Mozilla is an advertising company now.

This seems completely normal and cool and not troublesome in any way.

Mozilla has acquired Anonym, a [blah blah blah] raise the bar for the advertising industry [blah blah blah] while delivering effective...
https://jwz.org/b/ykVg

Mozilla is an advertising company now

This seems completely normal and cool and not troublesome in any way. Mozilla has acquired Anonym, a [blah blah blah] raise the bar for the advertising industry [blah blah blah] while delivering effective advertising solutions. [...] Anonym was founded with two core beliefs: [blah blah blah] and second, that digital advertising is critical for the sustainability of free content, services and ...

Preemptive subtwit.

Let's say you run a nonprofit animal shelter. And for some reason, some people feel you should be seeing hockey-stick growth, but the donations aren't covering it.

So you decide to start up a side-line of selling kittens for meat.

Then you will inevitably have someone stroking their chin and saying, 'Yes, yes, but how could they afford to stay open if they weren't selling kitten deli slices?"

Some might say -- maybe you aren't an animal shelter any more. Some might say.

@jwz Soylent Green is Advertising.
@jwz @siracusa some of the people who were donating to your animal shelter might even be a little bit upset.
@jwz And some people might wonder why an animal shelter even *needs* a CEO, anyhow...
@jwz @siracusa I hadn’t seen the Mozilla news yet, but this made me think of OpenAI first.
@jwz when it acquired Pocket it already dipped its toe into advertising, right? This seems worse though

@jwz It's weirder than that though.

There's a public library, and 90% of its funding is from the book store that would otherwise dominate the entire book market. The monopolist book store gives the library vast piles of cash, that are theoretically so that any library patron who wants to buy a book is directed to the monopolist book store. But, most people agree it's mainly so that the book store can keep regulators away and say "look, if people want books, they can always go to the library"

Now, for some reason, this library has so much money to burn, it decides it's going to start acquiring for-profit businesses. Some acquired businesses were arguably providing services that would be useful for library patrons, others not so much. But, now, their latest acquisition is a small indie book store.

What does their main funder think about this? Will it think the library is now competing with it on its core business? Did it secretly suggest the acquisition?

@jwz “doesn’t your CEO earn 7 million a year? why do you need to sell thin sliced kitten?”
them: “but without such a high salary, how could we attract top talent to this role?”
“… talent like the person who takes 7 million out of the budget each other and spends money on kitten deli slicers??”
@jwz Brilliant.
Is "Catscape Meatification Corporation" registered yet?
@jwz I thought this was about Wikipedia at first
@OtterMatic @jwz it's pretty much about the entire last ten years, and that's if you're feeling too generous to say it's pretty much about the last century, and that's if you're feeling too generous to say it's about everything since, say, the British East India Trading Company, and THAT'S only if...
@jwz fuck's sake, I literally just recommended Mozilla in print on the strength that they weren't. Sorry everyone, this one's on me. 😑
@HauntedOwlbear @jwz You can still recommend Firefox forks like LibreWolf for PC or Mull for Android 👌
@ifrit @jwz Yep this is definitely the direction some very fast copy updating is going in, thank you for the recs.
@jwz sounds like we're back to IceFox. Or is that NulFuchs

@wnd @jwz

Thanks for mentioning icebox. I looked it up and was reminded of SeaMonkey, my favorite browser in Linux in the 00s. I'd completely forgotten about it.

That's a shame about Mozilla.

@jwz I genuinely don't know what the point of Mozilla is
@fennix That's cool, they don't know either.

@jwz @fennix

Mozilla has a manifesto. And the commercial clause needs rework:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1897608

(edit) tip for activists: Mozilla bug reports can be voted on.

1897608 - manifesto principle 9 needs rework

UNCONFIRMED (nobody) in mozilla.org - Governance. Last updated 2024-06-21.

@fennix @jwz Mozilla literally only exists to spare Google/Chromium from the inevitable "monopoly" lawsuit.
@fennix @jwz It's an organization that has shifted into a steely, disciplined group of people utterly dedicated to the destruction of their greatest enemy, Mozilla.
@jwz just as my lazy ass was thinking of considering evaluating discussing the possibility of switching back to Firefox
@jwz "just like Google" if the wrong example to follow here.
@jwz not ideal but wasn't Alphabet keeping them afloat already? My understanding if they didn't have Alphabet paying them to make Google the default search engine in the browser, they'd be bankrupt in less than a year.
@stinerman If Mozilla cannot afford to exist without betraying their core mission then they should not exist. This should not be controversial and should not provoke "yeah but", "not ideal but" equivocation.

@jwz all I'm saying is that this is only marginally worse than the status quo.

I don't have that strong of an opinion on it.

Mozilla appears to have begun its final death spiral (see also https://lemmy.ml/post/17089977)

In an optimistic mood I'd bet on Servo to outlive it. For the moment LibreWolf appears to be the Firefox fork of choice.

Mozilla CPO Steve Teixeira is suing Mozilla for discrimination - Lemmy

There seems to be minimal information about this online, so I’m leaving this here so cooler heads can prevail in discussion. Link to filing: https://archive.org/details/jyjfub [https://archive.org/details/jyjfub] ## Notable portions: Teixeira was hired as Chief Product Officer and was in line to become CEO. > Mr. Teixeira became Chief Product Officer (“CPO”) of Mozilla in August, 2022. During the hiring process, Mr. Teixeira had conversations with executive recruiting firm, Russell Reynolds Associates, that one of Mozilla Corporation’s hiring criteria for the CPO role was an executive that could succeed Mitchell Baker as CEO. > > Also, shortly after being hired, Mr. Teixeira had conversations with Ms. Baker about being positioned as her successor. After taking medical leave to deal with cancer, Mozilla swiftly moved to replace CEO Mitchell Baker with someone else. > Shortly before Mr. Teixeira returned from leave, Mozilla board member Laura Chambers was appointed Interim CEO of Mozilla and Ms. Baker was removed as CEO and became Executive Chair of the Board of Directors. After returning, Teixeira was ordered to lay off 50 preselected employees, and he objected due to Mozilla not needing to cut them and their disproportionate minority status. > In a meeting with Human Resources Business Partner Joni Cassidy, Mr. Teixeira discussed his concern that people from groups underrepresented in technology, like female leaders and persons of color, were disproportionately impacted by the layoff. > >… Ms. Chehak verbally reprimanded Mr. Teixeira, accusing him of violating [a] non-existent “onboarding plan” and threatening to place Mr. Teixeira back on medical leave if he did not execute the layoffs as instructed. Mozilla’s lack of inclusivity was a known problem >In February 2022, Mozilla commissioned the firm of Tiangay Kemokai Law, P.C. to assess its performance in providing a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace culture. > > The report delivered in 2023 from Tiangay Kemokai Law, P.C. states in part: “MoCo falls into the Cultural Incapacity category based on leadership’s inadequate response to the needs of a diverse culture or else the need to create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive culture, which is reflected in current systems, processes and procedures, policies and practices, or the lack thereof, and are incongruent with MoCo’s stated values and goals.” Steve Teixeira has been put on leave. > On May 23, 2024, Mozilla placed Mr. Teixeira on administrative leave. > > Mr. Teixeira requested a reason for being placed on administrative leave. > >Mozilla did not provide Mr. Teixeira with a reason why he was placed on administrative leave. > >Mozilla cut off Mr. Teixeira’s access to email, Slack messaging, and other Mozilla systems. > >Mozilla instructed employees not to communicate with Mr. Teixeira about work-related matters. > >Upon information and belief, an investigation into Mr. Teixeira’s allegations was finally conducted in late May 2024, but Mozilla did not do so under its internal policies and procedures regarding managing complaints of discrimination. Mr. Teixeira was not contacted to participate in the investigation into his complaint of unlawful treatment. ## Coverage online so far I say “alleged” because there appears to be no consensus on the veracity of this document. Update: this appears to be confirmed [https://www.reddit.com/r/browsers/s/hKuq4465wf]. This has received no “news” coverage besides one angry loudmouth [https://archive.is/WIRNz] (Bryan Lunduke) whose entire commentary career has been shaped by his political beliefs, regardless of truth.

@jwz stg I can't think of any other company that is on such a consistent downward spiral

@jwz "where privacy and effective advertising go hand in hand"

Except those two things are mutually exclusive by design.

Or: define "effective"

@jwz Welp, guess it's time to switch browsers again...
@Kovatoro @jwz
To what? Gnome Web? :(

@walnut @jwz Here's me trying to find a web browser that works across both desktop and mobile.

The only thing I've found so far is #waterfox

Will do more researcher when I leave work.

@Kovatoro @walnut @jwz Vivaldi has great clients for desktop and mobile.
@Kovatoro @walnut @jwz Considere trying Firefox forks like LibreWolf for PC and Mull for Android 😉
@jwz serious question, I really don’t know: are Chromium-based browsers ok? Or is the Google-noxious stuff already in that upstream code base? (cohorts, ad-blocker-blocker, etc)
@anotherdaniel @jwz @Vivaldi is a solid choice, and has all the Google cancer removed.
@knightlie @jwz @Vivaldi I like Arc, which is why I’m wondering…
@jwz well...i was thinking that my dose of intrusive advertising was low those days

@jwz Pondering the concept of a nonprofit advertising company… not doing it to make money, they're just doing it for the love of showing people ads. Doing it because it's important

(Note: I am aware of the unusual Organization/Foundation structural split.)

@jwz This is gonna be exactly like when Doubleclick acquired Google.
@jwz I remember when Technorati became an advertising company and then died. It's almost like "advertising company" is one of the last stages of entropy for web companies.

@jwz Crap and just when I was liking Firefox again.

Advertising is the most intrusive thing in a persons life

@jwz Looking at Anonym's founders and backers doesn't spark joy.
@jwz they hired an agency head a few years back which precipitated this nonsense.
@jwz isn't this also what started unitys descent?

@jwz you could argue that Mozilla has been an advertising company since 2005, which is when they signed the first search deal with Google IIRC. The last 20 years of Firefox development have been essentially ad-funded.

Note that I'm not defending them, just pointing it out in case it's not obvious. When 90% of the company's income comes from ads does it make a difference if the ads are not being served by the company itself?

@jwz I'm observing unpleasant sensations, and contemplating Dukkha in Samsara.

I'm also taking a look at LibreWolf for the Desktop, which is decent so far.

It installed easily in my Linux Mint, but alas, it necessitated a 3rd-party apt source. Note: I could import my Firefox bookmarks OK, and it comes with Ublock Origin, however the "Dark Reader" Extension doesn't work all that well.

@jwz You know the big problem here?

In any practical sense, there are three browser engines in existence¹, from three companies.

And all three companies suck. In different ways, but they all suck.

____
¹ Unless you count Goanna, in which case there are four, from four makers ... who all suck. I used Palemoon as my browser for years, until one day I was brought face to face with how
utterly toxic Moonchild Productions was.

@jwz Let me get this straight:

Mozilla, which is perpetually short of money and facing dire funding shortfalls, bought an advertising company that was so wildly successful that it could be purchased by a non-profit that was perpetually short of money and facing dire funding shortfalls?

Sure reads like a successful company to me! I'm sure this will work out great, and isn't just a deal brokered by a VC to get an underperforming investment off his balance sheet before it cratered.