> I hold that implementing DRM is what doomed them

Then again, if Firefox had refused to implement DRM, I'd probably have switched to Chrome by now, so there's that.

I'm really not a fan of DRM, but I don't think it's fair to blame Firefox for doing what probably a huge part of their user base demands, especially given their pretty dire usage stats. Sometimes, there's wisdom in knowing which battle to pick.

The argument is, there would have been a patch, people could install.

I think if that click was right at netflix and a ff restart away from working, then maybe yes. But most people would just switch browsers, before looking for that patch.

What's the difference between that and Firefox outright shipping with a DRM module, though?

I do get the ideological objection to not wanting to support DRM, although I don't think that's the battle that Mozilla should pick right now. But extra clicks probably wouldn't make anybody who does happy, while inconveniencing most other users.

It is ideological, not logical in my opinion.

And what Mozilla should do right now is rather reemploy the servo team(and more), to actually build a innovative browser again.

I agree Mozilla should be building browsers, supporting open source and being active on the committees.

But I wouldn't choose DRM as the hill to die on. There's probably better examples of things Mozilla did wrong.

You might want to copy-paste the URL for this one, or find another way to not send a referer HTTP header.

One way is to use the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20240623012818/https://www.jwz.o...

> Some will tell you that Mozilla's worst decision was to accept funding from Google, and that may have been the first domino, but I hold that implementing DRM is what doomed them, as it led to their culture of capitulation. It demonstrated that their decisions were the decisions of a company shipping products, not those of a non-profit devoted to preserving the open web.

If you're concerned about referers, I recommend installing Referer Modifier and setting it to remove cross-hostname referers by default.

I've been using it for years and only had to add about 20 exceptions, like:

----

target: imgur.com

origin: -

action: replace

replacement: https://imgur.com/

----

target: amd.com

origin: -

action: target

----

target: google(\w+)?.com$

origin: google.com

action: prune

----

https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/referer-modifier/

Right click open incognito tab

You could also respect the author's desire for this audience to not engage with his takes and move on. Either works.

So if somebody gives me the finger, I can't discuss their publicly stated opinions elsewhere? That's certainly a take.

Yeah no you certainly can do that, but imo it's kinda weird when it's not even something important or anything.

Not important to you.

Which sin is it that referrer even exists?

Is that what he's trying to do? I thought he was just poking fun at the notion 14 that the site is called "Hacker News" but the average reader here needs written directions to circumvent a very old alternate content game from the '90s internet era.

It's a pretty clever ribbing, 10 for 10. ;)

That's actually how I took it as well – a little roadblock that shouldn't keep any real hacker busy for too long :)

If you value privacy, you should disable referers by default. Only enable them if you really have to (there are extensions for that).

> Mozilla should be doing two things and two things only: (1) Building THE reference implementation web browser, and (2) Being a jugular-snapping attack dog on standards committees.

I think (1) would more properly be W3C's job, although these days, they probably wouldn't do a good job either (although they did some in the past, and Line Mode Browser has some good features (including a few that modern browsers usually lack), but unfortunately it doesn't work very well).

Why does this link to a picture now? Or is that just for people who use Firefox?

In either case, it's insultingly immature to have that picture be what the link goes to.

It's just for people clicking through from HN.

Perhaps @dang can give the author what he desires and block the domain from HN submissions.

He has his reasons to use his platform to remind us who we platform.

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/01/y-combinator-ceo-wishes-dea...

I think I would rather HN be linked to something explaining why he reroutes, like the above link, rather than randomly being shown a scrotum in an egg holder.

Well, when you set up your blog to pay attention to the referrer header, you can link it to where you want.

I mean hating on Dean Preston isn't exactly an odd opinion. Few people have done as much to drive up the cost of living and limit access to housing as Dean.

Death threats from a billionaire are not to be ignored.

Why should they be given special treatment?

It's just for people whose browsers are publishing an origin from this page.

Copy paste the link and navigate to it directly to bypass that.

(Immature? Maybe. It harkens back to an era where people would do that sort of thing. And hey, it's a better way to deal with this site functioning as a temporary DDOS attack against other people's site infrastructure than failing to serve everybody's requests. And, well, jwz has been around long enough to have earned his opinion of the technorati who frequent the site, self included ;) ).

i believe jwz is 100% correct with this:

  In my humble but correct opinion, Mozilla should be doing two things and two things only:

  1. Building THE reference implementation web browser, and
  2. Being a jugular-snapping attack dog on standards committees.
  3. There is no 3.

> 1. Building THE reference implementation web browser, and

A reference implementation web browser would not have had popup blocking back in the Bad Old Days of IE6 dominance, and would probably never have become relevant enough to impact web standards in the 21st century.

> 2. Being a jugular-snapping attack dog on standards committees.

They tried (and still do try) to do exactly this, but you need market share for it to matter; even if Mozilla outright controlled the standards committees, Google would simply implement whatever they want and developers would use it due to the browser monoculture.

> 3. There is no 3.

Perhaps in the author's next attempt he could eliminate 1 and 2 as well.

It's a fun fantasy, but the simple fact is that the standards committees are a power game and if Mozilla doesn't operate successfully as a corporation they have no power.

And you don't make money selling a browser.

but doesn't Mozilla have more than a billion dollars in the bank (and/or investments) for doing precisely that?

they "sold" their browser, just not to end-users. they sold it to google via "royalties" for google to use as a shield against anti-trust.

That was the W3C in an age gone by and all that got them is total irrelevancy today.

Precisely. It turns out web standards are a lot more descriptive than proscriptive; deviate too far from web browser vendors actually want to implement and you just create a fantasy document that never becomes reality.

It'd be great if there were someone other than browser companies funding browsers. Maybe w3c or governments or institutions could actually support implementing all the bonkers excellent wicg.io and other ideas that browsers just don't care to implement.

> The on-paper existence of Firefox as a hypothetical competitor kept the Federal wolves at bay, and that's all Google cared about.

On-paper prophylactics being the best prophylactics, of course.

I don't get why implementing DRM support is the "original" sin. The DRMd content is playable in basically all modern browsers, generally at a lower quality level than what one can get via "native" apps that implement DRM in a more "secure" manner.

What would have happened if mozilla fought (and won) this DRM battle?

At best, the same content at its lower quality levels would have been playable in the browser (i.e. non in a non DRM manner), but the DRM would have still existed at the higher levels for the "native" apps to use.

At worst, it wouldn't have been playable at all in the browser.

And perhaps somewhat in the middle, it would have been playable in the browser, but at a lower quality level than what is available now.

I'm not sure how this is fundamentally different than allowing patent encumbered codecs in (i.e. either things wont work in browser, or they will work worse in browser). One might argue that its not, but that undermines then the concept of "original sin" as the patent encumbered codecs occurred first.

I also don't get the argument that someone would have "hacked" in support being an argument for not including it. If someone could hack in support, and that version would be come the version people use (instead of the ideologically pure version), what exactly does one's ideological purity get? "No one" (a bit of hyperbole) is using that version.