Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products

Re:Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on comm... by gfodor on Tuesday August 11, 2020 @01:52PM (#24123417)

I think one challenge is a lot of Mozilla's users see Mozilla as a browser company, whereas Mozilla sees itself as an Internet company. The users may be right. Your Apple analogy is a tough one - if Apple had just stayed focused on PCs, and not the higher level mission of the company around comput-ing-, they would have not invented new kinds of computers. Focus makes sense, once you've locked in on something. The trick of what to focus on is hard though, and the scope of things to consider as possible to focus on is informed by the mission of the company and its fundamental thesis for existing. When the iPod came out it was often chastised as being off-mission for Apple, and many Mac enthusiasts yelled that it would detract away from having them fix whatever the problem of the day was bothering them about their Mac. This kind of complaint is obviously very familiar in the Mozilla case - things other than Firefox are often considered 'distractions' much like the iPod (which led to the iPhone) was by similar people who were heavily invested in the company's existing product line. Time will tell if Mozilla survives if it turns out they should, unlike Apple, listen to them and accept they can't do more than one thing.

Mozilla's thesis is about unlocking the potential of the Internet and ensuring it remains a public resource. Its purpose for existing is not about tree style tabs or ad blockers. But this makes for a tough process of determining how to foster innovative products since the mission is so broad.

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Re:Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on comm... by jacquesm on Tuesday August 11, 2020 @02:47PM (#24124217)

> I think one challenge is a lot of Mozilla's users see Mozilla as a browser company, whereas Mozilla sees itself as an Internet company.

Spot on. In fact, I think that without FireFox Mozilla might as well be dead, even if it survives as a legal entity and employs people. That's it's whole reason for existence as far as I'm concerned.

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Re:Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on comm... by gred on Tuesday August 11, 2020 @05:26PM (#24126170)

Agree. I use Firefox for all the usual reasons. I've considered donating to Mozilla in the past, but have always decided not to -- because my impression is that most of that money would be spent on experiments and signaling, not work on the core product that I care about.

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Re:Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on comm... by morelisp on Tuesday August 11, 2020 @04:22PM (#24125526)

> a lot of Mozilla's users see Mozilla as a browser company, whereas Mozilla sees itself as an Internet company.

To the extent Mozilla sees itself as an internet company, it seems it is is so it can subsume other parts of the internet into the browser.

If it genuinely saw itself as an internet company and not a browser company, it would not have:

- killed Thunderbird, its premier non-web non-browser application;

- built a phone where every app was a browser + ad hoc web-y extensions, even where using a web application approach did not make sense;

- the exact same dumb idea as above but for IoT;

- integrated every product idea it makes or acquires (Pocket, Send, now Reality) into its browser as the primarily / solitary entry point

- continually sidelined / demoted even web-but-non-browser technologies like RSS

"Mozilla's users" (and by this you really mean, Firefox's users) see Mozilla as a browser company because everything they do revolves around their browser.

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Re:Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on comm... by treis on Tuesday August 11, 2020 @04:20PM (#24125492)

> Mozilla sees itself as an Internet company.

I don't think Mozilla sees themselves as a "company". Their philosophical core is as a foundation promoting core believes. The title of their website is "Internet for people, not profit" and their recruiting pitch is "We're on a mission. Join us".

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