But when they tried to pioneer privacy respecting ads in the new tab window, they were repeatedly and roundly criticised here, too...
In general, users don't want any ads at all showing in their browser.
They don't want them as part of web pages, they don't want them embedded in videos, and they surely don't want them as part of the browser itself!
This should have been obvious given the popularity of various ad-blocking extensions for Firefox.
Going against the obvious wishes of a product's users is something that's deserving of criticism.
I do block anything that I notice if it looks like a tracker, but I am ready to believe that Mozilla's description of client-side ad selection was correct.
Ads are enormously important for a lot of quality content out there to exist. Destroying them now, without good alternatives, is destructive to the web.
For a sort of analogy, the presence of pay-to-read newspapers hasn't precluded the presence of free-to-read newspapers (New York Times vs. Metro [1]), nor has free-to-read papers killed off pay-to-read newspapers, which are generally higher quality. Savvy digital content providers will find a way to still make money, even if it's not ads as they exist today.
Seems like a perfect example of self-destructive/tragedy-of-the-commons behavior to me.
There is no middle ground. It's not as easy as "your website offers so little that it shouldn't exist", it's simply "users block ads, and they don't want to pay for access", so there's really no great options here.
However, ad's don't have to be pure evil. Sure they might be not be preferred, but we can totally create an environment in which we have non-intrusive, non-privacy invading advertisements, it's just a matter of figuring it out.
The ad industry had enough time to figure this out and went from bad to terrible - from popups to distribution of trojans (due to a lack of quality control). It's not surprising that people are fed up with advertisements. Any loss of income is the publisher's own fault, because they allowed ads to get completely out of hand.
Bills gotta be paid, but when push comes to shove, users don't pay the bills for a lot of this type of content, so ad's are the only option left. There is no middle ground.
I am surprised by the lack of imagination on a news site for startups ;). There are all kinds of possibilities that haven't really been explored. Music was considered to be a lost cause 5 or 10 years ago when CD had collapsed and everyone and their dog was using Bittorrent or other peer to peer networks. Now there is a quickly growing ecosystem of streaming music services.
And at one point people just wanted IE compatibility for their webpages to load.
If you accept that targeted ads are a part of the web eco system, then its absolutely within the remit of Mozillas mission to explore how to serve targeted ads while respecting privacy.
Are you the combo breaker?
I'm never offended by the presence of ads themselves. Maybe it's because I grew up with them? Maybe I'm just more comfortable with ignoring them?
That the general public doesn't care about that is one thing, that all the people crtizising them here don't seem to care is another.