What would the web gain if Mozilla could just be pushed into chasing whatever Apple, Microsoft, and Google decide to do for fear of some users jumping ship?

edit: Mozilla needs to cultivate its brand, and set itself apart from the other browsers through actual differences in philosophy. Maybe they need a John Legere...

Mozilla has been different in philosophy. It's the only browser created by a nonprofit, and it fights for open web causes all the time. I think people that care about that are aware of it.

But the facts remain that the vast majority of users don't care about the philosophical differences. When Chrome and Internet Explorer started shipping EME, almost no one switched browser. When Snowden's revelations came out, almost no one switched browser. Etc. etc.

edit: clarified what i meant

> Mozilla has been different in philosophy. It's the only browser created by a nonprofit, and it fights for open web causes all the time.

Just not, you know, this one.

I understand why Mozilla is making this choice, but it's still the wrong one. I mean, seriously, DRM in the HTML spec, endorsed by Mozilla. I can't think of a bigger WTF.

I'm very much in agreement with Cory Doctorow that all these assertions that Mozilla will lose all its users if it doesn't implement EME have had no evidence to back them up. Almost no one is delivering EME-supported content, and all the cries of "IE and Chrome will leave us behind" fail to mention that's only IE11 and ChromeOS, so any company delivering only EME content would leave many more customers behind than just Firefox users.

At the very least doing this now instead of years from now when it might start mattering (like what happened with h.264) does not exactly demonstrate sticking to their guns.

> I'm very much in agreement with Cory Doctorow that all these assertions that Mozilla will lose all its users if it doesn't implement EME have had no evidence to back them up.

The reasoning is actually very sound in my opinion. It is true that EME is not a major force on desktop yet. But, Netflix - the most popular streaming video service - has written an EME player. It is moving towards that, and the hollywood studios as well. Those studios will not support anything but EME.

Currently Flash is supported by the studios, to some extent. But even that is problematic - Flash has dropped Linux support and is not present on mobile. Not only is EME being pushed by Netflix, Hollywood, Google and Microsoft, but also Flash is no fallback.

The result is that soon you will need EME to view Netflix. People will not use a browser that does not support Netflix. It's a simple as that. Yes, there are some principled people that refuse to use DRMed content, and those people are already not using EME-supporting browsers like Chrome and Internet Explorer, but look at their market share. The principled people are a tiny minority. That is the problem.

> People will not use a browser that does not support Netflix. It's a simple as that.

Netflix ended 2013 with 44 million subscribers, by their own numbers [1], with a target of reaching and stablilising at 90 million.

That's it: 90 million out of an online population of around 2.5 billion, or around 4%.

Do you make business decisions on the basis of 4% of your potential ( non-paying ) audience?

1: http://business.time.com/2014/01/22/netflix-number-of-subscr...

1. This isn't a Netflix module. It's for anyone who views DRM'd video content.

2. This is a growing area - we don't need to care just about current numbers but the trend. The trend is clear: Hollywood wants EME DRM on all content.

3. 44 million out of 2.5 billion sounds like a little, but is not the best way to calculate things. Netflix doesn't even sell a service in most of the countries those 2.5 billion are in. In countries like the US, Netflix is large and growing, and especially heavily represented among younger internet-savvy people (who are the heaviest browser users). So your calculation is very much an underestimate.

Who gives a crap what Hollywood wants. Bending to Hollywood's will has brought us our current endless copyright renewal and the Digital Millennium copyright Act.

How have those worked out for us?

Not to well...

Mozilla should do some A/B testing; release a browser with the module and without. See which gets the most traction.

> People will not use a browser that does not support Netflix.

As a flat out statement, that is false. Some people will use a browser that doesn't support netflix, namely those people that don't subscribe to netflix.

The question becomes HOW MANY People will not use a browser that does not support Netflix.

The point is, there was no data provided to use to answer that question.

Does it matter if it's 30% or 50% or 80%? Ignoring any of those numbers of users is not a viable strategy. People want to watch their Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad or the next high-quality show that comes out, and Hollywood is going to put that show on EME only. That's going to be a lot of people.

We can't predict the specific number but we don't need to - we can very reasonably expect it to be large.

Netflix has 44 million subscibers which is ~2% of the web and many Netflix subscribers such as myself don't use the web client so it's at best a rounding issue.

> At the very least doing this now instead of years from now when it might start mattering (like what happened with h.264) does not exactly demonstrate sticking to their guns.

Ah, but the flipside:

Doing this now, as opposed to years from now when the technology is established, gives Mozilla more influence over the form that this DRM takes, the protections that are available to consumers and the marketplace in general.

This doesn't need to be hypothetical. We can look at that trade directly. We traded hardware fingerprints that aren't trackable across services for DRM in HTML. That's what we got.

So glad they got in on the ground floor instead of continuing to work to never have it enter the spec at all.

DRM is in HTML. That happened already. Mozilla refusing to implement it is not especially likely to make W3C change their minds. It might slow down the rate of adoption among content providers, but it's not gonna change the spec.

I hope we get more from Mozilla than hardware fingerprints that aren't trackable across services. I hope we get a lot more.

Philosophy isn't just speech, it's deed. This, right now, is a deed.

They should put as much energy into propagating their ideas as into redesigning the interface to look like a Chrome knockoff. Cultivate some dial-a-pundits that TV people can count on for an opinion about the Internet. Have a thinktank. Aggressively fundraise. Expanding the userbase is the answer, not chasing corporate behemoths.

Well, that movement is about not shrinking the userbase, so surely we agree?

More generally, Mozilla's ability to influence the web away from DRM, as well as privacy invasions, stems entirely from the ability of Mozilla to deliver a product that users want. Making sure that users can't watch $YourFavoriteShow would be a pretty dumb move when all other major browsers have taken the necessary steps to make sure that their users have no such limitation.

Cultivating "dial-a-pundits", as you call them, would be nice, and we certainly take every opportunity we can to express our views on just about everything web-related. And this specific battler (DRM in web browsers) has been fought and lost. We need to regroup, cut the losses and reorder to fight the next battle.

If you wish to help fight DRMs, please make as many people as you can aware of the dangers of DRMs. Also, justa s importantly, we need to convince Hollywood that DRMs are costly and unsatisfying. For this, we need to develop and showcase alternatives, that users will use. This is the only way.

Because we can't fight Google + Apple + Microsoft + Netflix + Hulu + Hollywood on the lobbying front. We just don't have the means.

(Yeah, I'm a Firefox Dev.)

Anybody taking Snowden's revelations seriously would switch to Chrome or another Chromium build. The leaks contained information on exploited vulnerabilities in Firefox. Chrome's sandboxing makes it a safer browser than Firefox.

This is opposite the choice somebody would make if they were philosophically opposed to DRM.

Ok, let's say I agree with you - how many users switched to Chrome or Chromium following those allegations? Practically none. That proves the point, users don't seem to care about this.

(But I don't agree, that was just to make the larger point.)

are you kidding? all builds contain a dial-home to google. Why would you ever switch to something that contains that?

All Firefox builds contain a dial home to Mozilla. Both of these are user-controlled options.

If we have platforms A and B, and A is more aligned with your interests than B, then we have an advantage in having everyone on A rather than on B.

You're presenting a false dichotomy: "Either Mozilla doesn't compromise anywhere, or they might as well go away". Things aren't black and white.

Sure, but if the only thing to weigh is "will we lose users if we don't implement this feature?" and the only reason given why it's different this time is the assertion that this time it's different, I think you can understand the sentiment.

Besides, I think the argument is more "Either Mozilla doesn't compromise where it's important not to, or they might as well go away", which is a true statement. Mozilla does need to continue to exist, and compromise is fundamental to the web (it's right there in their manifesto), but this was something that should have been fought tooth and nail. The protest of this mostly involved sternly written emails to W3C lists, when it should have been simply not implementing it and holding that ground until it was clear no alternatives were viable and imminent harm was actually demonstrated.

If Mozilla only fights 1 of 4 of the 'important' battles, that's still better than fighting 0 'important' battles.

If Mozilla only fought one of every four important battles, I would seriously have to reassess my opinion of Mozilla.

Well, yes.

I was making the point that 1 of 4 is still useful. Obviously it is less useful than fighting 4 of 4 or 3 of 4.

Not if platform A compromises until it becomes B, in which case you don't care anymore.

That's true, but note that Mozilla's proposed EME implementation is quite different from the ones that have shipped so far in terms of how much power it grants the CDM, for example.

The development of web browsers has pretty much always been about chasing what everyone else is doing. You can introduce your own technologies, but unless you want your entire user-base to leave, you had better make sure the content they want to view works on your browser.

P.S. John Legere is full of shit. He's just rebranding a terrible company in an industry where all of the companies are terrible. Its a matter of survival, not ideology.

So you're saying that keeping their userbase and losing their principles is better than losing their userbase and keeping their principles? Why do we care if users go to Apple/Google/etc. if Mozilla is no better than those companies anyway?

Mozilla has not abandoned their principles, they have compromised them.

The have compromised them because they feel they need to do this to maintain relevancy. Principles are of little use without power.

To those that say: Mozilla changed the web once, they can do it again. I say: Mozilla didn't change the web by resisting change, but by embracing it and finding better solutions.

I think we should be spending less time condemning Mozilla for compromising, and more time finding ways that Mozilla can use their power to solve the huge problems that are created by DRM.

I, at least, am saying that keeping their userbase is better than becoming irrelevant.

Just because Mozilla says they will lose users if they don't do this, doesn't make it true. They've shown no evidence of trends that this is happening. They are simply adopting DRM out of fear.

Also chasing popularity is like chasing money. It shouldn't be the goal. Those things follow after doing the right thing, and I believe for an organization with the kind of community and userbase Firefox has around it, not implementing DRM would've been the "right" thing to do.

Indeed... this is just throwing in the towel completely without putting up a fight. Here are various other ways:

- do the work to implement the DRM thing but keep it disabled ready to hot patch in once evidence shows that they'll be fucked without it

- display "this is bullshit DRM content you shouldn't support, read more HERE, and click HERE if you really don't care and will use another browser to view this anyway" in place of the DRM content initially

etc.

Immediately giving in is hardly "dragged kicking and screaming".

Er... We have been fighting this proposal for several years, thank you very much.

Also: > - do the work to implement the DRM thing but keep it disabled ready to hot patch in once evidence shows that they'll be fucked without it

So when do we decide that? After we have lost our user base? Or when it becomes evident that just almost everybody is already watching movies on the web using proprietary blackboxes that may or may not use DRM, may or may not identify you and may or may not leak your info? Because that has been the case for quite a few years already.

> - display "this is bullshit DRM content you shouldn't support, read more HERE, and click HERE if you really don't care and will use another browser to view this anyway" in place of the DRM content initially

So, lecture users and invite them to change browser? That doesn't sound like a good strategy.

Mozilla was compromised the day they started taking money from Google.

While I appreciate the sentiment, I have to disagree. Mozilla has real power because they have a real revenue stream, which is (unfortunately, but realistically) almost entirely from Google.

The thing about money (and in turn, power and influence) is that it doesn't have to come from one source.

Diversify your sources and wean yourself off the Google teat. Even if Google does outbid everyone, profit shouldn't be the primary motivator at the Mozilla Foundation.

Wikipedia might not be the most glamorous of sites but they are a shining example of what it means to not compromise on your values. Those people are starving while Mozilla employees go to the bank - that is true courage and power. The power to not let profit be the absolute driver of your ambitions and values.