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Comment by gfodor | Hacker News Reader

I mean, I started a team of a growing, revenue generating product at Mozilla but I still don't define if something is a successful product based upon if it generates revenue or not.

The scope of this thread is if Mozilla has the potential to make successful products (or, things, I guess) beyond Firefox. The OP claims its not possible for the organization to do so. In my mind, showing they have created software that has traction (some revenue generating, some not) disproves this. A PM considers a product successful if it is adopted and loved by users. Other people consider it successful if its team is cash flow positive. Others consider it successful if it bolsters the company brand. The definition of successful I was working with is one that shows Mozilla can ship useful software.

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It is successful if it generates more revenues than went into it and if it strengthens the company that decided to put the time, effort and funds in it in the first place.

The problem with your view is that if you don't have a plan on how a product will generate revenue that you are effectively taking a huge gamble that may not pay off. So you'll be 'successful' by your definition while filing for chapter 11, something that Mozilla is flirting with in the medium term if they pursue this route.

Only companies with very deep pockets can pursue bets like that, and even then it could hurt. Microsoft Xbox' story is a good example of a bet that worked out, there are many examples of such bets not working out, quite a few of them killing the companies that made the bets.

It's hard to keep up with all the goal post shifting (the definition of "product", "successful", and so on) - in any case, it's common for companies to start with the problem of delivering user value first, and then figuring out revenue later. One doesn't need a clear plan for revenue when starting out. The project I worked on at Mozilla itself is evidence of this: we had ideas for how to generate revenue for it when we started out, but the one we ended up doing was not on the list since we discovered the opportunity in the process of developing the product.

I'm not shifting the goal posts, you are but I'm going to bow out at this point. If you want to have a constructive dialog with someone who has been a Mozilla user since day #1 and continues to be so - it's the browser I write this on - today and will likely be one long after Mozilla the company may no longer exist then you're welcome to that.

But posting Rust as a product and claiming FireFox is not successful is simply not on the level.

FireFox has been amazingly resilient given the onslaught aimed at it, the fact that it still has the marketshare it does is a success in its own right. That that marketshare is dwindling should surprise noone, least of all those working at Mozilla.

As for your experience: that is how most products are developed. But Mozilla is not - at present - a company with more than one successful product. Not from my perspective, and likely not from any of the other frequent users of its flagship product.

Firefox is a successful product. One that is failing. I never claimed it can't be turned around, I was pushing back on the idea that it's self evident that is the solution to Mozilla's problems. (When in fact, that's what Mozilla has been mostly focused on this whole time from a budgetary perspective, and yet here we are.)

I should have never said Rust was a product, you're focusing on a word I used you didn't like and have made it a gotcha that let it derail us away from your original claims. I was using it as an example of Mozilla creating something successful other than Firefox. You claimed Mozilla is a one trick pony and is incapable of making anything else successful other than Firefox. This is objectively false. Firefox only generated revenue in the first place due to an ad deal, which is held up by legal concerns. You also completely ignored the other example I gave, the product I worked on and ran the team for, which is also generating revenue for the company. (Revenue which, I might add, is not backed by advertising dollars nor legal blowback.)

Take care.

No one will probably see this so deep in the comment tree, but I appreciate your level-headedness throughout this exchange, and I agree with your point that a winning high level strategy for Mozilla is not self-evidently obvious.

And for what it's worth, I used Hubs a little, and it was pretty neat - thanks. Unfortunately I was never able to gain traction on using it more regularly, as the nerdiness level of a 3D/VR environment was too high for my social circle.

Nice discussion... (saw this via http://repo.memkits.org/hn-reader/?id=24120336 )

> It is successful if it generates more revenues than went into it and if it strengthens the company that decided to put the time, effort and funds in it in the first place.

By that virtue it seems that an awfully large number of "products" that came out of Bell Labs wouldn't be considered successful, unless I misunderstand.

Bell Labs was not created to be a stand alone company. It was created with the express purpose of being a laboratory, hence the name. Its main product was patents, and some copyrightable code.

The fact that it led to useful products is the reason it was established in the first place: a very long term plan from a company that could easily afford it.

And since it strengthened the company that decided to commit the resources it definitely can be considered a success.

There are a few more examples of such institutions, some more successful, others less so but overall doing basic research in a time when tech is in a state of flux looks like it is a winning strategy.

Bell Labs was a successful lab, not a successful company. It was eventually spun off as a company, Lucent, which failed.

I’d argue that the engineers where successful and the management and company was not.

But for some reason managers never takes responsibility.

I did not blame the engineers, nor did I absolve management. In the case of Mozilla, it's clearly management who are to blame.

The browser is a succesful product in the sense that it has found product market fit: there is a group of users that value the key benefits of firefox (not large company controlled, opensource, focussed on security and privacy). It may not be a large group of users, and it may not be a growing group of users, but it has a group of appreciative users that would rather use firefox over other browsers.

So it's a niche product targetted at a niche user group.

Where firefox the company is failing is to have a financial sound way of delivering that niche product. To keep the product relevant it needs to invest, and it needs some revenue to pay for these investments. This could be through other products, sponsering, subsidies, etc.

As a long time firefox user i care about having an alternative browser. I don't care about the company mozilla, nor any of its other products. But i understand the money to keep firefox relevant needs to come from somewhere.

That money - and then some - is found through donations to the foundation (which to the user may mean 'support FireFox' and to the Mozilla foundation means 'play money') and the renting out of the 'search box'. It is the rest of the projects that get their funding from FireFox, not the other way around.

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