- cross-posted to:
- firefox@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- firefox@lemmy.ml
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Without the Google Search deal, Firefox will have less resources to build a competent browser.
Firefox has neglected their browser for years, pursuing vanity features like pocket instead of implementing web standards.
Mozilla really needs the corporate ear. That’s what really did them in, google integrated into Active Directory group policy effectively making it a pretty good choice for corporate deployments. This would give leverage to have bigger donors. Outside of that is just to diversify but the vpn/privacy market is pretty saturated right now.
There’s still a lot of room IMO for Mozilla to innovate in a privacy-respecting way.
For example, partner with/acquire Axate (or DIY), and do a big marketing push to get websites on board with “casual payments” in lieu of ads. I think Firefox users would love this, and they can work with uBlock Origin to expose an API so users can disable ad blockers on conforming websites.
But they’re not going to do that, which sucks.
users can disable ad blockers on conforming websites.
We all know that this won’t happen. In reality there are only two major groups of people: Those who do not use ad blockers and have accepted ads everywhere, and those who use ad blockers and accept ads nowhere.
I think that’s looking at it the wrong way. I think there are three kinds of people:
- People who won’t pay regardless
- People who will pay regardless
- People who will pay a reasonable price
Some in each group use ad blockers, and I think group 3 is quite large.
From Mozilla’s founder, jwz:
Date Post 2020-09-23 This is a pretty dire assessment of Mozilla 2022-01-06 Mozilla blinked 2023-12-29 Remember when Mozilla made a web browser? 2024-01-05 My dinosaur just threw up in its mouth a little 2024-06-20 Mozilla is an advertising company now 2024-06-22 Mozilla’s Original Sin 2024-10-03 Mozilla’s CEO doubles down on them being an advertising company now It’s almost unfair that JWZ has to be grouped in with the same historical figures around Firefox as Netscape ghoul Marc Andreessen and JavaScript ghoul Brendan Eich. Firefox (and predecessors) aren’t managed by the best people.
It’s easy to dismiss those things as vanity projects, But isn’t the reality that there is no money to be made in the web browser itself? All web browser builders seem to have things going on to get extra revenue so it seems unfair to criticise Mozilla here.
