Mozilla CEO says layoffs needed amid shift from browser
sfchronicle.com
sfchronicle.com
The browser is the only reason Mozilla is still relevant. In the grand scheme of things, their other projects have near-zero impact on the world.
Mozilla’s current strategy is very stupid in my opinion. They should be putting all their resources into the browser, the only space where they have an advantage (because making a browser from scratch is hard and they already did it) and where there’s potential money to be made.
I'm sure it's a good idea to shift from Firefox and let Microsoft and Google duke it out /s
The reason they fell apart as a Browser IMO was letting Firefox get "old" UX wise, while Chrome felt VERY user-friendly (I mean to the common enduser, not people like us here on HN).
Things like pushing mandatory updates via "experiments", shoving pocket in everyone's faces, killing XUL.
I can't remember what it was they did that was the final straw for me, it was at least 4 years ago and not even that big a thing. What I remember is going "well, there goes my last shred of hope. Mozilla officially doesn't understand why their core advocates prefer them over alternatives. Might as well move to vivaldi and at least get all them sweet chrome addons".
Mozilla forgot about their "whole-of-product quality". Their brand was "secure, private, power-user oriented". They've been slowly cutting bits off for years that impact those aspects, and somewhere along the line they passed a threshold were they weren't sufficiently more secure, sufficiently more private or sufficiently more power-user oriented than competitors. No one change was at fault, but they've diluted themselves too much now. They're no longer the staunch defender of non-corporate internet ideals they used to be, and without that, they sorta...don't matter.