
Earth to Mozilla: Come back home - smacktoward
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/doc/2014/04/12/earth-to-mozilla-come-back-to-us/
======
kevingadd
As much as I identify with the motivations behind this post, it's utterly out
of touch. The author complains about the realities of ad-supported business
when the truth is that the for-pay browser market died out over a decade ago
because it simply was not a sustainable way to operate a business. Even if
Microsoft hadn't begun giving IE away for free, someone else would have
eventually - they'd swoop in with their VC money, demolish the browser market
entirely with a pricing race-to-the-bottom, and then explode like all startups
do and leave us screwed. At least when Microsoft did this, they kept shipping
their browser afterwards (other than that IE development pause... sigh.)

Ideas like intentionally fragmenting the userbase (with some absurd idea like
'PrivateFox') merely contribute to the issues he highlights; if revenue to
fund development is scarce, why would you actively undermine your revenue base
_and_ waste resources on the product that is destroying your revenue? It's
absurd, no sane organizational leader - moral imperative or not - would ever
do this. Mozilla cannot do this.

Hypothetical revenue sources like crowdfunding and intentcasting are great,
but it would be utterly irrational for Mozilla to switch wholesale to some new
unproven revenue model. Even if it works for a while, eventually they run the
risk of scorching the earth (like how Zynga and co completely obliterated
viral pathways on Facebook, effectively destroying their revenue streams).

If you want Mozilla to adopt a new business model, you'll need to find a new
business model that will actually work at their scale, then prove it works.
They can't afford to undermine their extremely important efforts (on Firefox,
etc.) just to satisfy your curiosity and desires for an ideal world.

~~~
noelwelsh
How much can I up vote this? There has been actual research into how much
people value their online information (clicks and so forth). The result from
one study is a median of 7 Euros (about USD10;
[http://arxiv.org/pdf/1112.6098.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1112.6098.pdf)). Not
much to build a business on.

------
kijin
It is indeed disturbing that Mozilla's finances depend so much on advertising.
No matter how well-intentioned the folks at Mozilla Foundation/Corporation
might be, it's difficult for human beings to avoid getting side-tracked when
their wallet are running thin and there's easy money up for grabs out there.

But I don't think the author's suggestions are compatible what what we (or at
least, I) want Firefox to be, either.

1\. Spinning off a variant named PrivateFox just sends the message that the
regular Firefox will no longer respect your privacy. It will also make
regular, free, not-private Firefox users second-class citizens of the
Internet. People deserve to have their privacy protected, regardless of
whether they can pay or not. In fact, people who can't pay (minors, the poor,
citizens of oppressive third-world regimes, etc.) are often in need of the
most protection. Moreover, even if you can afford PrivateFox, the payment
creates a paper trail that might negate the benefit of using PrivateFox.

2\. Crowdsourcing sounds cool, but only if everyone benefits. There's no point
in creating "The World’s First Fully Private Browser" and keeping it
proprietary. If there exists technology to improve everyone's privacy, it
should be included in every copy of Firefox by default.

3\. Intentcasting is an interesting concept, but in the context of a web
browser it sounds like just another "Ubuntu sends my searches to Amazon"
debacle waiting to happen. If I want good privacy, I probably don't want to
tell faceless multinational corporations what I want to buy, either.

Unfortunately, the only alternative that I can think of is a variant of
Wikimedia Foundation's annual donation drive. As a long-time Firefox fan, I
would certainly donate as much as I can. (Is there someone at Mozilla who can
give creepy stares in a banner ad as well as Jimmy Wales does?) But again
there's a problem: Mozilla's budget is several times the size of Wikimedia's
(300MM vs. 80MM), and I'm not sure that the moral value of Firefox, although
significant, exceeds that of Wikipedia. Mozilla needs to be seriously trimmed
down if they're ever going to be supported by donations.

~~~
pbiggar
> No matter how well-intentioned the folks at Mozilla Foundation/Corporation
> might be, it's difficult for human beings to avoid getting side-tracked when
> their wallet are running thin and there's easy money up for grabs out there.

As a former Mozillian, I can't begin to describe how inaccurate this is.
Discussion of money, or revenue, were relatively rare compared to the things
that Mozillians actually care about. Here's a list of things that were
discussed about 100x more than advertising revenue:

\- building the mozilla community \- open source \- rust and servo \- where to
go for lunch \- javascript performance \- keeping the web open \- making
firefox builds fast \- firefox memory usage \- proprietary codecs vs vp8

~~~
scrollaway
The lack of interest in pushing Persona forward has made me wildly change my
stance on Mozilla. Third party authentication is an important building block
of the web which is currently dominated and virtually owned by Google and
Facebook.

Persona does everything right, yet it is not being pushed forward anymore; I
have my doubt as to whether it ever was. In "keeping the web open", it is such
a low hanging fruit I simply don't understand the complete disinterest behind
Persona - is Mozilla just waiting to see if a protocol with a cuter name comes
along?

~~~
kevingadd
They pushed Persona pretty hard (and integrated it into their properties) for
quite a while. Nobody cared; everyone prefers privacy-compromising login
services like Facebook Login. The battle's lost.

~~~
sergiosgc
They didn't push it hard enough. Persona leveraged nothing from Mozilla, save
brand-by-association, and even that feebly.

Imagine Mozilla Persona being named Mozilla Login (recognition barrier down),
being an integral part of the browser, just like Chrome does with Google Login
(first use barrier down) and integrating seamlessly with Google and Facebook
logins (registration barrier down).

I'd wager the user counts would be a significant percentage of Firefox users,
making Mozilla Login a first-class citizen of Web Authentication APIs and
breaking the chicken-and-egg problem. From there on, it'd be expectable that
technical superiority could carry it to the top.

~~~
callahad
> Imagine Mozilla Persona being named Mozilla Login (recognition barrier down)

We actually did some testing along those lines, and it came back pretty
negative. When "Mozilla" was too prominent, people did not expect it to work
with other browsers, and wouldn't even attempt to use Persona.

~~~
sergiosgc
Thanks for the enlightenment. Did you not consider going for adoption by
regular Mozilla users, and only then try expanding to the wide open internet?
I have the feeling that by trying to tackle everyone at once you ran into
brand recognition problems.

For reference, I pulled this login screen from an image search on google:
[http://raygun.io/blog/2013/08/mozilla-persona-
support/](http://raygun.io/blog/2013/08/mozilla-persona-support/)

The question must be asked: Does Persona have any chance of being used, in
that context?

This branding issue can be compensated by having the browser pull out a
dedicated login interface, or by really leveraging the known Mozilla brand
(accepting the negative aspect you presented, which is inescapable). Without
compensation, it is indeed a lost cause.

------
nubela
I am the author of Javelin Browser (javelinbrowser.com , for Android), and I
think I founded a business model (that works) that is entirely opposite of
Firefox's and Chrome's, VPN services. In fact, Javelin is so pro-consumer that
it has Ad-Block built-in.

In less than a month, I'm edging close to 50k downloads with a good retention
rate (installed users), and with revenue coming in from Pro accounts and VPN
subscriptions.

The long term plan is to grab the market share by focusing on a Pro-Consumer
experience, all whilst enabling a better secure and decentralised internet.

~~~
izolate
Want to really gain some "pro-consumer" points? Open source it.

~~~
general_failure
I think that "some" points is mostly negligible.

------
drill_sarge
The moment they start to integrate somekind of ads (yes, I heard the
rumor/plans) in Firefox they are dead. It doesn't even matter if they don't
track, aren't intrusive or whatever. The users will run away.

~~~
kevingadd
Run away to what? An ad-supported, privacy-undermining browser like Chrome? A
constantly outdated and insecure browser like IE? _Safari_? Don't be
ridiculous.

~~~
elliottkember
I'm with sleepyhead - what exactly is wrong with Safari? I'm a web developer
and I use Safari almost exclusively. Hardware-accelerated (on OSX, anyway),
good performance, accurate rendering, no privacy intrusions.

~~~
Ygg2
Does it run on Linux? Or Windows for starters?

~~~
mccr8
No, it currently ships only on iOS and OSX.

~~~
Ygg2
That was kinda the point. It has no presence outside of Apple products. Even
Opera uses Blink as base.

~~~
sleepyhead
Why is it a problem that you cannot use Safari on other platforms? The web was
made to be used from many clients. I don't see the problem here.

------
Brakenshire
I don't know the details of Mozilla's finances, but they should be treating
their current income as a windfall, not as a reliable future income stream.
i.e. their expenses should be significantly less than their revenue, and they
should invest the balance, and attempt to create a trust which is capable of
financing itself in perpetuity, in the same way as medical research charities
like the Wellcome Trust.

------
jbb555
I was kind of nodding until I read "Apple clearly cares about customers
(witness the success of their stores, and customer service that beats all the
competition’s"

Hahahaha/

~~~
rbanffy
Well... While they certainly focus their care on some kinds of users, I have
nothing but stellar things to say about their customer service. All my Apple
machines have longer productive lives than my other computers.

------
ajb
Hmm. Here's another business-model idea for Mozilla, just off the top of my
head: allow people to set a price on their privacy, and take a cut.

\- People who are really worried get to set the price to a level no-one will
pay; other people maximise revenue,

\- Mozilla's incentives are aligned with users rather than advertisers
(because they have to work to prevent giving away private information for free
if they want to sell it).

------
uuid_to_string
Is this the same fellow who has called for the end of "calf-cow"?

I like his thinking.

I do the majority of my "web surfing" without a graphical web browser.

This makes reading much faster and easier. The www is a sewer of advertising.

Users need "garbage filters" to be able to "surf the web".

Sadly they are trying to rely on browsers to do the cleanup for them. But
mainstream browsers are on the side of advertising. Conflict of interest.

------
bgarbiak
I share the anxiety with the author, but what else one can choose if no
Firefox?

Chrome now pushes Google Now down every throat, Opera has Google set as a
default search engine and doesn't allow to change that, Safari is Mac only, IE
is hard to customize and lacks addons. Others are often unusable/unstable or
lack crucial features (codecs, synchronization).

~~~
PavlovsCat
> Opera has Google set as a default search engine and doesn't allow to change
> that

You mean the search bar when opening a new tab? True, that's always Google.
But if you go to settings, the third thing from the top is managing search
engines, and setting the default to use for things entered in the address bar
:)

------
natch
Another red flag Doc doesn't mention here is the fact that Mozilla now
requires extraordinary knowledge to disable JavaScript in Firefox.

There are broadly useful reasons to have this available as a toggle in the
common UI (such as when you want to save an image from a site that uses
JavaScript to prevent right clicks), yet it's hidden inside of the cryptic (to
most users) about:config.

And why might this be? There could be several reasons all in play at once,
including an attempt to protect users from themselves (think: The Nanny
Browser), but I would just point out that the advertising infrastructure
Mozilla increasingly relies on, with its cross-site user tracking, leans
heavily on JavaScript.

It would appear that with that as a counter incentive, Mozilla has chosen to
side with the ad networks, instead of with the users, in choosing which
options to expose for easy control.

~~~
middus
Ordinary users do not want to disable JavaScript. Hell, they don't even know
what it is. Advanced users like you can still use NoScript or about:config.

~~~
jakub_g
This was exactly the explanation from Mozilla side and it makes sense. The
reason for the decision was people telling "my internet stopped working"
(white pages) once they've disabled JS by accident.

~~~
72deluxe
It's an interesting thought: should we be dumbing down everything or just
engaging in a bit of education instead and helping people understand what
JavaScript does and its use on web pages?

The manual for my car mentions things that must be done for maintenance. They
don't dumb it down. Meanwhile in computer land we hide all options and dumb
everything down to "protect" the user.

There is a difference between being easy to use and molly-coddling. It is a
difficult balance to get it seems!

~~~
quanticle
>The manual for my car mentions things that must be done for maintenance.

Your car has a manual that describes maintenance. It doesn't have a button
next to the radio that ejects the engine.

------
Ygg2
While I disagree with article, I do wonder, what should Mozilla do to not
suffer the shrinkage further?

On other side there is Google which can advertise their own browser on their
site, plus there is IE which ship their browser with Windows. How do you
compete with those?

~~~
netcan
Up to now, they competed with "those" by being better.

~~~
Ygg2
Right, but in my opinion lately they have gotten a lot of better, but their
userbase isn't following suit.

Right now their only slight fault is probably their dev tools aren't as sharp
as Chrome, but performance wise it starts, and works equally or better than
Chrome.

~~~
netcan
I guess equally or better than isn't good enough.

It was a _lot_ better than IE6/7 when I started using it. It was still a log
slog to make 1% gains in market share. People didn't even think of browsers as
an application you can replace. It was just the internet.

Firefox won by being good enough that users nagged other users into replacing
IE. They definitely were and I think we have FF to thank for a lot of the
improvements to the web. I love it when companies compete simply on being
better. It's probably more controversial, but I appreciate Apple for the same
reason. They don't use "crutches" like corporate support, lock-ins or cheap
prices. For the most part they set out to make something people will want to
buy with their own money even though its more expensive.

I think Apple are losing mobile phone market share for the same reason. That
strategy sets a high quality bar. You need to be substantially better than the
competition. When it works, it pushes the whole bar up and everyone benefits,
even consumers who choose the easiest/cheapest option.

Maybe Firefox's smartest strategy isn't 'make the best browser' anymore. I'm
not going to call on them to abandon it though. I say try to make the best
browser and if they fail, c'est la vie.

~~~
Ygg2
> I love it when companies compete simply on being better. It's probably more
> controversial, but I appreciate Apple for the same reason. . They don't use
> "crutches" like corporate support, lock-ins or cheap prices.

These sentences kinda don't add together. You're telling me that Apple with
their walled garden was without lock-in and that they won on quality?

What you're describing are large leaps. Large leaps can't happen constantly. I
feel there is quite literally a hard limit to what leaps you can make, in one
domain (basically low hanging versus high hanging fruits). Compare Chrome to
Firefox to when it was when it came out, and compare it now. The difference
has evaporated. On the other hand Chrome has steadily gained user base at a
very high rate. It's delusional to thing it was only made on basis of having a
good product. Eich was right, winning against net super powers will be THE
TEST for Mozilla.

Anyway, I think Mozilla is working towards that goal, but Mozilla can't make
make that leap if we don't support it now.

~~~
netcan
Apple has lot of products and subsequent strategies, hence controversy. :)

I didn't mean it in a very wide sense. I'm not sure how the walled gardens fit
into my story/observation. I don't like walled gardens, but I think it is
tangental. I mean it in the context of a person buying a gadget (ipods and/or
ipads make a good example)

The other hardware companies will tweak a product to be have the biggest
screen, RAM or HDD (whatever feature retailers are highlighting ) at some
price-point and they'll do it at the expense of the battery or some feature
shoppers are not looking at as closely right now. They'll create a product
just tailored to buying managers' checklists. Apple don't do this. They won't
compete on price or checklist features.

I don't want to idealize them too much, but I think Apple do a lot less of the
above than most. They generally win by making some something people will want
enough to pay for with their own money at a price that gives Apple their fat
profit margin. Sometimes it's by "inventing" a category like the last big
string of big wins. But, for a long time people have been buying Apple laptops
at a premium price. No major category invention just consistently good quality
of software and hardware.

I hope I'm not drinking kool-aid. I'm not even mush of an Apple consumer (more
of a windows avoider) but I think they do keep and artistic integrity like a
Jazz band that chooses not to make a trendy pop record. Mot people prefer (by
definition) poppier music. But, from a certain perspective there is a greeter
victory in making a popular Jazz song than a popular pop song, if you're a
jazz band.

I'm not sure if that's the optimal strategy for being successful (though it
obviously serves Apple) but I think that's the kind of competition that
improves a market.

Back to FF. I really appreciate them. They won by being awesome and making
using the web better. Faster, prettier. They had tabs. They had awesome
plugins like firebug that helped developers and helped a lot of non developers
understand how the web worked. They had lots of plugins that showed people
they could customize their web experience. They proved that OSS could be
awesome for users.

My perspective is that of a fan. From that perspective, I'd like to see FF
succeed or fail by trying to be the best browser. If that conflicts with being
a more popular browser or more profitable one, I'd like them to choose "best
browser." If they are handicapped because Chrome has better access to users, I
still want them to compete on being the best. I would rather see them die
trying then surviving because they figured out a way to get more ad revenue at
the expense of user experience. That's obviously different to the
investor/owner/employee perspective.

As for support, I don't think they can raise the kind of money from donations
they can make in advertising. I like the PrivatefFox crowdsourcing idea.

------
_pmf_
Here's an open letter from me: fuck you and your cancerous spyware.
Advertising ruined TV, and businesses like yours are hell bent on ruining the
web, too.

Here's a novel idea: build something people want to use, not something that
helps scamming people into buying something they don't need.

~~~
kirab
Then please be constructive and explain Mozilla how else they'll get their 300
millions operating budget each year

~~~
_pmf_
> Then please be constructive and explain Mozilla how else they'll get their
> 300 millions operating budget each year

They should probably start with dropping their yak shaving shenanigans (Rust,
Persona et. al.), nice toys as their are.

~~~
dragonwriter
> They should probably start with dropping their yak shaving shenanigans
> (Rust, Persona et. al.), nice toys as their are.

So, you are saying that Mozilla should stop having long-focus technical
efforts to develop technologies to support the future of the open web, and
leave long-focus technical development to the commercial browser vendors?
Seems to me that might help the balance sheet in the short-term, at the
expense of Mozilla permanently -- and quite likely distantly -- trailing the
commercial vendors as the latters' long-focus efforts come to fruition and
Mozilla is forced to play catch-up, but Mozilla lacks such innovation of their
own.

------
chintan39
Can Firefox fall at this stage?

------
a3n
I use Firefox, mainly because I like it and it allows me to create my own
browser with addons. I don't use Chrome, mainly because I don't like it, and
it doesn't allow as much customization as Firefox; it also seems to try to
prevent me from doing things that Google doesn't like, like downloading
Youtube videos.

I sympathize with people's suspicion of advertising worming its way into
Firefox. And as the worms bore, there's a danger that Firefox as we know it
could disappear in place. If Mozilla allows its survival to depend on
advertising, it will be difficult for Mozilla to oppose advertisers.

But my greater fear is that Firefox could disappear altogether. I really don't
see how such a large organization of paid people (and I do _not_ begrudge them
their livelihood) can exist without either advertising, paid use, or some kind
of consulting. Paid use isn't looking good. I suppose it helps that Firefox is
vaguely an anti-trust antidote for Chrome.

Years ago I felt uneasy about gmail's increasing awareness of me as me. As
that unease grew over the years I thought about alternatives. Eventually I
chose a paid alternative, and I've been happy with it for a few years.

I'm feeling uneasy about Firefox now. Not so much about the danger of it
pimping for advertisers, but about its very viability. And I'm thinking about
alternatives, because as much as I'd like to, say, pay for some version of
Firefox that ensures its survival, I have zero control over whether that will
ever be on offer.

PrivateFox, from the article, is interesting, despite its problems, but it
still depends on Mozilla's survival.

What I've been gravitating toward is uzbl (which is ironically _un_ usable for
most web users today), or something like it.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzbl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzbl)
[http://www.uzbl.org/](http://www.uzbl.org/)

It has its own existential issues, being mainly today lack of users, which
would matter later when the uzbl devs run out of interest and retire or
otherwise move on. What I like about the idea of it is that it's minimal and
composable, a la the Unix philosophy. The composable part would take much more
work on my part than merely installing a Firefox addon. But in the end it
would be _possible_ (if difficult) to create my own browser, which Firefox and
its addons make easy.

uzbl as is will never be an alternative for most web users (although some
packaging of common features could appeal to a slightly larger group). But
small niche projects do live on, and I'm hopeful for uzbl.

My other alternatives are along the lines of text browsers like lynx or
links2, but those are options for a true, advertising/surveillance dominated
web dystopia. Still, they're on the list. (And you web developers should be
using them now, to see what happens for users with accessibility issues, or
who just can't or won't use javascript.)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynx_%28web_browser%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynx_%28web_browser%29)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_%28web_browser%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_%28web_browser%29)

~~~
scrollaway
> it also seems to try to prevent me from doing things that Google doesn't
> like, like downloading Youtube videos.

Can you elaborate? The Chrome Web Store probably does that, but Chrome itself?

~~~
a3n
I vaguely remember (it's been a couple years) installing an addon to download
videos, then trying to download a yt video and being told "no." Sorry, that's
the best I can remember.

~~~
scrollaway
That sounds like a problem with the addon, not chrome. Or the addon forcefully
limited itself due to the web store's policies.

I'll give you that the chrome web store is a lot less open than mozilla addons
but chrome's infrastructure certainly doesn't prevent you from doing what you
want. (Source: I do it)

~~~
a3n
Which addon do you use? I do occasionally use Chrome.

~~~
scrollaway
Youtube Options. It's not available on the web store though for the reasons I
highlighted.

But really I mostly use the wonderful youtube-dl tool.
[http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/](http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/)

------
peterwwillis
Two things:

1\. Reinventing the wheel

Does anyone here remember how Firefox started? It was one guy who was sick to
death of how bloated the Mozilla browser had gotten, and just wanted something
that worked. PrivateFox is essentially the same thing, except instead of a
bloated browser platform, we have a bloated world-wide web, and we're trying
to "thin it down".

What Doc is suggesting is not only spinning up yet-another-Firefox, but that
we should have to _pay_ for the privilege of having a browser experience which
isn't incredibly annoying and frustrating. I'm from the Open Source community.
We don't pay for our code, we download it for free and give it away, because
it's just what you do as a good person. It's given away by people on their
personal hosting or by university mirrors and other donated resources. What we
don't do is try to extort cash from users so that they can have a half-decent
experience getting and using our content.

2\. The web is not consumer culture

It seems that Doc is certain that the way we currently consume content on the
web is good, and permanent, and we have to work _around_ what's on the web and
how business is done today. Doc shows many examples of how we should pay for
our web content - either in a proprietary browser, or crowdfunding, or 'direct
consumerism' \- consumer culture without the need for advertising,
essentially.

I didn't get on the internet to _pay_ for a _web browser_ that gives me the
_privilege_ of _non-annoying content_. I got on the internet because somebody
paid to provide me a service, either out of generosity, or after being paid by
me for some other good or service. Game servers funded by game sales. Journals
funded by the top 1% of power users. Chat servers hosted by donations or for
free. Porn sites funded by member subscriptions (yes, I went there).

There are many ways to get paid for the services or content you provide.
Advertising is the most annoying, most deceptive and most harmful way to do
it. There is no reason we have to put up with the status quo and accept
ridiculous websites with shitty content and a bad user experience just because
they're "free". I say fuck the ad industry. I really don't need most of what's
on the web. If I really needed it, I would pay for it, same as with everything
else in my real life.

I don't live in a home with "featured content by name brands". I pay my rent.
I don't drive a free car "featuring new technology by ZomboCom Inc"; I pay off
a loan. I don't drink free sodas with e-ink wifi-enabled rolling banner ads; I
pay the $1 for my damn soda. There is no need to support everything you
consume with advertisements.

\--

Paying for a browser that specifically gives me a non-shitty browsing
experience is the equivalent of telling the ad industry you love them so much
you're willing to _pay them off to stop the onslaught of ads_. I have another
way of telling the ad industry what I think: by boycotting all websites with
advertising. I'm not going to miss the lack of content, either; because you
can't miss what you don't know exists.

I propose a browser add-on that disables all hyperlinks to sites that are
funded by advertising. This would create a smaller, more intimate, more
content-oriented internet. It would encourage community and sharing, and
increase the quality of content. It would reduce unnecessary noise and
distraction. And it would force content producers to actually find out what
users find worthwhile, and if they really want to pay for it, in one way or
another.

