I'm pretty sure people who used google's web cache comprised a tiny fraction of one percent of their entire user base, and this move doesn't even put the tiniest ding in their brand.
But all those features were what drew users, power users especially. And users each had their own featured reasons to love Firefox.
Now look at them. Most used browser to nothing.
There are other reasons too, but what Firefox did was remove what was special about them.
Feel free to criticize Mozilla all you like, but this is a prime example of myopic tech-bubble thinking that is being decried elsewhere in this thread. Firefox market share declined first because Google used their market position to advertise Chrome for free on what was then the most valuable web real estate in the world (the Google home page), then because they paid software installers to use dark patterns to automatically install Chrome and set it as the default browser without the user's consent, and then because they optimized all of Google's popular properties to work best in Chrome and only begrudgingly in other browsers, and then because they shipped it as the default browser on the OS that Google controls. There's not a single thing that Mozilla could have done to stop Chrome, short of making their own phone OS where they could ship Firefox as the default, which they did in fact attempt.
Yes, indeed. This may or may not have been wrong of Google, however this is also called "competition". And what did Mozilla do?
It flinched.
Many users loved Firefox, and disliked that Chrome had barely any ability to customize anything when released. It was literally years before you could change even the most basic things about the interface. When released, almost nothing could be configured about it, and it was a far cry from Firefox's ability to give the user what they wanted.
Firefox's response to Chrome's minor speed improvements? Was to literally begin a campaign to become the enemy. Firefox devs worked diligently to make Firefox a second rate clone of Chrome. They removed features, configuration, the ability to modify the interface, and more.
Mozilla could have so easily kept all that configurability, its strong point, its unique factor, but instead panicked. And in doing so it rendered itself incapable of competing on any footing.
Put another way, yes Google had vast resources. Yet this is precisely why you never compete on the same footing as them. You instead compete on what they do not have.
And that was the ability to theme Firefox, to configure it as you wanted, to turn off features you did not want, and more. Chrome had none of this initially. And Google is literally famous for, and incapable of listening to users. They're not built for it. Mozilla was.
And they threw all those strengths away, the only way they could compete with Chrome.
So yes, there were things they could have done. And yes, endless people told them that in bug reports, in emails to them, and more. If anyone's thinking here is myopic (great personal attack, btw), it was Mozilla's.
So yes, Google was going to win the fight Mozilla picked, but Mozilla picked a losing strategy.
[0] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browsers/compare/chrom...
I love Firefox (fork) it is my only browser but you can see the long term trend and I do wonder if it will even be a thing in a decades time. Unless there is a sudden shift towards it, is will eventually be relegated to the last of the most devoted geeks as we watch it wither away at the hands of the tech giants running the net.
A big thing was when they cut the Servo team that was when I knew they had sort of given up on trying to push forward but merely follow.
It is probably inevitable, I mean if even Microsoft couldnt fight off Googles browser dominance, what hope does Mozilla have long term.
It was a fairly hidden piece of functionality that a tiny proportion of people ever used -- of course, a higher proportion of HN users, but still.
Their brand is unchanged.
I used to buy in heavily to the Google ecosystem and trust it as a pretty solid go to option for anything they offered, now I'd be really hesitant to use it for anything critical. I have even been wondering if my longstanding gmail email address will someday be a liability.
Those two examples were probably smaller services but had their effects on different populations. When you add up all the things that have been ended by Google it can really contribute to their overall brand image. Some things can trickle down from more technical users to less technical. I think chrome was first adopted by a highly tech literate population before breaking into the mainstream, and if that population starts to mistrust Google it could hurt them in the long run.
I think there has been a pretty major shift in Google culture and product strategy and I'm not a fan of it.
What was the last new Google anything you added to your daily life? Instead of adding Google Quickshare to share files from my PC to Android I use Microsoft's Phone Link. That is the first time in my life I've picked a Microsoft product over a Google one. It also just works better and doesn't require I have bluetooth enabled on both devices.
Gemini. Maybe you prefer ChatGPT, but either way the product category is a huge improvement to daily life for a lot of people. And transformers were invented at Google.
And Waymo is on its way to being huge. Might eventually make Google more money than everything it's done before.
As far as I can tell, innovation seems alive and well at Google. But a lot of their product categories are simply "mature" by now -- you're not going to see some wild transformation of YouTube, or Docs and Drive, or Android. Same as you're not seeing some wild reinvention of Apple Music, or iCloud, or iOS.
I am never getting into a Google powered vehicle. They aren't 2000s genius Google, they are 2024 'We're getting rid of Google Cache' Google that prioritizes a buck over good tech. I'm not trusting that mindset with my life.
And you still won't get into a Waymo when extensive statistics prove they're far safer than a human driver?