jonny (good kind)May 29
Every time I read a mozilla product blogpost I get more convinced that whoever is writing them has left earth long ago and is writing them from an increasingly distant part of the universe that bends all communication into the register of a maniacal product manager, and the only way they have of signaling something has gone wrong with their shuttle is by heightening the self-evident contradictions between the self praise and the content of the blog posts they are indentured to write
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/building-whats-next/
Investing in what moves the internet forward | The Mozilla Blog

Firefox is the only major browser not backed by a billionaire and our independence shapes everything we build. This independence allows us to prioritize bu

Show threadjonny (good kind)May 29

?????????????

Users can export saves anytime until October 8, 2025, after which their data will be permanently deleted. [...]

Meanwhile, new features like Tab Groups and enhanced bookmarks now provide built-in ways to manage reading lists easily. [...]

This shift allows us to shape the next era of the internet – with tools like vertical tabs, smart search and more AI-powered features on the way. We’ll continue to build a browser that works harder for you: more personal, more powerful and still proudly independent.

Show threadjonny (good kind)May 29

"We are stopping the thing that lets you make and share curated collections of offline pages with a little algorithmic affinity recommendation overlay because people don't want to manage reading lists and want to only have algorithmic recommendations.

Don't worry we basically fully replaced them with bookmarks (??) and a different tab orientation (??) because people still want to manage reading lists (??). But you can't actually import your pocket export to those things, and since they don't actually replace them we won't just move your data to them and will just delete it in a few months.

In conclusion, this is why pivoting to focus on the same gimmicks everyone else is focusing on and transitioning your personalized collections to generic AI slop reflects our being the most independent organization ever (???) Which lets us prioritize personalization (????)"

excuse me can you repeat that? blink twice if you need someone to come get you

Show threadjonny (good kind)May 29
Having seen a bunch of writing on social media from ppl there and read a bunch of these blog posts, the corporate culture must be absolutely wild to allow this kind of completely 180 degree opposition between the choices they are making and internal heroism myths vs. the entire reason why the tiny tiny fraction of browser-using people use Firefox do so and literally everything that mozilla itself is saying about its values.
Show threadjonny (good kind)May 29
And like if it was just a normal for-profit corporation I wouldn't blink twice, I am aware of the need for diversification since their major source of revenue could potentially get cut down to $0 pretty soon, but a lot of this is just a total self own and a totally mystifying one. There was an obvious route and they decided to throw it into reverse and drive through the garage door instead.
Show threadjonny (good kind)May 29
I'm actually not sure of a bigger example in tech of burning all your goodwill for almost no reason like this. Usually it's because companies get bought or something, but mozilla just decided instead of "we have a ton of dedicated people who understand the importance of the thing, so let's do a wikipedia and really obnoxiously remind people we need them to pay for browser development while keeping their trust by not doing the bullshit that causes people to want to use our thing" that it would be better to just completely lose the plot and lean into the thing people were running from because they got high on their own patronizing supply of "we know better, ads are good, ai is good, our entire userbase that is yelling what the fuck at us is just a vocal minority... of itself..."
Show threadjonny (good kind)May 29

I wouldn't say I know a ton of people, but I know enough, and none of them use Firefox unless they are a privacy wingnut or otherwise have some specific reason to hate Google and Apple. It just isn't a better piece of software than Chrome, it can't be and never will be, Google has infinity dollars, it competed on a different axis and that was fine for the people the use it because privacy is more important than perf or ux. The 2% of browser share that use Firefox are those privacy Wingnuts.

The one moz employee that frequently wanders into these threads once promised to show us the user research that is informing them and making them think "people who use Firefox are fine with ads, love them, don't mind having surprise advertising tech running in the browser that explicitly tells them it won't do that, and are apparently now clambering for more AI in their browser" and I suspect we probably won't. There just is no way that someone who thinks that the series of bad calls Firefox has made recently are actually fine would use Firefox.

Show threadRiedler, The (2004) 🏳️‍⚧️🇦🇹🇪🇺🏴‍☠️May 29
@jonny I use FF almost exclusively - if I was a privacy nut I’d use librewolf or something. well I mean I do, but exclusively for porn. gotta keep that shit separated
Show threadRiedler, The (2004) 🏳️‍⚧️🇦🇹🇪🇺🏴‍☠️May 29
@jonny anyway I’m not a privacy nut because I keep telemetry on
Show threadjonny (good kind)
@_r
Well there certainly are exceptions. But yeah i would say knowing about librewolf and when to use it and making an active choice about telemetry puts you in a very high percentile of people who know about digital privacy.
May 29 at 6:57pmWeb
Show threadRiedler, The (2004) 🏳️‍⚧️🇦🇹🇪🇺🏴‍☠️May 29
@jonny I mean, I’m in IT, so knowing about this sorta stuff is kinda intrinsic. Certainly I’m not the average consumer, and I do feel that FF is geared towards technically literate people
Show threadjonny (good kind)May 29
@_r
Definitely agreed. People who in some way are aware of the landscape of why they might not use the overwhelming defaults of chrome or safari
Show threadjonny (good kind)May 29
@_r
And for a long time I would always take it upon myself to take the 5 minutes to be obnoxious and tell my non-computer touching friends why it was so important to use a non-chrome browser, recommending Firefox because I liked mozilla, but I don't do that anymore and I can't imagine many of the people who used to evangelize do either.
Show threadStephen Matheson🌵🌲May 29

@jonny @_r I'm a mere mortal, the kind of dupe who knows just enough to be concerned but not enough to track the latest wolf species or to know how to make an "active choice about telemetry" (PS those were some great scenes in Apollo 13 amirite). Digital privacy is less important to me than epic complicity, but both are important. I'm a devotee of @cyberlyra (Janet Vertesi) but too slow to implement her opt out recommendations. I guess what I'm getting at: if FF is going bad, what should a mere moral do? Besides vote?

I know this is like asking someone how to play bridge and I know it sounds selfish and childish. I also know enough to be worried about hundreds of millions of easily zombified users...