> I understood how bad Mozilla, for lack of a better term 'sucked' at making money when I saw how the small team of KaiOS picked up the remains of Firefox OS and not only turned it to be a viable business but did so in the ruthless, hyper-competitive market of Smartphone OS ecosystem where even Microsoft had failed.

KaiOS is in the ultra-low-end smartphone/feature-phone market that Microsoft/Google/Apple don't care about at all.

What's remarkable is that something ill-conceived like "web technology on ultra-low-end devices" actually gained enough traction to get devices on the market.

Like Firefox OS before it, actual KaiOS devices were not well-received, because of poor performance and lack of apps. It's just that nobody really notices because all the buzz is around "real" smartphones.

>Like Firefox OS before it, actual KaiOS devices were not well-received, because of poor performance and lack of apps.

As of Q1 2018, 23 million KaiOS devices were shipped. It stood second in terms of market share in India due to JioPhone(even ahead of iOS). It seems future Jio Phones would be Android, especially considering Google is now invested in Jio(It's an investor in KaiOS as well). Mozilla had recently signed a deal to develop the gecko engine for KaiOS further.

KaiOS team saw where Firefox OS would fit well and they brought it to fruition; Something I feel Mozilla could have pulled off too.

> As of Q1 2018, 23 million KaiOS devices were shipped.

Like I said, remarkable.

> KaiOS team saw where Firefox OS would fit well and they brought it to fruition; Something I feel Mozilla could have pulled off too.

You mean they could've pulled off getting investor money to develop a bad product into an even worse product and unload it on markets in the developing world, where people are presumably used to bad products?

I don't think that's in their "mission statement".

I could have seen Mozilla build an enhanced email service like Hey! Actually, they could still probably do it, it would align with their focus on privacy and experience with email reader.

True, email requires more players to stay federated and would have reflected well with Mozilla's supposed ethos. But, I seriously doubt whether Mozilla would have pulled off what Hey did in terms of marketing.

Mozilla's marketing for the hypothetical email service would have been like ProtonMail without the advantage of 'Switzerland/CERN' brand. Also, ProtonMail has now gone all guns on Apple following Hey, which I don't think Mozilla would do.

While Mozilla would likely not go head on against Apple, Mozilla still have some aura especially in the Silicon Valley. Who knows, they might have cut a deal with Apple...

It would be nice if they took over the video call market from Zoom. They definitely have the web expertise to do it, and they could make a lot of money since absolutely no one I know actually wants to use zoom over a competitor.