Re:Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony
by latexr on Tuesday November 30, 2021 @07:07AM
(#29391257)
> The underlying question stands: what is the size of this (combined) community and is it large enough to make a meaningful impact on Firefox's market share?
I don’t have data to make that claim definitively. Even if it’s large enough and they catered to it now, would people come back? I don’t know.
But that’s not my larger point:
> Before I stopped caring, I checked every (front page) Firefox story on HN and without exception I collected a new macOS grievance by someone different.
An example is music producers missing the Web MIDI API. I focused on automation because that’s what I know, but my point is they have multiple communities to cater to. This conversation started with a quote about Firefox niches.
> When the gain exceeds the loss from the bleed.
I wasn’t talking in the abstract. Firefox is unable to get new users at that rate.
> I hear your frustration that you cannot help people use your tools with Firefox.
I no longer care. I let them know why Firefox doesn’t work and point them to the bug report but tell them to not get their hopes up. My tools are open-source and free, so it’s not like this feature gap impacts by bottom line. I want to add Firefox support because I want it to succeed. But they’re not making it easy for automaters to help; quite the contrary, every useful tool we build which supports every major browser except Firefox is another nail in the coffin.
> Marketing stunts are usually done to attract advertiser dollars, not users.
Their stunts actively lose them users. No users, no one to advertise to.
I don’t have data to make that claim definitively. Even if it’s large enough and they catered to it now, would people come back? I don’t know.
But that’s not my larger point:
> Before I stopped caring, I checked every (front page) Firefox story on HN and without exception I collected a new macOS grievance by someone different.
An example is music producers missing the Web MIDI API. I focused on automation because that’s what I know, but my point is they have multiple communities to cater to. This conversation started with a quote about Firefox niches.
> When the gain exceeds the loss from the bleed.
I wasn’t talking in the abstract. Firefox is unable to get new users at that rate.
> I hear your frustration that you cannot help people use your tools with Firefox.
I no longer care. I let them know why Firefox doesn’t work and point them to the bug report but tell them to not get their hopes up. My tools are open-source and free, so it’s not like this feature gap impacts by bottom line. I want to add Firefox support because I want it to succeed. But they’re not making it easy for automaters to help; quite the contrary, every useful tool we build which supports every major browser except Firefox is another nail in the coffin.
> Marketing stunts are usually done to attract advertiser dollars, not users.
Their stunts actively lose them users. No users, no one to advertise to.