iteratethis

I'm guessing because they don't want to. Their "mission" is much larger than Firefox.

Well, I just explained you why. Firefox subsidizes the mothership which is doing a lot of non-Firefox activities. When you carve out Firefox, the mothership is gone.

You need to separate intent from messaging, it's how the game is played.

The US is taking a strong lead in brokering a deal. It got Ukraine and the EU to make large concessions (mineral deal, extra EU defense spending) to signal to the US that they are serious about peace and serious about heavily contributing to it to make it possible.

If Russia's public answer to this is: NO, I will not even lift a finger, then they open themselves up to US scrutiny because they admitted they are 100% unwilling.

As you rightfully put, they are already unwilling, but saying it is another thing. It's much better to go into a peace negotiation suggesting you're willing, than to block any talks at all.

What does US scrutiny look like? I have no idea. It could mean more sanctions, more weapon deliveries. Or it could mean nothing at all. I can't read this administration, it's so random.

Many people want to donate to Firefox exclusively but you can forget about that. Mozilla will not carve out Firefox because it's the only reason that the mother org gets half a billion of free money from Google.

Carving out Firefox means Mozilla is dissolved as none of their other activities make any money.

It's funny you mention this.

Mozilla was one of the first to accept crypto donations. Then some 3 years ago an ex-Mozilla employee posted a rant on Twitter on how this effectively makes Mozilla super evil. It went somewhat viral and Mozilla stopped accepting crypto.

To me this is a great example on how useless virtue-signaling is.

Nothing was improved. The crypto world happily moves on and you won't be getting part of that money. What a great win. But I guess it's fine to receive fiat money of which you don't have a clue either about its source.

You state that the non-Firefox activities of Mozilla are good, as if an established fact.

I'd reason that there's no consensus on this at all. Some things might be perceived as good, some neutral or bad, and many might be perceived as well intended but ineffective.

This polls suggests that there's some decision holding back Mozilla from ditching Google, and that with enough pressure, they'll finally do it.

They're long aware that they should. They made the strategic announcement some 7-8 years back if I remember correctly. Since then they tried to diversify and failed miserably.

Sure enough incompetence is involved but we should also consider how very hard it is.

Making hundreds of millions from a new tech product in the consumer space is impossibly difficult. You're up against Big Tech and a generally very competitive and saturated space where any idea can be easily replicated. And you're up against consumers that really don't want to pay, hence ads.

That said, I do feel Mozilla barely tried and wasted a lot of money on distractions. They're way too comfortable raking half a billion for effectively doing nothing at all: keep the search box pointing at Google.

We need to be honest about what value Firefox really has left.

Commercially, it's completely irrelevant. On big websites it doesn't even show up in the top 10 browsers and it's almost entirely absent on mobile. Site owners can readily ignore Firefox.

Firefox is no longer a developer default. I'm sure some of us in our bubble have strong personal preferences but the entire dev ecosystem is chrome-based. Very advanced devtools, Google having a team of "evangelists", course material is Chrome-based, test-automation, etc. So developers too can ignore Firefox.

Some argue that it's good to have an independent rendering engine. Here too Firefox plays no role at all. The only counter force to Google's web feature roadmap is Apple/Webkit, not Mozilla.

From a privacy preserving perspective, Firefox has no unique value. Install Brave, say no to the one-time crypto pop-up, and you have a very decent and fast browser that also consistently renders along with Chrome and Edge.

I use Firefox. If I ask myself why, it's muscle memory and because uBlock Origin still works.

The ceasefire is basically the world asking Russia: do you have any interest in any long term peace at all?

The answer is probably "not really" but Russia cannot signal that this early on. It's more beneficial to say "yes" to something with zero consequences and then dodge peace during actual negotiations.

Russia will not reject this ceasefire. It concedes absolutely nothing which basically forces Russia to say yes to it. Because if they don't, they looks so unreasonable that actual negotiations will fail.

My guestimate of the Russian position:

- Ukraine cannot ever be part of NATO.

- Seized territory remains Russian

- Sanctions should be lifted.

Next, it will not allow a "peace force" at the buffer zone. Because Russia will be back after it repairs its economy.

"The United States’ alliances are an incredible power resource, and its actions should not undermine them."

Well, too late. The article repeatedly makes the point that any blockade strategy requires allies on board in order to be effective. What allies? The US is now an enemy to its former allies.

But let's say the blockage/decoupling works and China's GDP is crushed by 40%. Then what? Do you think China will be like: "good one USA, guess you win this one?". Let's not forget that China is the #1 trading partner for an estimated 120-140 countries. And this doesn't even account for a possible pivot to China from Europe.

The idea that you can marginalize and decimate China economically in any lasting way with no existential side effects is ludicrous.

This to me is the ultimate sign that Mozilla has zero values or principles.

They've long advocated that Big Tech is a problem, but as soon as somebody tries to actually address it and this coincidentally impacting Mozilla, they abandon any and all principles.

A few days ago the press secretary of the White House closed the session by commenting on a hockey game to be played that night between the US and "our soon-to-be 51st state", whilst grinning.

A declaration of war packaged as a prank.

"You Europeans don't need to worry. We will not abandon you in case Russia shows up in NATO territory because we have too long of a history together and strong commercial relations."

This history has been wiped out in a month's time. Trump has threatened to annex EU territory, plays with economic destruction on the daily, constantly lies about Europe and mocks and humiliates us.

America is now a threat and an enemy. "Don't worry" will not cut it.

Your mind must be truly warped when you think supporting a sovereign country that is ruthlessly destroyed by Russia is "disrespecting Russia".

We do not have shared values. Yesterday Trump decided to cut sharing intelligence so that Russian missiles and drones can go through without Ukraine being able to prepare for them. Trading human lives for a better mineral deal, like picking a corpse.

Demonic "values".

I want to paint a picture of what type of "ally" the US is in normal circumstances, from a Dutch perspective. A superpower versus a speckle of a country.

The growth of our biggest airport had to be capped for various reasons. That means less landing rights. So we go airline by airline and inform them they can land 5% less. They were all frustrated but understood the pain had to be shared.

Not for the US though. Mere hours after the first American airline was informed, Biden's Washington was on the line: cap any landing rights of any American airline and no Dutch plane will ever land on US soil again.

Similar: repeated visits of US representatives coming to tell us exactly which ASML machine can be exported to where and expecting immediate compliance. Even if you agree with the reasons, the arrogance is striking as is the neglect in considering the costs to the business.

We host the international court of justice. But the US doesn't care, it doesn't acknowledge it.

The point of all these examples is that the US treats allies like shit even before Trump. There's no regard at all for the other side, it's power-play and dominance and rules not applying to the US.

The relationship doesn't persist out of friendship, mutual respect or "shared values". It persists because in the bigger picture it is probably still economically beneficial as alternatives are worse. As the Dutch say, the difference between being bitten by a dog or a cat.

The US as the leader of the free world is the very opposite of that as it comes to values. It's cruel and selfish to its "friends".

That was the status quo and thing are obviously infinitely worse now. I wish it was different. We should move towards each other and build a Super West. America First means Europe First means Canada First and so on. Everybody suffers.

Quite a lot of cash to generate AI stickers in messenger.

This is good for Americans because their new "External Revenue Service" is going to get very rich this way.

There's no such thing in a product as complicated as a laptop.

It's not an awful law.

The Digital Market Act is a bit of an overreach but the AI law is not.

It classifies AI into risk categories, so that it doesn't kill anyone, carelessly handle sensitive information, etc.

A chatbot can easily comply with it.

The punch line is that more expensive is better in cases where you buy something just to flex wealth.

You picked the wrong country. I'm from the Netherlands and it's not in a dire state.

It has newspapers across the spectrum. Volkskrant and Parool are left-wing, AD is centrist, Telegraaf is center-right. To name a few. This reflects our political system which is a distribution rather than a binary system.

In addition, there's state-owned news that reports very factually, with little to no bias in any direction.

We also have excellent deep journalism, my favorite being Follow The Money: https://www.ftm.nl/

EU edition: https://www.ftm.eu/articles

...the type of journalism the entire world needs.

The Netherlands has no hard-right or alt-right newspapers or TV channels. Not because it's not allowed, we just don't have the equivalent of Fox.

In my view, this is a blessing. It's not because I'm left wing. I'm center-right. Alt-right with their misinformation and alternative facts are an attack on information itself. It's not just "another view", it undermines reality itself.

And for the record, we have no hard-left in mainstream media either. Not because it's not allowed, it just doesn't work over here.

It's loss-making at current usage, and usage per user will exponentially grow.

This is the Musk algorithm in action.

He cuts, removes and simplifies until it starts to hurt, and then slightly dials it back. He does this with rocket engines and staff.

Now he's doing it with government services and the US as a whole is doing it with its allies.

The problem with the latter is that you can't dial it back. Countries don't really like it when you threaten to annex them, disrupt their economies on a whim and negotiate about them behinds their backs.

Not only is the US no longer an ally of said countries, it's a hostile nation. 80 years of cooperation and trillions of dollars were wiped out in a single speech.

The US ranks #55 in press freedom, all positions in the top 10 are EU countries.

I'm afraid ethics have nothing to do with it.

If a major force does not add AI capabilities to their military, the others will. It's a new cold war arms race. So you have to do it. There is no ethical discussion to be had where the outcome is that you refuse to do this on moral grounds.

So when you have to do it, there's only a few candidates that can. Google is the logical choice as it has the least business in China, unlike Microsoft.

Well, yes, that's what I was saying. But a West without the US is not a tiny change.

The thing with cars is that this is one of few things where Europe can do a MEGA. We can buy our own and the reasons to do so seem to grow by the day.

I honestly have found it always very lame to virtue signal by means of buying a car or to cancel by not buying one. Common people generally don't think that way. Real life is not Twitter. At least not where I live.

But that's changing. 3 years ago Musk was just edgy and annoying but everybody still wanted a Tesla. Now when I talk to people in the market for a car they openly dismiss the "Nazi car".

Lucky for Musk that his stock is a fan stock, not a business stock.

I mean there will be no West as we currently know it. The US is now a hostile state to former allies that collectively make up what we call the West. Thus the West disintegrates.

Each disintegrated part will of course defend itself in case of war, but other scenarios are possible. For example, the EU could actually move closer towards China for trade.

When the US threatens allies with economic disruption or even an invasion, don't be surprised if those countries make alternative plans and team up with alternative powers.

The reason war may be coming is because the West is falling apart. The US is isolating itself and bullying its allies. Alternative powers wanting to do something expansive never had a better moment in time to do so.

There was no war forthcoming between an integrated West and any other power. War is coming because there no longer is a West.

True. Federation is a disaster. Like you say, the simple use case of having consistent likes and replies doesn't even work.

This breaks conversations. An OP hosting a popular thread will see the same/similar reply many times because people can't even see each other's replies.

Federation makes discovery and search impossible or at the very least extremely hard to implement, whilst this is such a core feature of social networks.

Federation is extremely wasteful. People hosting instances with just a few thousands of users are reporting gigantic bandwidth consumption and hefty bills. Not to mention storage bills for all that media.

Federation does not allow for the independence it suggests. A bitter activist can advocate for other admins to defederate you and then your instance is cut off. You're not independent, you answer to the rule of the purists and the Mastodon way.