothing if there's no product to have that community built around.

You might claim to be a "technical powerhouse of the internet activist movement" (whatever that is !? ) but soon you're going to be nothing at all because Firefox is, as much as it pains me to say it, still merely following and not leading while Mozilla leadership goes back and forth and seems more interested in writing blog posts about global issues than the technology that actually makes it a viable business.

Focus on Firefox. Build a product that's truly competitive once more. Build a product. Not endless blog posts about trust and "authenticity" and "leadership" and whatever else appears on the RSS feed today; get some actual leadership together and start looking at what you're actually doing, which of late has been not a lot at all.

<comment><USER34> It'd be really interesting to see how much activist HR employees eat into their revenue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> 250 people, roughly 25% of the company, were laid off today.

This is on top of the 70 laid off in January (discussion of that at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22057737](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22057737))

<comment><USER36> Why Mozilla has almost 1,000 employees blows my mind. Isn't this an project for an open source web browser?

<comment><USER37> How many people do you think a browser's team + all components + support + management + marketing + finances need? Chromium alone has 1700+ contributors ([https://github.com/chromium/chromium](https://github.com/chromium/chromium)), Firefox has hundreds of "core contributors" ([https://wiki.mozilla.org/Community#Core_Contributor](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Community#Core_Contributor)) and many more beyond those.

<comment><USER38> Chromium is known to be a fairly well-staffed project; it's really not a great example to compare against.

<comment><USER39> What would you compare it against? It's the most similar project I can think of.

<comment><USER38> The Safari/WebKit team is much more reasonable, with probably an average of one to two hundred people working on it at any given time (this is a bit complicated to measure, since many people move around between the browser and related teams like Mail or CFNetwork–and not to mention the various non- developer roles that only work part-time on Safari–but it should be accurate to an order of magnitude).

<comment><USER35> I'm sure there are lots of other engineering teams at Apple focused on security, build systems, developer tools, infrastructure, etc that the Safari/Webkit team relies on.

Then there are all the non-engineering functions like HR, marketing, etc.

Mozilla has to do all of that.

<comment><USER38> I'm including all of that in that number, the actual organization's full-time engineer count for it is probably half that. Also, I am excluding people working on things used by Safari but general purpose and part of the OS, such as system libraries and platform security features (many of which Chrome and Firefox use themselves).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> This has wayyy too much corporate doublespeak in it. I try not to be negative on companies with a good mission, but this fluff-filled announcement tells my spidey senses that they're about to do something that people won't like.

<comment><USER41> You're not wrong, but why do you suspect the "something people won't like" is anything more than this massive layoff?

<comment><USER42> Section 5:

" New focus on economics. Recognizing that the old model where everything was free has consequences, means we must explore a range of different business opportunities and alternate value exchanges. "

A kind reading would be that they'll try to move to a consultancy or subscription based model, like Red Hat. An unkind reading is that they will make portions of their products and code proprietary and charge licensing fees.

"... everything was free ..." is an ambiguous statement in this context. Do they mean free/libre or do they mean free/gratis? This, to me reads like corporate double speak. It leaves enough ambiguity so that people can have a kind interpretation while letting them claim they were being honest about their intentions should they choose to go a proprietary route.

<comment><USER5> I think it's pretty obvious they mean they (like Brave) want to participate in building an Internet where you can monetize not using ads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I find this sad, Mozilla is really an advocate for the open web and web standards. Since web browsers are free, they can't make much. They might be able to sell something like Thunderbird; if they improve it and make it more into a service, like Hey! for example. They could also try the sponsorship model that a lot of open source projects are doing. They already have sponsors, but maybe sponsors for their open source frameworks might be better than asking for donations at a company level.

<comment><USER44> If downsizing the organization and bringing some revenue in from a VPN service helps them be less financially beholden to Google, I think that's a net positive.

I don't know that they would need to sell Thunderbird as a whole bundled product/service like Hey; they could launch a paid email service (in the "it's not Gmail" market occupied by Proton, FastMail, Posteo, etc.) and use that money for work on Thunderbird.

Not so different from having a VPN service and using it to bring in money for Firefox.

<comment><USER45> >beholden to Google, I think that's a net positive

For the Mozilla Management, not the Company itself.

<comment><USER44> For anyone worried about what will happen to Mozilla if Google decides they don't want to pay for being the default search engine in Firefox anymore. Their current arrangement is a lot of eggs in one basket.

<comment><USER45> Was about the net positive, if you trow out all the developers and just hold the highly paid management, firefox will loose even more % and not even google will care if the default search engine google is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> That's sad, many of them would have joined Mozilla not just for money but genuinely believing they are working for social good and they did.

I understood how bad Mozilla, for lack of a better term 'sucked' at making money when I saw how the small team of KaiOS picked up the remains of Firefox OS and not only turned it to be a viable business but did so in the ruthless, hyper-competitive market of Smartphone OS ecosystem where even Microsoft had failed.

IMO Mozilla should have gone full throttle on Thunderbird Enterprise with support structure, Something for Microsoft Teams equivalent and finally embracing DDG with open hands.

<comment><USER47> > I understood how bad Mozilla, for lack of a better term 'sucked' at making > money when I saw how the small team of KaiOS picked up the remains of > Firefox OS and not only turned it to be a viable business but did so in the > ruthless, hyper-competitive market of Smartphone OS ecosystem where even > Microsoft had failed.

KaiOS is in the ultra-low-end smartphone/feature-phone market that Microsoft/Google/Apple don't care about at all.

What's remarkable is that something ill-conceived like "web technology on ultra-low-end devices" actually gained enough traction to get devices on the market.

Like Firefox OS before it, actual KaiOS devices were not well-received, because of poor performance and lack of apps. It's just that nobody really notices because all the buzz is around "real" smartphones.

<comment><USER46> >Like Firefox OS before it, actual KaiOS devices were not well-received, because of poor performance and lack of apps.

As of Q1 2018, 23 million KaiOS devices were shipped. It stood second in terms of market share in India due to JioPhone(even ahead of iOS). It seems future Jio Phones would be Android, especially considering Google is now invested in Jio(It's an investor in KaiOS as well). Mozilla had recently signed a deal to develop the gecko engine for KaiOS further.

KaiOS team saw where Firefox OS would fit well and they brought it to fruition; Something I feel Mozilla could have pulled off too.

<comment><USER47> > As of Q1 2018, 23 million KaiOS devices were shipped.

Like I said, remarkable.

> KaiOS team saw where Firefox OS would fit well and they brought it to > fruition; Something I feel Mozilla could have pulled off too.

You mean they could've pulled off getting investor money to develop a bad product into an even worse product and unload it on markets in the developing world, where people are presumably used to bad products?

I don't think that's in their "mission statement".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Mozilla 2010: "join us, don't work for the man, work for mankind!" (this was their actual slogan)

Mozilla 2020: "well actually, work for the man" (or woman in this case)

Sadly, even with Mozilla Foundation getting 40M in donations they need the Corporation to pay the bills (including Mitchell Baker's 2.5M/y salary)

The fact that this makes it less likely Firefox continues to be competition for Chrome is bad news for the web ...

<comment><USER49> The "new focus" isn't that new, it's been the same since Baker became CEO, and it's a focus on making Mitchell Baker really, really rich.

Mozilla's privacy branding is in direct conflict with Baker's vision of some kind of corporate entity that can pay her a lot of money. Apple can do this because they are filthy rich themselves, Mozilla's puny market share means that increasing their revenue will require them to use the most valuable coin in the Internet realm, which is user data.

I think a LibreOffice-style hard fork will be necessary at some point with a nonprofit carrying Firefox forward. Another thread mentioned Mozilla Firefox becoming a skin on Chromium ... Microsoft basically has validated this approach, and I can see Baker eliminating most of the rest of their engineering core to do the same.

<comment><USER50> The issue is that there are few nonprofits that can carry Firefox as much as it need. The document foundation has around 0.2% of the revenue that Mozilla has, so that was a lot more manageable than a hard fork of Firefox would be.

A potential new non-profit would need backing from some very large companies, donations from privite people would likely get no where near enough.

<comment><USER51> Can you explain why? Why would a fork need anything more than hosting and a mailing list?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> "Focusing Firefox On Users In order to refocus the Firefox organization on core browser growth through differentiated user experiences, we are reducing investment in some areas such as developer tools, internal tooling, and platform feature development, and transitioning adjacent security/privacy products to our New Products and Operations team."

So what is the impact on things like Servo/Rust, and the core browser?

I guess they are setting up for a post-Google-pays-to-keep-us-going world, but not sure that Pocket or Hubs or VPN are going to set the world on fire.

<comment><USER53> Strange, I can't see that sentence in the post.

<comment><USER54> It's in the linked internal message, second page:

[https://blog.mozilla.org/wp- content/uploads/2020/08/Message-...](https://blog.mozilla.org/wp- content/uploads/2020/08/Message-to-Employees-Change-in-Difficult-Times.pdf)

<comment><USER53> This is seriously unfortunate. A Chromium-only world creeps ever closer...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I feel for everyone who will lose their job here. That's never a pleasant thing, particularly so in current circumstances.

Notwithstanding that though - and with no disrespect to anyone being laid off - I'm actually really encouraged by this. The key quote from the announcement is this one:

"Furthermore, Mozilla's contract with Google to include Google as the default search provider inside Firefox is set to expire later this year, and the contract has not been renewed."

Mozilla's reliance on Google is a major detraction from delivering privacy- focused products.

I've said before, and I'll say again: I'd gladly pay a fee for Firefox if it meant (a) it was funding the product so that (b) there was no need for them to peddle in surveillance.

I really wish Mozilla all the best. Commit to provacy, show me where to pay and I'll gladly sign up _.

\--

_I'm aware they accept donations and have already donated. But that's different from paid-for products.

<comment><USER56> I would also happily pay for Firefox. I'm not sure if it would be better or worse for the browser though, in terms of market share. If they don't charge for it, hopefully they can cover costs with other paid services, like their VPN service.

Honestly, it would be great if Mozilla could provide privacy focused cloud services like storage, email, etc. I'd gladly pay for it, knowing they are not interested in collecting my information.

<comment><USER57> How long do you think Mozilla can resist the temptation to monetize your data? Personally I prefer they don't try to run these services because the concentration of data is too much of a temptation for anyone. You already have email and storage options. Mozilla just needs to offer a way to pay for Firefox directly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> 4.5 months severance for the laid off employees.

Doesn't say anything about any cuts to executive compensation however.

[https://blog.mozilla.org/wp- content/uploads/2020/08/Message-...](https://blog.mozilla.org/wp- content/uploads/2020/08/Message-to-Employees-Change-in-Difficult-Times.pdf)

<comment><USER59> Every single C-suite executive should be required to take a (2 * % of employees laid off) pay cut.

Lay off 25% of your company? Enjoy your 50% pay cut.

Have to lay off 50%? Enjoy working unpaid for a year while you rebuild.

<comment><USER34> Coming from the finance world, there's a very good reason that doesn't happen. In situations where a company is spiraling, everyone is incentivized to leave for new work. The people who are most competent at work are also most capable of getting new jobs, so what used to happen before it was standard was as a company died, the best people left, and the company died faster.

If you axe the CEO's pay by 50% one year, what reason does he have to stay on and fix things? Why shouldn't he just go to some successful series A startup, get a bunch of equity, and retire in 10 years? He definitely could, if he wanted to.

<comment><USER60> While I fully understand the logic of what you're saying, this is what makes us peons despise the upper execs, as they've turned it into a game of "Heads I win, tails you lose".

I mean, if you're a great CEO, you're lavished with Midas-level wealth. If you're an absolute shitty CEO, you're also lavished with let's say Midas- junior-level wealth in the form of retention bonuses and/or golden parachutes to fix the mess you created (as you, no doubt, axe a large number of your underlings).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> While I definitely think Mozilla is great for the internet, their main product is terrible from a business perspective. Trying to monitize a piece of free software that you are selling on this privacy benifits is a loosing battle. The reason free software is free is _because_ it can sell more valuable ads by using your data. Products that you pay directly for don't need to worry about selling ads so they don't have to do tracking and such.

A paid browser at this point is realistically impossible to sell at any sort of scale because chrome is free. IMO Firefox Mozilla needs to make a new product that is paid. Someone on HN suggested email and/or other services that compete with Google's user product suite? At that point you are selling server space so its easier to get people to pay for it.

<comment><USER62> That's a funny idea. Suppose there were a Firefox Pro option?

It's the sort of thing a lot of people here might pay for regardless of what's in it just because they believe Firefox is essential to the open web.

But what could it be?

What if all it was to start was bundling their existing VPN service, Scroll, and Pocket Premium for a single price, and even if technically you can use them in Chrome or as iOS apps, it's marketed as a better browser. And then the door is open to add new things, maybe pinboard-style bookmark archiving would make sense?

Is it a hit? Hard to say. But it feels like a better bet as a feature set that ALSO supports the open web than marketing each of those services individually.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> The reduced spending on dev tools makes me sad. Their efforts in the past, for example their unparalleled support for CSS grid, have set the standard for web developer tools. I hope they find a way to continue to innovate in this space.

<comment><USER64> Yeah, I very much agree. For a diverse Web development needs to be good on as many browsers as possible.

Maybe this could be one of the separate parts some of the devs could split out as a donation/patreon project or something. You pay for them giving you better dev environment in Firefox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> The CEO mentions that COVID devastated their revenue but doesn't elaborate. Did COVID somehow impact their market share? Are fewer people buying and as such they get less rev share? Something else?

<comment><USER66> Yeah that's interesting. I thought nearly all of Mozilla's revenue came from Google to default to their search engine. I wonder if COVID is just an excuse to do this now.

Edit: Another comment seems to have some details [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24123945](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24123945)

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Mozilla should offer a way to make donations that are earmarked for direct use on Firefox engineering.

Not marketing, not new services, none of that... just engineering the core product.

Other expenses can come out of the general donation fund.

</comment><comment><USER68> The browser space is extremely competitive because it has been driven for decades by corporations _seeking_ to dominate the field, and that naturally leads to Byzantine complexity and high barrier for any competition.

Mozilla really needs to find ways to generate profits and in turn, channel the lion's share of those profits into their browser. But this is a hard proposition when giant corporations give away their browsers for free and even bundle it hard with their operating systems. The unfairness of Mozilla's browser endeavour is stark when you stop to think about it.

Maybe we the collective really do deserve our corporate overlords because we can't be bothered to pay for something when a free version _also_ exists. This not only applies to Firefox but is a big reason why nearly all the top OSS are struggling to reach parity with their commercial counterparts.

How many of us will pay Office/Adobe licenses but if LibreOffice or Gimp ask for payment, we won't? The reason is vendor lock-in and feature-wise inferiority of the open source counterparts, but if no one uses them, then like the proverbial chicken-and-egg, they will never be able to compete, and will only slowly fade away.

</comment><comment><USER69> I was watching Troy Hunt's weekly update[0] where he reveals he's open- sourcing Have I Been Pwned (HIBP). He also talks about the failed M&A process:

       We get all the way with an organisation who we thought was a very good fit.
       [...] which due to confidentiality reasons I have to describe as "a change in
       business operating model" happened that killed the whole [deal], in February.

Mozilla would have been a perfect fit for HIBP. Could it be that the failed M&A partner was in fact Mozilla, who are now revealing their "change in business operating model" (ie: focus on commercial products)?

This comment from 5 months ago has the same idea [1].

[0] [https://youtu.be/2-wgY3Fqfos?t=2160](https://youtu.be/2-wgY3Fqfos?t=2160)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22471374](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22471374)

</comment><comment><USER70> Here is how that press release should have read:

First paragraph: Get to the point (layoffs are happening) immediately, and state the concrete reasons why they are necessary.

Second paragraph: Thank the people being laid off, call out some of their good work, and talk about the things you are doing to help them find a new job.

Third paragraph: Mention the steps you are taking to avoid having to have layoffs again. Be as specific as possible. When mentioning "focus", that means focusing on one, possibly two, very specific things.

Last paragraph: Motivation for the future. Renewed commitment to making Firefox better.

</comment><comment><USER71> The "make Firefox a secondary goal" faction has won again.

"Mozilla exists so the internet can help the world collectively meet the range of challenges a moment like this presents. Firefox is a part of this. But we know we also need to go beyond the browser to give people new products and technologies that both excite them and represent their interests. Over the last while, it has been clear that Mozilla is not structured properly to create these new things — and to build the better internet we all deserve."

<comment><USER62> This would bug me less if their big ideas weren't Pocket and a VR chatroom.

<comment><USER29> > _This would bug me less if their big ideas weren 't Pocket and a VR > chatroom._

It's probably just Pocket; developers working on the latter were hit with layoffs today, too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> This announcement is very strong in corporate speak. Main takeaway is that they're out of money and need to are going to focus on making money?

<comment><USER73> Making a browsers requires developers, developers cost money.

Since not enough people are donating, they have to figure out how to make money otherwise.

<comment><USER37> Yup; Google / Chrome, Apple / Safari + webkit, and Microsoft / Edge get away with it because their browser is not their product, it's an extra. For Google its original intent was to make the internet faster so that people would see more ads.

Firefox needs a company behind it whose income is not tied to the browser. I don't believe you can monetize a browser, not without doing some dodgy shit like forcing search engines on people, injecting ads, premium features, etc.

I know Firefox tried to launch a number of products over the years to try and make money, but at this point it doesn't seem to be working. I think their only hope financially is to be bought up by a FAANG, but they either have their own browsers or no interest in having one.

<comment><USER74> You can't by Mozilla. It's a non-profit. There are no shares.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> I wish they would get their "Send" feature up & running again. It's so simple for one-off's, better than DropBox.

[https://send.firefox.com/](https://send.firefox.com/)

<comment><USER76> I agree, this is the only Mozilla service I ever used. However [https://transfer.sh/](https://transfer.sh/) is a good alternative.

<comment><USER60> Just looked at transfer.sh, and it seems like a much WORSE alternative. The best thing about Firefox Send was the simple end-to-end encryption where I could upload the file, then just send someone the (secure) 1-time only download URL. Looks like transfer.sh doesn't support any encryption on its own, you have to do all your encryption/decryption on your own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> The cost of building and maintaining a competitive browser is huge and it's hard for Mozilla/Firefox to compete with Google/Chrome. Firefox saw its monthly active users go down by ~14% in the last 8 months [1]. I think Mozilla should consider stopping Firefox development and fork Chromium to focus on accessibility and privacy (both in and out of the browser). It's far from ideal--there'll only be one popular browser engine--but it's a trade off that could help Mozilla put more money and time towards its true mission: "to ensure the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all". The cost of building/maintaining Firefox is holding them back from putting more money and effort toward that mission (and I think that's why they're reducing their workforce [2]).

[1] 244M MAU in Dec. 2018 and 209M MAU as of Aug. 2, 2020 [https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user- activity](https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity)

[2] "Today we announced a significant restructuring of Mozilla Corporation. This will strengthen our ability to build and invest in products and services that will give people alternatives to conventional Big Tech. Sadly, the changes also include a significant reduction in our workforce by approximately 250 people."

<comment><USER78> That's 20 months, not 8.

<comment><USER77> Ah you're right, I skipped a year. Thank you for pointing that out

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> Anyone remember when companies were straightforward about layoffs and firings? You know, text like "Sales are slow, so we need to lay some people off", not "We'll meet people where they are" (whatever that phrase-du-jour even means).

If that letter is a guide to leadership at mozilla, there's not much hope for the future of the organization. It might be a good idea to ask the remaining technical people what they would like to build, and let them go from there.

It's time to excite people with products. They got the browser to be nearly as good as the alternatives (I try every new release of FF, only to switch back to Safari when I see the terrible effect FF has on power consumption).

How about a better alternative for remote meetings? Start with the basics: respond to reduced bandwidth by focussing on audio, not video. I want to hear what someone is saying, not to see the titles on their bookshelves. In my experience, zoom is pretty bad at this, and so (to a lesser extent) is microsoft/teams. Watching TV news, I've learned that webex and skype are also poor. Given the poor alternatives, and the high demand, I am surprised Mozilla has not already produced a kick-ass product, and I was disappointed not to read of this (or any other technical idea) in this management-speak firing letter.

</comment><comment><USER29> Surreal. Even the _Servo_ team was disbanded. Mozilla Research effectively no longer exists. That alone says everything.

This is a dark day for the open web.

</comment><comment><USER80> 'The coronavirus pandemic "significantly impacted our revenue,"' -

Most of their revenue comes from search engines paying to be the default. Are there any details on why the pandemic would have a significant impact on that?

<comment><USER81> It's odd also because those search engines have long-term contracts to the tune of like $350-$500M a year, and Google seems to be doing okay.

<comment><USER48> The contract ends start of 2021 IIRC and Firefox market share has been dropping and will continue dropping (specially now after this news).

Which means I'm sure they are planning for a large reduction in revenue, like 50% or whatever. These contracts are usually on a 3-6 year basis..

<comment><USER82> While I get the intent, as noted on the thread about their version 2 script blocker: what better way to hobble what tiny share you have by not allowing site owners to know FF users exist?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> > Economic conditions resulting from the global pandemic have significantly > impacted our revenue

This is baffling. How? You make a web technology and everyone is stuck at home.

<comment><USER22> People aren't clicking on ads to buy things because they've all been laid off. Economies are circular.

<comment><USER84> And yet, Google and Facebook revenue don't seem to be doing too bad. Slightly down, but not very much so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> Does the Baidu revenue and shutting down the Taipei office rub anyone else the wrong way?

I am not sure Mozilla works outside of a nonprofit model.

<comment><USER48> I think it works, they simply have no market share. Baidu and others will pay millions to be a default search engine of a popular browser.

But Firefox just isn't that popular anymore. Which, mind you, sucks, because we need a Firefox (and Quantum is actually pretty good).

That said, Mozilla's focus is no longer Firefox apparently - so, there's that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> For all it's flaws, and with the exception of a brief 18 month stint, I've been a dedicated Firefox user since 2004. I sincerely hope that this project finds its new groove and continues to provide a viable alternative to Chromium. The world truly needs it.

</comment><comment><USER86> Thought it would be another political activism post, turns out to be a dressed-up corporate layoff announcement:

> Sadly, the changes also include a significant reduction in our workforce — > approximately 250 people of exceptional professional and personal caliber > who have made outstanding contributions to who we are today.

</comment><comment><USER87> Mozilla should have a Mozilla club. Today, you can go to [https://donate.mozilla.org/](https://donate.mozilla.org/) and you can donate monthly, but you get nothing for it except the warm glow of helping Mozilla.

Instead, Mozilla should have a private Discord for dues-paying club members, where participants have direct access to Mozilla decision makers, who should show up on a regular basis and do AMAs.

Furthermore, the Mozilla club should nominate a user ombuds who can sit in on Mozilla's board meetings.

Throughout this thread, I see folks criticizing Mozilla for not writing code / fixing bugs they care about, without providing a constructive way for Mozilla to fund their favorite initiatives. I think a Mozilla club could cut some of these tricky knots.

<comment><USER88> Donating to Mozilla goes to the _foundation_ , not the company. This funds various initiatives that you may find useful or not but does not go directly to the browser. As far as I know there is no actual way to pay/donate and have that money allocated to the browser only.

On the other hand, I disagree with your proposal. When I pay for software, content or a service I pay because I want the service/content, not because I want to join some kind of social club or receiving useless merch cluttering my wardrobe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> I wonder what this means (and fear) for important projects like [https://commonvoice.mozilla.org](https://commonvoice.mozilla.org), that do not seem to have been concerned with a business case at all. Best case I can currently see is that some other organisation will take it on, though I'm not sure which.

And I'm also curious how the pandemic has impacted them. As I understood it, still by far their major revenue sources were the search engine deals - <USER2> their value changed due to the pandemic?

<comment><USER90> I am very interested to know what's up with common voice... Please chime in if anyone knows anything!

</comment></comment><comment><USER91> > I've been told that a large part of Mozilla's security team has also been > laid off, which seems like a big issue especially after Mozilla launched a > VPN offering last month.

[https://twitter.com/campuscodi/status/1293200453736570881](https://twitter.com/campuscodi/status/1293200453736570881)

<comment><USER92> Mozilla VPN is just a rebranding of Mullvad. I doubt the Mozilla security team was involved in any significant way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> This makes me feel worried. I have come to rely on Firefox as the antidote to Google's data collection machine and it would be unfortunate if Firefox also goes the same way with this new focus.

<comment><USER94> You may wish to consider Brave. [https://brave.com/](https://brave.com/)

<comment><USER95> The browser built around ad replacement and blockchain payments? Seriously?

<comment><USER96> occassionally I am reminded exactly how vapid the discourse are open source has gotten - 20 years ago, there used to be discussions, now it's just 'google is SELLING EVERYONES DATA' instead of 'telemetry makes me uncomfortable'

when someone suggests X, instead of 'honestly, I think what I'm looking for is something free as in beer - no charge, no revenue' 'ugh X is no alternative, they do also make money in a way I don't like!'

the thing is, 20 years ago I was 10 and just trolling around slashdot, there shouldn't be _weaker_ arguments at 30

<comment><USER5> Today someone else is 10 and trolling around HN, friend.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER97> I just wish they shift their focus again to technical solutions, instead of political/social issues. I don't know why software company has need to act like NGO/activist group (doesn't matter if I agree with their stances or not).

</comment><comment><USER98> They were doing fine until Chrome ate up all the market share.

Google shouldn't have been allowed to do that. It's very anti-competitive for them to have a browser that defaults to Google search and disables plugins that support adblocking.

Google is destroying Mozilla. Their monopoly is making the web worse.

<comment><USER99> Chrome didn't destroy Firefox. Firefox destroyed Firefox. Chrome was SO MUCH better it could't help but win.

Turns out people do actually care about performance and responsiveness.

<comment><USER98> Chrome isn't better than Firefox, and both browsers have varied in terms of their performance.

Google had the advantage of plastering Chrome all over google.com when people performed searches. That's how it got installed everywhere.

<comment><USER99> That is patently false. Chrome was light years ahead of Firefox in both cpu and memory use for years.

<comment><USER100> Do you really, honestly thing that is why it came to dominance? There's billions of computer users out there, and the majority of them are not techie nerds. They don't know or care what browser they are using. They just want to click the internet icon. You think all those people were sitting around, opening up task manager, and comparing the results with all of their tabs open? They are all used to the internet being slow. They don't know what part is being slow.

If what you are saying was true, then Firefox should have dominated over IE. Did they take over a large share of the market? Yes, after fighting and fighting for years on end. Chrome just came out, and after putting it on their home page, suddenly their marketshare skyrocketed. I believe that if Google had to put it on a different URL, it would not have gotten the adoption it has now.

<comment><USER99> Yes.

Techies installed it because of how much faster it was. Then they installed it on all of their parents/grandparents/siblings computers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER101> If this makes you sad or pissed off, the best thing you can do is donate. I just donated for $15 for the first time.

[https://donate.mozilla.org/en-US/](https://donate.mozilla.org/en-US/)

<comment><USER4> While donating to Mozilla Foundation is a great cause [1], none of those funds go to funding Mozilla Corporation, and thus Firefox.

If you want your funds to go toward MoCo (and thus Firefox development), your best bet is to subscribe to Mozilla VPN or Pocket Premium.

[1] [https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/initiatives/](https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/initiatives/)

<comment><USER102> That't kinda stupid to be honest. Just charge me $50 for Firefox... you know what make it $100 per year and I will pay, just to avoid Chrome.

I don't know how many of us are out there, but a large number of people don't mind paying for the tools they rely on. I have co-worker who pay $100+ to get the email client they want.

How such a payment scheme would work with an open source project I don't know, but find a way for me to direct payments to Firefox.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER103> As someone who very much wants to like Pocket, but finds it immensely frustrating,[1] how 'zactly does Mozilla plan to monetise it?

________________________________

Notes:

1\. "Pocket: It gets worse the more you use it" [https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5x2sfx/pocket_...](https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5x2sfx/pocket_it_gets_worse_the_more_you_use_it/) and "Pocket: The worsening continues" [https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/688oc9/pocket_...](https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/688oc9/pocket_the_worsening_continues/) There's been some progress and backsliding, most of the complaints still apply.

</comment><comment><USER15> > Sadly, the changes also include a significant reduction in our workforce — > approximately 250 people of exceptional professional and personal caliber > who have made outstanding contributions to who we are today. To each of > them, I extend my heartfelt thanks and deepest regrets that we have come to > this point. This is a humbling recognition of the realities we face, and > what is needed to overcome them.

What a load of bull! How many people did she save from firing by taking a pay cut? I agree that it would have been an insignificant number of the 250 people fired, but it would have made a difference in the life of the employees not fired and it would have given meaning to her words.

Words are extremely cheap (including the ones I'm writing right now). Statements only become principles when they imply a personal cost, otherwise they are just ideas.

<comment><USER104> You do get that the total compensation for 250 FTE's is probably in the neighborhood of $25 million/yr. She gets paid about $1m/yr which includes performance incentives. So if she just gave up her whole salary she would only have to fire 96% of the people let go today.

C suite members raking in high salaries is the tiniest most insignificant issue when it comes to a large orgs finances. In most large orgs if C sites were paid $0 the average employee wouldn't even notice the difference.

<comment><USER15> You do get that the CEO has the most power in directing where the company goes and the CEO is directly reponsible, at least in part, for the current situation Mozilla is in. As a result I think the CEO should have been the first to suffer the consequences of the reality they were (partly) responsible for creating, before the first employee would have been impacted.

The way I see it, the employees that had almost no control over Mozilla's direction over the last years are suffering the consequences.

<comment><USER104> Right but this makes no sense except as some weird punishment thing. Like it seems it would be the same to you if they still fired all 250 employees but _also_ cut the CEOs salary as a slap on the wrist.

Like this stance is crazy if you apply it to anyone but the CEO. Can you imagine if you got punished for writing bad code or not making a project deadline by having your salary cut?

Regardless of whether you think she's doing a good job as the CEO, _she 's still doing her job_ and deserves to be paid. Your just asking for CEOs to be company whipping boys.

<comment><USER15> > Can you imagine if you got punished for writing bad code or not making a > project deadline by having your salary cut?

But I do get punished as part of the regular Performance Review, if I don't do my job right. Luckily, I am very good at my job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER105> > _We love the traits of it — the decentralization, its permissionless > innovation, the open source underpinnings of it, and the standards part — we > love it all. But to enable these changes, we must shift our collective > mindset from a place of defending, protecting, sometimes even huddling up > and trying to keep a piece of what we love to one that is proactive, > curious, and engaged with people out in the world. [...] and seeing how the > traits of the past can show up in new ways in the future._

If my US corporate-speak decoder works halfway decently this paragraph reads really scary. When exactly have decentralization, permissionless innovation, open source and web standards become things to remember fondly while you move on? This honesty reads like an admission of defeat.

</comment><comment><USER106> These posts always make me wish that hackernews has a way to block posts from certain users.

These kind of posts always bring out the hateful comments and if I look at their posting history a lot of times they seem to post mostly hateful comments. Call it a filter bubble if you want but I would rather not waste my time trying to convince them they are wrong and would rather be able to block them.

<comment><USER107> I feel the same, so I'm currently adding this feature to my HN Comments Owl user script/extension:

[https://github.com/insin/hn-comments- owl/issues/2](https://github.com/insin/hn-comments-owl/issues/2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER108> I say it again:

\- I can support Mozilla today if I know the money goes to fix and improve Firefox

\- For almost everything else I'll prefer to send the money directly

I sent a reply back to the last fundraising email I got and they still cannot promise that the money will go towards Firefox.

To me however Firefox seems to be their biggest chance of achieving their mission:

"Our mission is to ensure the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all. An Internet that truly puts people first, where individuals can shape their own experience and are empowered, safe and independent."

For this reason I find it deeply ironic that donation money somehow cannot be used to develop Firefox when that should be the core purposes.

</comment><comment><USER109> I worked at Mozilla from 2013-2017, then moved into clean tech. I currently manage software engineers for a technically-not-cleantech company that is extremely effective at selling life-changing products, especially solar energy, in the global South. While I don't have open slots on my team, I'm happy to chat about software job hunts in general, and the amazing opportunities available right now to fight climate change in particular. There are dozens of legit companies that can use your skills—you just have to find them. If you need a #mozillalifeboat, feel free to get in touch. "sampenrose" on Google's email service.

</comment><comment><USER110> John Carmack ([https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1293227109738061826](https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1293227109738061826)):

> Just last night I was thinking about how it was possible that, given the > relative trends, Mozilla's greater legacy might turn out to be Rust, not > Firefox.

</comment><comment><USER111> This means a 1/3 reduction from where they were last year. And now with remote work being the norm, I could see a company like Mozilla preferring that to save further costs.

Their Google deal has not be renewed yet and that has accounted for a lot of their revenue in the past (the article mentions a 90% figure).

I just hope Mozilla Co & Mozilla Foundation survive.

</comment><comment><USER112> Always struck me that this nonprofit has some of the most beaucoup waterfront real estate down at EMB/Harrison. And that it shared the building with one of its partners, Google.

Is that scaled down / restructured too?

</comment><comment><USER113> >That means reducing investment in other areas, though, such as in building out developer tools.

Damn, big mistake. So this is what triggered the creator of the awesome CSS grid tools to join Apple and Safari?

</comment><comment><USER114> 750 employees with $350 million or more in revenue. It seems like they're just restructuring and using covid as cover. Maybe I'm wrong, but it kind of looks like that on the surface.

</comment><comment><USER115> I'm still sad Microsoft chose to build on Chrome instead of Firefox

</comment><comment><USER116> This is obviously very sad for the folk being laid off from Mozilla, and they have my sympathies and best wishes for finding alternate employment.

Separate to that, and I realise I'm shouting at the sky since this is just one comment among over 1200 others... CAN WE PLEASE STOP GIVING THE WEB TO GOOGLE.

Apple's iOS browser engine policy is basically the only thing that stands between Google and complete dominance of the web. That's right, an anti- choice, walled-garden decision to force WebKit on all iOS users, is the only defence against Chrome supplanting the ideal of The Web, with itself.

Firefox and Safari are basically the only browsers left that don't use Chromium, and they are making the sensible decision to hold back Google's frenetic sprint to expose our entire computers to JavaScript. I'm confident that Apple can hold the line if it wants to, but I have to assume that Firefox will be dead within 5 years, which means the entire dream of an open web, rests solely on Apple's whims. This is not healthy in any way.

To all of you who say things like "Safari is the new IE", or bemoan the lack of particular Chrome APIs in WebKit, or who solely target Chrome and don't care if your sites break in Firefox/WebKit.... you, all of you, individually and collectively, are killing the web. Stop sleepwalking all of us into a future where Chrome is the only "OS" that matters on any platform.

</comment><comment><USER117> I came here to ask a question, hopefully one other people would like answered also:

If the funding for the FireFox web browser combined with all Mozilla projects/products, or is there some separation?

I would like to donate just to support development of the FireFox browser. Is that possible?

FireFox containers is a very important feature to me and supporting FireFox and containers is something I would like to support at a higher level than the few random Mozilla donations I have made in the past.

<comment><USER118> Donations to Mozilla (the non profit) do not go towards Firefox, and there's no way currently to directly donate to Firefox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER119> Just give me a $10 subscription to all the services in one package. If I got pocket + VPN in my browser for that. Win.

Also, focus on how to share with a family, not under one login ID. $20/mo I get 3 logins under one household to hand out.

</comment><comment><USER120> I personally think that Mozilla have been making poor decisions, but I can't believe that people would say they they are quitting Firefox because of it.

Mozilla might be going through a rough patch, and they now need our support more than ever. Hopefully Firefox will be around a lot longer than the people currently running the show.

I will not stop using Firefox, and will continue to try and help people move away from Chrome.

</comment><comment><USER121> Anyone else concerned by a browser manufacturer claiming to build products by mixing tech with their "values"? This seems like the exact opposite of what I want with utility software.

</comment><comment><USER122> The new vision sounds like the old, current vision for the most part. I might be missing subtle changes in items 1 through 4. But item 5 is interesting:

> _New focus on economics. Recognizing that the old model where everything was > free has consequences, means we must explore a range of different business > opportunities and alternate value exchanges_

I think combining this with the momentum behind things like the Federal Reserve's new inter-bank payments system (linked on HN yesterday) could finally make micropayments or something analogous mainstream. I would really enjoy shifting some of the advertising-funded model back to direct revenue from customers. I would like to be considered a "customer" again in more walks of life, generally. Not just a "subject." I think the customer-vendor dynamic is much more healthy when I am indeed the customer.

If there's anything hopeful to take from this announcement, I think this is it.

</comment><comment><USER123> Maybe it's a cultural problem but many of their products are aimed at consumers when they have the opportunity to tune them for enterprise (lockwise?). They could make more money with better and paid consultation projects. Many open source projects they own can be sassified (voice project?).

</comment><comment><USER124> It blows my mind that no company is currently able to challenge Chrome. Not even Microsoft or Apple is interested to challenge the status quo.

<comment><USER125> I think they are able. Apple still arguably does. But there's no obvious incentive for them. Developing your own browser engine is a big ongoing investment, constantly adding new features and promptly plugging security vulnerabilities. We've long expected browsers to be free, so it doesn't generate any direct income. If they want to collect data with it, they can wrap Blink in their own app.

Mozilla keeps it up because of the principle that there should be more than one decent rendering engine. For-profit companies can't take that stance.

<comment><USER126> Apple can't really compete with Chrome. They have walled off one little walled garden (iOS) that Chrome isn't allowed to enter, but everywhere that Chrome is allowed, it is crushing Safari.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER127> A shame, the internet could use a product like Firefox.

`an open and accessible internet is essential to the fight.` can't agree more. Unfortunately just having that is not enough to get people to use your product. VLC maintainers seems to have understood this. To paraphrase JB Kempf "if you want people to use your open source product, build a great product that is also open source."

Not sure where Firefox went wrong. And for sure the inclusion of default browsers in various OSes did not help (or even the automatic install of Edge whether you want to use it or not) but it seems like there are deeper problems with this product.

I really hope they can get act together and start gaining marketshare again.

</comment><comment><USER128> I am curious how COVID impacted a company like Mozilla? Their main revenue comes from search partnerships, there were more people at home searching things during lockdown. In the internal message Mitchell Baker said:

"We started with immediate cost-saving measures such as pausing our hiring, reducing our wellness stipend and cancelling our All-Hands. But COVID-19 has accelerated the need and magnified the depth for these changes. Our pre-COVID plan is no longer workable. We have talked about the need for change — including the likelihood of layoffs — since the spring. Today these changes become real."

</comment><comment><USER129> I was told about 10 years ago that management at Mozilla was a shitshow. They have had layoffs, project cancellations, and internal strife for a long time. Sounds like more of the same.

</comment><comment><USER130> The cynic in me can't help but wonder if this "new focus on making money" is why they suddenly decided to cripple the android version of firefox.

<comment><USER131> Can you elaborate?

<comment><USER130> The new FF version for android is a toy. All advanced features have been removed. Virtually no addons are available. No more about:config. The home screen is a joke ("collections" instead of my previously opened tab? What's that about?). Opening a new tab does not place the focus in the address bar, and the "new tab" button and the address bar are on opposite ends of the screen, resulting in very awkward finger movements. I got so angry in the first hour of using it that I uninstalled it. It's the worst browsing experience I've had since before IE4.

It's so bad that maybe it's deliberate in an attempt to sell the missing features as addons or a pro version or something? At least I hope that's what it is, otherwise I don't understand the move at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER132> > We have mapped out five specific areas to focus on...

Hey Mozilla, that's not how focusing works.

</comment><comment><USER55> I feel for everyone who will lose their job here. That's never a pleasant thing, particularly so in current circumstances.

Notwithstanding that though - and with no disrespect to anyone being laid off - I'm actually really encouraged by this. The key quote from the announcement is this one:

"Furthermore, Mozilla's contract with Google to include Google as the default search provider inside Firefox is set to expire later this year, and the contract has not been renewed."

Mozilla's reliance on Google is a major detraction from delivering privacy- focused products.

I've said before, and I'll say again: I'd gladly pay a fee for Firefox if it meant (a) it was funding the product so that (b) there was no need for them to peddle in surveillance.

I really wish Mozilla all the best. Commit to privacy, show me where to pay and I'll gladly sign up.

\--

I'm aware they accept donations and have already donated. But that's different from paid-for products.

EDIT: cross-posted comment above from duplicate thread [0]. Don't think that's against guidelines - apologies if so.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24121166](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24121166)

<comment><USER133> > The key quote from the announcement is this one:

> "Furthermore, Mozilla's contract with Google to include Google as the > default search provider inside Firefox is set to expire later this year, and > the contract has not been renewed."

That sentence doesn't seem to be anywhere in the announcement, nor in the linked PDF. Where are you getting this?

<comment><USER55> It's here [0], which was posted in a separate thread [1].

[0] [https://www.zdnet.com/article/mozilla-lays- off-250-employees...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/mozilla-lays- off-250-employees-while-it-refocuses-on-commercial-products/)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24121166](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24121166)

<comment><USER133> Even on that article I don't see a source for the claim. It's all unsubstantiated speculation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER134> I somehow hoped that Baker got replaced.

</comment><comment><USER135> Which teams were impacted? In particular, is anyone working on rust being let go?

<comment><USER22> Rust is largely community-owned now. There are some Mozilla employees still working on rust, but not many.

</comment></comment><comment><USER136> What does COVID-19 have to do with anything here? They are an Internet company, one would expect they'd be thriving in this scenario.

</comment><comment><USER137> It might be obvious, but it would have been nice if their statement explained in detail why this decision was the result of Covid

</comment><comment><USER138> On one hand, it's of course kind of a bummer that these folks are losing their jobs--never an easy thing to see.

On the other, I'm excited about the products that may end up coming out of this. I'm already paying for the Mozilla VPN + Browser Extension (I think that totals something like $8/mo), plus another few dollars for additional storage on my personal Google account at the moment. I would be immensely enthusiastic about putting that (and more) money towards a privacy-respecting Mozilla- hosted email/calendar/file storage system instead.

That obviously not an insignificant engineering challenge, but there's a bunch of open-source work in that area already that could probably be used as a template. I only hope that whatever products they put out, they spend some time making sure they're not damaging the enormous amount of goodwill they've built up in the community about privacy and Internet ethics.

</comment><comment><USER139> I find this sad news. I highly recommend mozilla to others due to its focus on user privacy and open nature of organization. I know it is not an option for a complete browser with its own js engine, rendering tool kit and kind of whole app eco-system is not possible to survive on donations and small income channels.

But, I would have highly recommended mozilla do it in a way to release a community and enterprises services. where Enterprise will lead the future path of browser with its own industrial/enterprise offering to customer sets like governments, Developers and big companies, parallel maintaining the community version of browser as its now, may be two feature cycle behind with some less but fully open features.

If I had an option to buy a paid version of mozilla service which gave me better functionality for application support and development I would have gladly paid for it. I wish, It is the path they chose.

</comment><comment><USER140> I like the new focus on how they will make money. While it's nice to be a mission-driven org they always straddled that line of being aspirational and being "for profit." It makes the value proposition tough to define. Putting an emphasis on revenue will better define the business without needing to sell their souls.

</comment><comment><USER141> It really stinks that 250 people lost their jobs, I don't want to downplay that. But I think overall this is a good move for Mozilla. For them to be product-oriented will allow them to uphold their own privacy advocacy ideals. Most notably, they may eventually be able to remove Google as Firefox's default search engine.

<comment><USER142> > they may eventually be able to remove Google as Firefox's default search > engine

IIRC the financial woes are precisely because the contract with Google is running out. Aren't they?

<comment><USER141> That's news to me. Their contract has been consistently renewed for years, and I'd imagine that would give Google some pretty bad PR if they didn't.

<comment><USER143> Well after all these years they were soley sitting on Google's contract money and are yet to create a very competitive and revenue-generating product that users will pay for. Firefox VPN is essentially Mullvad with Firefox branding so there is no comparison with either of them.

Most of all of the products Mozilla has is either free (mostly) or not competitive enough to the point of redundancy. For the typical end-user (who really doesn't see open-source as an advantage) Pocket can be replaced with Chrome Bookmarks and ultimately, Firefox can be replaced with Chrome.

<comment><USER142> Add to that that for the freedom-concerned user Pocket has to be replaced (Wallabag is good), as do most of their other "privacy respecting" services. There's no advantage with them over any of the propriatary alternatives other than a fallen-out-of-favor-dwindling-financially foundation-corporation hybrid healf heartedly developing an important browser saying they won't sell your data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER144> I've always thought of Mozilla as a "force for good and change", never as a money machine. This has maintained _some_ balance for allowing Google to go largely unchecked. If Mozilla moves in a direction more focused on profit and more products, there's no balance and the overdue regulating has to kick in fast.

</comment><comment><USER145> I you think projects like Mozilla and Firefox are important donations can really go a long way. If enough people even donated ~$5/mo to projects like this, which is less than lots of people spend for Spotify or buying coffee, it would make open source privacy respecting projects a lot more viable.

<comment><USER146> > I you think projects like Mozilla and Firefox are important donations can > really go a long way.

I know this kind of goes against my other comment stating that I'm super worried about losing the only viable free and open browser out there (my only browser), but: what's keeping me from donating is the bad aftertaste of the money being used for frivilous things. I don't want to fund their bookmarking service. I don't want to fund their VPN rebranding effort. I don't want to fund their authentication services. I don't want to fund their voice recognition services. They're probably great, but it's the browser that's absolutely essential and irreplaceable at this time!

<comment><USER147> You can't give them money and then put conditions on top of it. It's their business decision as to what they want to do with their monetary donations.

Otherwise, this would be like your employer saying, "I will pay you salary, buuut only if you promise not to spend it on alcohol". It clearly doesn't work like that, you just have to make a high level judgement if you agree with their values and if yes, go ahead with that donation.

<comment><USER148> Which is exactly what gspr is saying is the reason they don't donate. If an org shows that they have no focus, then people won't want to donate exactly _because_ you can't say what the money goes to.

<comment><USER146> Exactly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER149> Perhaps it should outsource most of jobs in country where open source community is very strong like Brasil.

</comment><comment><USER150> All the hand wringing here is kind of pointless without pointing out that it appears that Google has not renewed its contract, which accounts for almost 90% of Mozilla's revenue.

It's obvious and necessary for Mozilla to consequently focus on revenue earners and put infra dev on the back burner.

</comment><comment><USER151> Also, why you (Mozilla) are at it (Firefox): Please make Firefox the premium development tool for webdevs. Headless should work as with Chrome. I am forced to use Chrome when running Puppeteer.

Why create a separate "Firefox Developer Edition"? It's just a distraction.

</comment><comment><USER152> What exactly does this mean? Will I be forced to find a new browser in the near future? Not that I was completely content with what happens for many years now, of course, it's just that I don't know anything better (or even not worse).

</comment><comment><USER153> This is one of the most pathetic layoff releases I have ever seen. Its extremely, soul crushing, heart wrenchingly depressing to see Mozilla succumb to the the get woke go broke mentality.

They should be focused on making good tech period nothing else.

</comment><comment><USER154> The internal message to employees says:

> Investing in New Products We are organizing a new product organization > outside of Firefox that will both ship new products faster and develop new > revenue streams. Our initial investments will be Pocket, Hubs, VPN, Web > Assembly and security and privacy products.

This is very much welcome, and I look forward to more products with paid tiers. Mozilla Corporation must have ways to get revenues from end users through different means, and combining that with Mozilla's vision is a good thing. If there's one thing missing for me in this list, it's an email service that combines the best of other paid email providers.

</comment><comment><USER155> Here is a (selective) look at the management of Mozilla in the recent past.

From Mitchell Bakers blog [https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2018/08/07/in- memoriam-gerva...](https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2018/08/07/in-memoriam- gervase-markham/)

"Gerv's faith did not have ambiguity at least none that I ever saw. Gerv was crisp. He had very precise views about marriage, sex, gender and related topics. He was adamant that his interpretation was correct, and that his interpretation should be encoded into law. These views made their way into the Mozilla environment. They have been traumatic and damaging, both to individuals and to Mozilla overall."

From [http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2018/07/29/gerv.html](http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2018/07/29/gerv.html)

"I bring up Gerv's open-mindedness because I know that many people didn't find him so, but, frankly, I think those folks were mistaken. It is well documented publicly that Gerv held what most would consider particularly "conservative values". And, I'll continue with more frankness: I found a few of Gerv's views offensive and morally wrong. But Gerv was also someone who could respectfully communicate his views. I never felt the need to avoid speaking with him or otherwise distance myself. Even if a particular position offended me, it was nevertheless clear to me that Gerv had come to his conclusions by starting from his (a priori) care and concern for all of humanity. Also, I could simply say to Gerv: I really disagree with that so much, and if it became clear our views were just too far apart to productively discuss the matter further, he'd happily and collaboratively find another subject for us to discuss. Gerv was a reasonable man. He could set aside fundamental disagreements and find common ground to talk with, collaborate with, and befriend those who disagreed with him. That level of kindness and openness is rarely seen in our current times."

Here is an article another person who knew Gervase Markham who refutes Mitchell Bakers account [https://lwn.net/Articles/762345/](https://lwn.net/Articles/762345/) . Worth a read.

Brendan Eich on the jump in executive share since he was let go: [https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1217512049716035584](https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1217512049716035584) and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22058629](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22058629)

Here is Brokedamouth on the two class system now at Mozilla [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22061500](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22061500) Comment replicated here (it is worth looking at the whole discussion): "I was at Mozilla for a while and it was a two-class system. The execs flew first class, stayed in fancy hotels, and had very expensive dinners and retreats - sometimes in the high five-figures. This is not even included in comp. One time, the CFO sent out a missive urging everyone to stay in AirBnB to save money and the execs (literally the following week) booked $500/night rooms at a hotel in NYC. I think the moment that made it clear as day was during a trip to Hawaii for the company all hands. The plane was a 737 so you had to walk past first class. These all hands are a huge deal for families - many were struggling down the aisle, carrying booster seats, etc. And they were passing two of the C-levels sitting in giant first-class seats sipping tropical cocktails. The rule in the military is that men eat first, officers last. Mozilla has always reversed that rule and the result was a pretty toxic culture, all around."

The people saying this is full of corporate doublespeak look to be very true, especially when you have a memory and can look up what has gone on before.

<comment><USER156> I had the pleasure of meeting Gerv once at a UK Linux conference in the mid 2000s. He was a really nice person, and an asset as a public face of Mozilla. I can't help but feel that his critics are genuine "illiberals" who can't tolerate any point of view but their own. And unfortunately, it's those people who are part of its current management problems.

I did disagree with him about the Mozilla position upon trademarks, which was unusually aggressive for an open source project at the time, and for the most part still is. As a Debian developer at the time, that may have influenced my views somewhat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER157> > "Recognizing that the old model where everything was free has consequences, > means we must explore a range of different business opportunities and > alternate value exchanges," Baker said.

> We must learn and expand different ways to support ourselves and build a > business that isn't what we see today.

Perhaps I am wrong, but to me this reads as Mozilla plans to give up on not being evil and to do whatever it takes to make money. Sounds like Mozilla products will soon become toxic including Firefox if not forked. Also, looks like their hand is being forced by google.

Edit: formatting - also I hope I am wrong.

<comment><USER56> Charging money doesn't necessarily mean they're going to start being evil.

In fact, they may be able to provide better and more secure products, if it means they can stop relying on Google/advertising/etc. to stay afloat.

<comment><USER157> True, they could possibly spin out other high quality secure products and I hope that is what they do and that I am wrong. It all depends on the current leadership and how desperate they get I suppose and I am not familiar enough with that to say.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER158> It's definitely not a requirement for companies to go into minute detail when making these sorts of announcements, but Mozilla is a non-profit and I think it would be good IMHO if they were to shed some light at least on the skillet of those being let go relative to the new direction being taken.

If Mozilla is charting a path forward as a "technical powerhouse" and focusing on Pocket, Hubs, VPN, etc. (as per the linked memo), I would hate to imagine even a single SWE being laid off for reasons not performance-related.

</comment><comment><USER159> It worries me that nobody in power at Mozilla seems to have the first clue how to make money from Free Software and so they have made "commercialism" a corporate fetish.

Making money and looking commercial are not the same thing, team. For the some organizations they can be diametrically opposed. Mozilla, for example.

Mozilla need a CEO who knows how to make money for the company rather than just receive it in their paycheck. Ideally one who eats up less than the revenue from the first 50,000 VPN subscriptions.

</comment><comment><USER160> I don't find this that surprising as well.

Good intentions or ethicality aside, I don't find Firefox as a browser convincing. It is just not as good as Chrome in handling navigating web pages.

I'd say focus on making Firefox better experience wise should always been their priority, but the neglection of it has been lasting too long. Now Chrome becomes the even bigger monster than IE uses to be, Firefox will have a much harder time to justify its own existence in a financially substainable way

</comment><comment><USER161> Mozilla's ace up the sleeve, which I'm sure has been a temptation to them many times - and seems more and more inevitable the more they brand themselves as the privacy browser - is to make ublock origin a default and baked-in feature out of the box.

I see this as an if, not when situation. Google may pull funding immediately if they do so but the surge in users would be extreme, possibly forcing big G to reconsider or lose an ever increasing market share to Bing and DDG.

<comment><USER162> Why would that cause a surge of users given how trivial it is to add it to an existing install today?

<comment><USER163> And how would those new users make Mozilla money?

Maybe DuckDuckGo could pay Mozilla to be Firefox's default search engine and get many more eyeballs on DDG… but if uBlock Origin blocks adverts on DDG, why would DDG pay Mozilla?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER164> >> To start, that means products that mitigate harms or address the kinds of the problems that people face today.

So no more Firefox browser then? What does that statement even mean?

</comment><comment><USER165> What was the reasoning behind closing the Taipei office?

<comment><USER166> The core Gecko engineering group in Taipei was all laid off already back in 2018. I'm not sure what was left but apparently it wasn't considered very essential.

</comment></comment><comment><USER167> I was surprised and saddened when Mozilla gave up their mobile Firefox OS. They should have been "The Web Company". Google and Apple have competing interests with their proprietary native apps. They would much prefer the entire web shift to apps. Mozilla could have been the open mobile app platform. Maybe one of the purposes of Chrome OS is to ensure someone like Mozilla doesn't do it.

</comment><comment><USER168> Without Firefox though _everything_ is Chrome.

Skype, Zoom, Slack, Discord, Chrome itself, Safari, Edge, Opera, VS Code, Atom...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SCfNhyIo_U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SCfNhyIo_U)

We need to encourage competition even if companies continue to spew this kind of cringe. Firefox is the last holdout.

Good luck Mozilla, you're our old hope.

<comment><USER169> Safari is still Webkit. Zoom is a native application.

<comment><USER168> Zoom is electon based.

<comment><USER169> How did you get that idea?

This is what an Electron app looks like:

      $ ls Atom.app/Contents/Frameworks
      Electron Framework.framework
      other stuff...

You might also find a bunch of js files lying around:

      $ find Atom.app -name *.js
      Atom.app/Contents/Resources/app/apm/node_modules/chainsaw/index.js
      Atom.app/Contents/Resources/app/apm/node_modules/fs-constants/index.js
      Atom.app/Contents/Resources/app/apm/node_modules/fs-constants/browser.js
      very long list...

Whereas these are the frameworks Zoom ships with:

      $ ls zoom.us.app/Contents/Frameworks/
      CptHost.app              asproxy.framework        nydus.framework          zMacRes.bundle
      Scintilla.framework      caphost.app              protobuf.framework       zMacResRetina.bundle
      Transcode.app            cmmlib.framework         ssb_sdk.bundle           zSIPCallUI.bundle
      ZCommonUI.framework      curl64.framework         tp.framework             zSIPSDK.bundle
      ZMScreenshot.app         faac.bundle              util.framework           zSipCallApp.bundle
      ZoomPhone.app            libcrypto.1.0.0.dylib    viper.framework          zVideoApp.bundle
      ZoomUninstaller.app      libmpg123_mac.bundle     xmpp_framework.framework zVideoUI.bundle
      airhost.app              libssl.1.0.0.dylib       zAutoUpdate.bundle       zWebService.bundle
      annoter.bundle           libz.dylib               zChatApp.bundle          zlt.bundle
      aomagent.bundle          mcm.bundle               zChatUI.bundle           zmLoader.bundle
      aomhost.app              mphost.app               zData.bundle             zmb.bundle

Instead of Javascript files there are tons of Interface Builder files in the bundle:

      $ find zoom.us.app -name *.nib
      zoom.us.app/Contents/Resources/en.lproj/MainMenu.nib
      zoom.us.app/Contents/Frameworks/zChatUI.bundle/Contents/Resources/ZMSettingRecordingViewController.nib
      zoom.us.app/Contents/Frameworks/zChatUI.bundle/Contents/Resources/ZMChatsSearchField.nib
      zoom.us.app/Contents/Frameworks/zChatUI.bundle/Contents/Resources/loadingInfoView.nib
      zoom.us.app/Contents/Frameworks/zChatUI.bundle/Contents/Resources/ZMDiagnosticViewController.nib
      ...

A Linux job opening: [https://zoom.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en- US/Zoom/job/Phoenix-AZ...](https://zoom.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en- US/Zoom/job/Phoenix-AZ/Software-Engineer--Desktop-Application--Linux_R658-1)

      - 5 years of C/C++ programming experience.
      - 3 years of experience in Linux native application development.
      - Having experience in QT development is preferred.

Mac OS job opening: [https://zoom.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en- US/Zoom/job/Phoenix-AZ...](https://zoom.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en- US/Zoom/job/Phoenix-AZ/Software-Engineer---Mac_R525-1)

      - 2 years of experience in MacOS native client development.
      - Proficient in C++, Xcode, Objective-C and Cocoa Framework.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER170> I am already paying a very high price (mostly in time) to keep the data thieves from stealing my precious data. I would pay a pretty high monthly fee to someone who I could trust to take care of it for me. That's why I pay the Apple tax. How about a free browser for those who want to DIY privacy and a premium for those who don't want to spend their time?

</comment><comment><USER171> I wonder why they didn't ever try to make it as a cloud provider, it would fit their mission well to provide cloud services, it would just be for the server side instead of the client side. Guess it's about a decade too late to pivot there, but firms like Cloudflare shows that it's possible to compete with the big actors with enough focus.

</comment><comment><USER172> Can they just focus on the browser? Firefox has been falling behind for years now, especially on mobile. And it's not all because of Google's questionable advertising. Chrome is simply better in many ways.

Mozilla is failing it's core mission chasing so many vanity projects. It's a non-profit, not a startup. Flush management and start over

<comment><USER173> If you actually use Firefox it's really hard to support the belief that there's some quality or speed gap like there was in the mid-2010s. They're neck and neck on quality and features but it also highlights the degree to which Google uses their other businesses to promote Chrome: everywhere you go you'll be hit with suggestions to switch to Chrome, not to mention various QA "lapses" like lowering performance on YouTube or accidentally breaking logins on GCP only in Firefox.

<comment><USER172> This is true. I set firefox to spoof Chrome user agent because otherwise many Google properties are near unusable.

I really hope Mozilla survives. Were growing close to a Chrome monoculture at it would be worse than IE days

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER174> "New focus on economics": It was bad enough seeing terrible clickbait in the "Recommended by Pocket" section displayed on every new tab. Now I have to go into settings to opt-out of Sponsored Stories so I don't have to see ads for Honey.

All to fund the so-called "internet activist movement"?

I just want a web browser, not an ideology.

<comment><USER133> > I just want a web browser

Excellent! How much are you planning on contributing?

<comment><USER175> Already contributing by allowing all the telemetry & data collection and by having unchanged the default search engine (Google)

<comment><USER74> Telemetry and data collection don't contribute to paying the bills, only to let Mozilla work on improving the browser.

Default search engine does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER176> The free open source software approach has its own limitations. Developers and companies need to make money to be viable. Software is a class of product; it takes work and resources and simply can't be all free.

This is going to be a problem going forward. I feel bad seeing developers sometimes begging for donations. Why should software be free?

</comment><comment><USER177> I wonder if rustc developpers have been fired

<comment><USER48> When I worked there, there were basically 4 people working on Rust.

And these people were making sure Rust would not need Mozilla to survive. Very smart people. Rust will be fine.

<comment><USER178> Also, Rust now has open source autonomy/community. Mozilla could go away tomorrow and it would survive. There are some pretty big names invested and interested in it.

<comment><USER48> Exactly

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER179> Has it been confirmed that the servo team got fired? I read rumblings about this on twitter. If so, that is very sad.

</comment><comment><USER180> Are there any lists of people looking for work during this round of layoffs? It sounds like a lot of good projects got cut and there's some companies growing that are finding it hard to locate talent. The pandemic is making people weary of switching jobs and at my company it's been very difficult.

</comment><comment> Funes- Reduce every Mozilla executive's salary to a reasonable amount and you are set. No need for massive layoffs.

</comment><comment><USER181> What kind of commercial products Mozilla have? I am not aware of their offerings beside Firefox and Thunderbird.

<comment><USER32> A VPN, 'Pocket' and now Firefox Relay

vpn.firefox.com

getpocket.com

relay.firefox.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER182> _New focus on technology. Mozilla is a technical powerhouse of the internet activist movement._

What does this line mean?

</comment><comment><USER183> Huge fan of Firefox. I'm working on an initiative to help people who laid off today at Mozilla

If you lost your job today add your profile here -> [https://airtable.com/shrkd3WXxreIdgruV](https://airtable.com/shrkd3WXxreIdgruV)

</comment><comment><USER184> While we are focusing in technology, once need to look into their Finance team and how they push leadership on terms of income/cash flow. Recently one ex- Google guy joined as COO not after a very successful gig in Cloud, hope he helps leadership this time.

</comment><comment><USER185> What's the relation between Mozilla Corporation and Mozilla Foundation? Corporation is for profit and Foundation is non profit so they don't share revenues? But why they don't merge and become one for profit company, they would much stronger.

</comment><comment><USER186> Vivaldi Browser.

Founded by former Opera devs, when Opera was sold to a Chinese company.

Vivaldi is a fully employee owned company, based on Norway.

The browser had tons of ready-to-use configuration options.

Very good privacy options, no external ad blocker needed.

A great option if you want to stop using Firefox (like I did a few weeks ago).

</comment><comment><USER187> It feels like my hopes for ever seeing the Library window get fixed are being dashed against the rocks. How can they ever hope to change the world when they can't even rewrite a history/bookmarks GUI? I'm genuinely concerned for Firefox.

</comment><comment><USER188> Dear Mozilla, I would gladly sign-up for monthly patronage payments that go towards the development of Firefox features that the community chooses. Firstly, "installable" PWA support on Linux and Android. No one cares about your VPN or Pocket.

</comment><comment><USER189> I've used & loved Mozilla forever but at some point I am starting to wonder: when you fire 1/3 of your workforce & have obvious mismanagement problems, how can you still guarantee the security of such a complex piece of software?

</comment><comment><USER190> I wonder why Mozilla can't make their own meta search engine like duckduckgo and start something like carbonads.

It's obvious that browser + search engine + ad bids are a money minting machine.

Why is Mozilla not doing that? Depending on Google for revenue is a losing game no?

</comment><comment><USER15> I wish the EU would get behind Firefox development. It would certainly be in their courtyard, given how much energy they've spent battling monopolies and toward creating a market in which there is competition.

</comment><comment><USER46> Can someone tell me how COVID situation explicitly affected Mozilla's revenue to such an extant? If anything, Internet companies were the least affected or in-fact has been benefited from COVID situation.

</comment><comment><USER191> A door closes a window opens. Does not look good, but neither does the current status quo. Might just be the blessing in disguise that kicks off some actual competition in the browser space.

Feel bad for the laid off though.

</comment><comment><USER192> Looks like Servo may be done, :(

[https://twitter.com/lindsey/status/1293243218331439107](https://twitter.com/lindsey/status/1293243218331439107)

</comment><comment><USER193> Would defiantly move from proton to Mozilla's VPN the minute they make it available in Europe. Would love to cancel my iCloud storage too, if Mozilla offered an hosted NextCloud or something similar.

<comment><USER146> Mozilla's VPN is powered by Mullvad. Mullvad is available globally right now, costs €5/month (vs Mozilla VPN's $5), and allows a range of payment methods all the way down to "cash in an envelope".

Mozilla are great, I have nothing against them, but I really struggle to see the point of their VPN service.

<comment><USER193> I'd like to support Mozilla going forward. I'm not sure if this is a major revenue stream for them possibly or not, but if I can help, why not. I'm aware of mullvad btw and I need to run out my proton subscription in any case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER194> I'm curious how Mozilla's finances are being impacted by covid.

</comment><comment><USER195> I want to read something at [https://www.jwz.org/blog/](https://www.jwz.org/blog/) in response to all this.

</comment><comment><USER196> Please sell me an alternative to gmail and gcalendar and docs.

</comment><comment><USER21> Add features to your smaller products (Lockwise, Notes, Monitor, Pocket, etc.) and put them behind a paywall, while keeping the core features free to use.

I'd pay triple the price of Pocket's premium / Mozilla's VPN ($15/month) for a Mozilla/Firefox app pack.

</comment><comment><USER195> Well, I guess the one thing that could save Firefox now is anti-trust, so it can get on iOS devices and not be bludgeoned by Google promoting chrome.

</comment><comment><USER197> So this affects rust-lang too I guess ? I found it strange that people started trusting a language with no open standard and one implementation.

<comment><USER198> Rust has multiple implementations, see mrustc.

<comment><USER199> mrustc doesn't support all of Rust, its only purpose is to bootstrap the normal Rust compiler; and it only works on x86 and x86_64 Linux and isn't very much optimized (eg. needs about 10GB of RAM for the final linking).

And it's lagging behind by a year or two (which is about 15 intermediate releases of the Rust compiler you need to compile to get the current one); because it only has a single developer and keeping up is a huge amount of work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER200> Web browsers should be considered public utility, funded by tax payers money and developed by independent organization. Core web browser should have minimal set of features, just enough to safely browse internet and do every day tasks, like online banking. Open source "core" web browser could be extended by companies and provided as commercial software with various additional features (VPNs, news aggregators, etc.) that might be useful to some users who have means to pay for them.

<comment><USER201> This makes about as much sense as saying that toilets or electrical outlets should be public utilities.

I've heard good arguments that _the internet_ should be a utility like electricity or water. But this is nonsensical.

</comment></comment><comment><USER202> > Recognizing that the old model where everything was free has consequences,

It took them that long to realize it? Talk about a blind spot.

</comment><comment><USER203> Not a great sign: There are five new focuses each of which is sweepingly vague.

Sorry to those who just lost their jobs.

</comment><comment><USER113> Why not make a commercial pro version of the developer edition with Webflow like design features?

<comment><USER204> Because most devs are allergic to pay for stuff, unless they happen to work for big corp.

This is how the bazaar generation has pushed all good tools for those of us that happen to work for the man.

<comment><USER113> FF developer attracts a different audience I think, more designers and frontend people. Designers usually spend a lot more and don't insist on foss.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER205> So will Mozilla lose it's non-profit status when "refocusing on COMMERCIAL products"?

</comment><comment><USER58> This post makes me happy that Mozilla doesn't "own" rust

</comment><comment><USER206> Why couldn't they have shifted those employees to new projects?

</comment><comment><USER207> I wonder if Alibaba or tencent would benefit from funding servo

</comment><comment><USER208> The mentions of "racism", "advocacy", etc on this post make me want to puke. All while firing people from servo, rav1e, etc. Make a bloody good browser and stop meddling with politics, dunces!

</comment><comment><USER209> Glad they spent time replacing the facist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, white supremacist verbiage "master" instead of ensuring their white and Asian employees had jobs.

</comment><comment><USER210> This is a previous thread about something similar that happened a few months ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22057737](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22057737)

tldr (if I remember correctly): the higher ups is still paid a shit-ton of money despite firing their employees and begging for donations. Along with abandonware being created all the time (some of them were good ideas even).

More specifically [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22058534](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22058534)

> 2.5 million for the executive chair of Mozilla in 2018

</comment><comment><USER211> This is sad if it affects rust

</comment><comment><USER212> imagine chromium devs working with firefox devs on a new fork

</comment><comment><USER213> release reads like word salad...

</comment><comment><USER214> They should license their UI framework.

<comment><USER215> Isn't it all js/html? Who would pay for it when electron is free.

<comment><USER216> It used to be centered around XUL, and there was even a sort of proto-electron in the form of xulrunner and the related Prism project, but they were all dropped years ago and XUL itself has been deprecated and is being steadily replaced.

There might've been a window somewhere in there where turning XUL/Gecko into a Qt style application toolkit could've been an option, but I think we're well past that point now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER217> tldr. But layoff = I won't donate anymore (I did).

Neither will I switch to Evil Corp browser.

</comment><comment><USER218> They're already knee-deep in some ideology bullshit (instead of working on actual browser that people want to use) and now they cover laying off 250 people with corporate garbage talks.

I really hope that Firefox has a future, but that kind of events make me thing otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER219> 2018: meritocracy is bad

2020: ... pretty much what you'd expect

</comment><comment><USER220> Mozilla's support model was left too weird, too long. Baker is to blame, this should have been rectified years ago.

What does Mozilla really bring to the table with this new focus? The world is full of VPN vendors.

</comment><comment><USER221> I love Firefox but I'm going to start exploring other options for open source browsers.

It's obvious from this layoff that their priorities are off. The CEO should be fired.

</comment><comment><USER222> Corporate cancer[0] strikes again. Mozilla took on a lot of social justice projects over the years. They hung around their ankles like a boat anchor. Good on them for jettisoning that excess baggage and refocusing on their primary business.

[0]: [https://www.amazon.com/Corporate-Cancer-Miracles-Millions- Co...](https://www.amazon.com/Corporate-Cancer-Miracles-Millions-Company- ebook/dp/B081D58P1X/)

</comment><comment><USER223> Why does Mozilla insist on Pocket?

</comment><comment><USER224> I guess Mozilla is going bust soon. Is there anyway to save Firefox and Thunderbird?

</comment><comment><USER225> > I'm just disappointed about what Mozilla has become over the years.

I think that train started rolling when they forced Eich out as CEO.

Ever since then, Mozilla seems to be less about best-in-class technology, and more about virtue signalling.

<comment><USER226> Eich was not forced out or fired. In fact, just the opposite: the board actually tried to get Eich to stay, but he decided to leave all on his own. Don't try to rewrite history to make an ideological point. It's all very well and unambiguously documented what really happened, and there's no excuse for you spreading that misinformation.

[https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo- resignat...](https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignation/)

Q: Was Brendan Eich fired?

A: No, Brendan Eich resigned. Brendan himself said:

"I have decided to resign as CEO effective April 3rd, and leave Mozilla. Our mission is bigger than any one of us, and under the present circumstances, I cannot be an effective leader. I will be taking time before I decide what to do next."

Brendan Eich also blogged on this topic.

Q: Was Brendan Eich asked to resign by the Board?

A: No. It was Brendan's idea to resign, and in fact, once he submitted his resignation, Board members tried to get Brendan to stay at Mozilla in another C-level role.

<comment><USER227> Then the financial settlement was just for kicks?

<comment><USER226> What financial settlement?

<comment><USER227> The (substantial) one they were forced to pay Brendan for firing him. You see, CA law protects employees from being fired for political activities done outside work -- this was a law put on the books a long time ago, originally to defend unionization campaigns and communists from being fired, but it means I can donate to the Pro-Life-Anti-Gay-Anti-Black party all day long, attend their conventions, give speeches, etc, and it's illegal for you to fire me for that.

Funny how so few people know about this law.

That's why they had to come to a settlement to pay him so that he would agree to leave and not pursue his rights under the law.

<comment><USER226> They didn't fire Eich, as I said in my posting that you replied to. Did you not read that? So what proof do you have that they paid him a financial settlement for firing him, when clearly they didn't fire him? Or are you just making up false accusations now that contradict the known facts?

Exactly how much did they pay him, and why, since they certainly didn't fire him, and just how do you know that? Where is your evidence, or your retraction and apology for lying and spreading misinformation?

<comment><USER228> Hi Don — google "constructive separation" for the general idea, with which you seem to be unfamiliar.

I can't comment on anything about my exit. This will be my only comment, confined to general facts and CA law.

P.S.: CA 1101 labor law is real.

<comment><USER225> Completely irrelevant to anything, but seeing this comment downstream from a conversation I started pretty much made my day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER229> Are we now stuck with this vacuous corporate virtue signalling forever, or just until the globalist/leftist/whatever-ists finally achieve the absolute tyranny they seem to be seeking?

<comment><USER230> It's wild to live in a world where a guiding philosophy of _maybe we as a society should make best efforts to treat people with maximum kindness_ is mistaken for "absolute tyranny".

<comment><USER229> Including cancel culture? You don't think this is all part of the same push?

<comment><USER230> Fwiw a United States where people are forced to give other people attention and money against their will is neither kind, nor has it ever existed.

You would not want to live there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER231> firefox.exe /uninstall

</comment><comment><USER232> Glad they focused on virtue signal violent protestors.

</comment><comment><USER233> Why does Mozilla even develop their own browser? There is inherently nothing wrong with everyone using Chromium as a foundation. Mozilla could use Chromium as renderer while still doing all the privacy preserving stuff they do. There is absolutely no correlation between the rendering engine and privacy. And they few interlinks (fingerprinting, etc.) can very likely be addressed through patches that are rebased over Chromium.

Firefox with its own renderer is dead anyway on iOS already, where everyone is forced into Webkit. It seems like a loosing battle to spend so much money on something that doesn't give the average user ANY benefit whatsoever. Yes, Chrome will be a monopoly, but Microsoft already bought into that monopoly. What's the point of fighting a loosing battle? Focus on integrating Chromium and make it into a rock solid privacy-first browser.

<comment><USER177> They'll be all fired before they realized that you're spelling the truth. Until them you're condemned to be downvoted in order to lessen the harm on their childish sensitivities. Cognitive biases are indeed powerful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER234> Mozilla was dead to me the moment they decided to financially support the encrypted communication services of antifa (riseup.net). Even though that donation was a drip compared to what the CEO pulls out of the organisation.

I straight up deleted it! And I make sure that any organisation I get into won't bother optimizing or even testing for FF since it has such a small user base these days that its not worth bothering with it, testing on the default android browsers and safari has higher priorities these days.

If the end users complain, we tell them to use ANY other browser now and they are happy with it.

This is what you get when you pose as an NGO that stands for values such as free-speech and openness while you do nothing but stiffle it behind the curtains. (Helping professional political agitators, that are renown for attacking peaceful protests etc is the opposite of supporting free-speech, so is getting your own CEO booted for having an opinion, controversial or not!)

</comment><comment><USER235> That press release had words. That's important

</comment><comment><USER236> Removing the old plugin format killed Mozilla.

</comment><comment><USER237> "combatting a lethal virus and battling systemic racism"

WTF?! I mean, maybe you should actually build the best web browser instead of doing politics.

</comment><comment><USER177> Mozilla, it's still time. You need to face reality and embrace chromium, and improve it through worldwide collaboration.

</comment><comment><USER238> While I really hate to suggest this, the best way to make money might be to sell space on newly opened tabs (with an option to turn off ads for something reasonable like USD$24.95 per year).

<comment><USER239> Mozilla tries this every few years and gets (rightfully) huge blowback. Mozilla makes enough money (through partnerships), the problem is they just spend too much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER240> Did anyone find anything in this post about Mozilla refusing to take money from Google?

I can't find it.

Mozilla, stop taking money from Google and letting them be the default search engine!

Please don't enable and legitimise surveillance capitalism.

<comment><USER241> To do that now would be financial suicide. They have several new services, if they manage to get revenue from them they could survive cutting Google. But not before.

<comment><USER240> > They have several new services,

Please name these revenue generating services from Mozilla.

<comment><USER74> From the top of my head, Firefox VPN and Pocket.

<comment><USER240> What is more disappointing is this is what they have to show for after years of funding from Google.

I get that they have to build a browser but come on. Is that it?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>