Re:Why Firefox has been in decline for 12 years
by freediver on Saturday September 11, 2021 @12:38PM
(#28493343)
But then we are in conflict as we want Mozilla to create a superior product but we are not ready pay for it? One of these expectations has to give in then.
Re:Why Firefox has been in decline for 12 years
by GekkePrutser on Saturday September 11, 2021 @01:14PM
(#28493696)
I'm very happy to pay money for it tbh. But don't forget Mozilla doesn't even take donations for Firefox. Only for their Foundation.
Re:Why Firefox has been in decline for 12 years
by dralley on Saturday September 11, 2021 @12:51PM
(#28493477)
Yes, I completely agree that HN has a massive cognitive dissonance about this. They're so used to venture capitalists and FAANG companies lighting billions of dollars on fire to subsidize money-losing but moat-building projects that they have completely unrealistic expectations about what is reasonable for the other 99.99% of the universe (without magic money fountains propping them up) to do sustainably.
But the reality is that because of this, browsers are commoditized, and the average user will never pay for a browser if they can get Chrome or Safari for free. That's probably true of the average HN user, too, for that matter.
Re:Why Firefox has been in decline for 12 years
by thayne on Saturday September 11, 2021 @03:15PM
(#28494960)
A big part of the problem, is that for Mozilla, Firefox is a tool for their other initiatives. They use money they make from Firefox to fund their other projects. And they use the influence they get from controlling a browser to push their agenda on web standards. Not that I disagree with their agenda in most cases. But I don't think Mozilla's primary objective is to make a great browser, unfortunately.
Re:Why Firefox has been in decline for 12 years
by freediver on Saturday September 11, 2021 @01:13PM
(#28493683)
> maintaining a browser is incredibly difficult and expensive. It would be the death blow to their market share, which would destroy Gecko as a viable browser engine
Assuming 100 people needed for Gecko, and $150k/year annual, world-wide, average developer expense, we come to $15M/year. Mozilla already has about ~$50M/year non-Google revenue from its products (coming from "true" users/customers).
Re:Why Firefox has been in decline for 12 years
by dralley on Saturday September 11, 2021 @01:22PM
(#28493784)
150k / person doesn't account for benefits or office expenses. And they have closer to 750 employees.
Re:Why Firefox has been in decline for 12 years
by freediver on Saturday September 11, 2021 @01:32PM
(#28493898)
It does if your team is world-wide.
Does Gecko really need more than 100 people?
Re:Why Firefox has been in decline for 12 years
by kaba0 on Sunday September 12, 2021 @01:37AM
(#28498849)
We are talking about a fking browser! Even microsoft dropped the ball on that one, it’s that complex of a problem!
Re:Why Firefox has been in decline for 12 years
by dralley on Saturday September 11, 2021 @02:37PM
(#28494566)
Firefox is 20 million lines of code. What do you think?
Except the fact that nobody (relative to even their current userbase) would use it, and maintaining a browser is incredibly difficult and expensive.
It would be the death blow to their market share, which would destroy Gecko as a viable browser engine (not enough users to get websites to care about the bugs, or even necessarily get the bugs reported).
The only way that would work out is if they gave up on Gecko and switched to WebKit or Blink.
Their choice of business model isn't really much of a choice, it's the only viable option that gives them any influence whatsoever.