> Mobile browsing numbers are bleak: Firefox barely exists on phones, with a market share of less than half a percent. This is baffling given that mobile Firefox has a rare feature for a mobile browser: it's able to install extensions and so can block ads.
This is true, and indeed very strange. I use FF on mobile and it works perfectly. So Mozilla's problems aren't only technical, there's also a question of market awareness.
That said, there are also technical problems. Some bugs on the desktop linger on for years and are never fixed.
As described in the article, Mozilla spent a lot of energy into side projects that never went anywhere and were only loosely related to the browser.
Personally, I use Firefox on PC and would love to use it on my phone.
Literally the only reason I use Chrome instead is because of the flow ui tab switching. I just can't stand the Firefox mobile UI for tab switching. I with there was an extension or something to change it. It's a huge shame.
I don't know if the usage is high enough to make a dent, but Brave seems like a better alternative on mobile: all the quality of Chrome without the downsides.
To expand on the quality point: I used Firefox a long time past most of my laymen friends had switched to Chrome, despite it being painfully slower, and I spent years giving it trial periods on a regular basis. But the quality gap was just too reliable and persistent, with it always being slower, jankier, and less featureful (from a product perspective, I still can't believe how many years it took for them to get per-tab processes). When I've tried it recently on mobile, it's seemed quite a bit slower, and
Combined with a decline in confidence in their ability to be an effective organization that started with Eich's ouster and has only gotten worse over time, it's difficult for me to see why most users would choose mobile FF over Brave. The only advantage i can see is extensions, but it's my impression that most users don't much care to use them.
Wait that's not true is it? On iOS, Safari supports content blocker since like iOS 9, and on Android, not only you can get browser ad blocks, you can get OS-wide ad blocks through local VPN blockers.
Not only are problems on desktop that linger for years they change stuff on a whim on mobile and when the users complain about it on Twitter they tell you to shut up and are not very nice about it at all don't want to hear your opinion
I'm two fences on Firefox doing "too many unrelated things" as the article suggests.
Firefox OS has been pretty much unsuccessful, but it sort of made sense? It started to be made when Firefox was still on top on desktop, but mobile started eating its lunch; and it was clear that Firefox need to do something about it, or the future will be all Chrome and Safari, on the two locked-down platforms.
Which eventually happened, of course, and Firefox share is neglible nowadays on mobile.
The identity management with Persona or what was the name also made sense. People at that time started using Google and Facebook for unified identity, and it made sense to make a decentralized identity.
None of these project ultimately worked, but they made sense?
What never made sense to me was Pocket or Send, or even the teleconferencing they had, but it seems that Firefox doubles down on Pocket now.
Shit like this pisses me off. I care for Firefox and the team behind it but how do you get rid of these vampires sucking the company dry? You've got executive pay going up, usage going down. Pivotal leaders being ousted, good workers being released, good features being removed and shit features being added. It's like managers and executives somehow dig their bureaucratic teeth into a successful company/project and then suck it dry while proclaiming "It's ok, everything will be alright. Here, have some AVX-512 or some MEGA OMNIBAR." As if this shit actually matters.
Why is there no system for calling them out on this, swiftly kicking them out and staunching the bleeding?
Judging by the numerous projects Mozilla has launched and then abandoned in recent years, it seems the people running it are searching for new hit products, instead of investing for the long term on development of services and infrastructure that will benefit humankind for years and decades to come. Quoting from the OP:
"In recent years Mozilla has created:
* a mobile app for making websites
* a federated identity system
* a large file transfer service
* a password manager
* an internet-of-things framework/standard
* an email relay service
* a completely new phone operating system
* an AI division (but of course)
* and spent $25 million buying the reading list management startup, Pocket
I'd pay hansomely for Firefox but only if the funds go into development, not into fat cats wallets.
I'd also pay to remove junk like Pocket, or rather I'd consider paying for Pocket as a separate service. It irks me that it's forced into my browser.
I want to be free of Google. This includes Chromium which has too much of Google included. Mozilla is the last hope of a free (as in speech) internet.
On iOS Apple have enforced WebKit so there's little reason to use Firefox. It may have only ~4% market share but it's still my preferred browser. I hope beyond hope that they find a way to recover and rise again.
Another way to look at it: mozilla is a sinking ship. Being a CEO of a shinking ship looks bad on the resume and is high risk for the ceo (reputation wise). High risk jobs should get higher compensation than low risk jobs.
I'd certainly argue that for a normal company. For mozilla though, there is a question of why do you even need a CEO? Does Linux have a CEO? I suspect at least some of mozilla's problems is trying to run an open source project with an unsustainable (and very non-diversified business model) as a normal company.
> High risk jobs should get higher compensation than low risk jobs.
I agree with you, but isn't the problem more that they're sinking the ship? To take it to the extreme, if I joined a fortune 50 company as the CEO, and started losing billions a year with my decisions, should the board pay me more because I've created a risk to my reputation?
Or maybe, just maybe, it is way simpler.. How big is the temptation for a person just before retirement on a 'sinking ship' to stuff their pockets while possible?
This would be a reasonable argument if they were trying to attract a CEO to an already sinking ship. Being the one in charge when it starts sinking is a different case.
I think it would be a lot more fun if CEOs had to show an actual offer from a competitor in order to invoke the "I need to be payed this much to stay" argument.
The author presents firefox market share (a relative term) on one axis and CEO pay (an absolute term) on the other.
The sad reality is that the CEO pay should be a relative metric to tech companies of similar size in the bay area, where Mozilla is based. Or at least US tech companies of similar scale.
As the internet has enveloped the globe in the last 10 years, a huge amount of money has accumulated to this one industry & area. Even if executive salaries were constant, returns from stock at FAANG and startups would, I think, make $2.5mm a pretty small total package for an org like Mozilla.
Eg GitHub founders are now worth billions. A lifetime at 2.5mm wouldn't get you there.
This sucks. It's sad. It's weird. But blaming the good people at Mozilla feels pretty unfair here.
This article has many problems. One of the main problems is that the immediate reason for Firefox losing market share is totally outside the control of the CEO or anyone else at Mozilla: Google pouring billions into Chrome, both actual billions of dollars and similar resources "in kind", like free advertising on the world's most popular Web properties (i.e. Google's). The best CEO in the world can't magically come up with a strategy to counter that.
Another problem is that it's all very well to wish for an alternative revenue stream, but the reality is maintaining a competitive browser with an independent browser engine and the wraparound service regular users expect (accounts, updates, sync etc) costs hundreds of millions a year. Finding an alternative source for revenue like that is just really incredibly hard. Mozilla's been trying for a long time. Saying "Mozilla needs an alternative revenue stream" is just not helpful at all.
The main difference here is a US tech Vs UK corporate culture.
Mozilla's approach is "spend lots of cash and grow fast like a VC backed company".
The guardian is a "let's try and have a stable user base and keep the company alive for another 100 years".
In this case, Mozilla's approach has failed badly. I think it's unlikely they'll turn it around without the help of another big tech company making a strategic purchase.
Stupid question perhaps, but I thought Firefox was an open source project?
Why does it need a company with highly-paid executives and HR departments and all that to exist?
If Firefox/Mozilla the company goes out of business then .... nothing changes? Apart from of course a bunch of people sadly lose their full-time jobs and development speed slows dramatically as people are no longer working on it full-time and only volunteers contribute. Maybe some slick marketing goes out of the window and there are no more budgets for server farms to run Pocket (Oh no...</sarcasm>) and other centralised servers for distractions from the main Firefox product etc, but I am sure donations will cover the cost of a few .com domain names to keep those going (I'll stump up the $20 for the first year registrar costs if they need it)
Can everything go back to normal OSS development and distribution with almost-zero overhead (host on github, distribute over torrent/dat etc) if the business fails?
Don't get me wrong: I like Firefox and use it as my main desktop & mobile browser.
The problem is that the modern web is very complicated. Building a modern browser requires a lots of resources and that needs a big team with steady funding.
While the money is available (google) having a team this big requires enterprise level management, which leads to enterprise level shenanigans...
Well web browsers are to complex to maintain by part time Dev unless you have an upstream to rebase on or do not mind in implementing new stuff. You need at least 10 to 20 full time Devs at the minimum and that's if you libaries for all web APIs which clearly Firefox and Chrome are not doing. I wish there was a way to browser modular frankly.
Isn't the obvious answer that CEO/executive pay should be tied more closely to performance? I don't root for anyone to lose their job, but in this case, it seems like the leadership of Mozilla is failing to lead them in the right direction. I don't see how that gets rewarded. If my performance metrics at work go down 85% - I'm probably getting fired. In this case, executive performance metrics should be closely tied to the fate of the company.
I understand it's hard to get someone "good" in as CEO of you can't offer competitive pay - they'll just go somewhere else. But I think the last few years of Mozilla and Firefox falling into the realm of niche developer/nerd tools needs to serve as a sharp reminder that even "good" executives can fail.
Time for an ultimatum - offer a reasonable salary with a large bonus based on improving market share. Get someone in there that really wants it.
No it's not obvious.
It's actually the #1 problem in Big corporations' governance.
If you are a For Profit company with share-holders, you can define performance as money gain by shareholders, i.e financial performance.
This is always short term and it's the #1 cited reason why private long term investment has basically disappeared in the last 40 years.
BigCo are managed with a 6m horizon and both eyes lock on the stock prices.
But if you are a non-profit how do you define performance ? How do you define Good ?
What horizon do you set ?
And BTW : why do you think higher comp will lead to better work ?
Was Einstein the most paid individual ?
> Isn't the obvious answer that CEO/executive pay should be tied more closely to performance?
Short term or long term? How do you measure performance in a way that can't be gamed? How do you prevent alignment of the company to achieve the metrics you set at the expense of all of the other things that make a thriving corporation?
Mozilla as many other software companies plays with words and their meaning trying to develop newspeak instead of working on a browser, and most importantly wants to abolish meritocracy because it does not suit their needs of diversity, see: https://blog.mozilla.org/careers/words-matter-moving-beyond-...
So please remember: every time you want to say 'meritocracy', you say 'discrimination' instead. Therefore, any your statement about performance is not valid.
>Isn't the obvious answer that CEO/executive pay should be tied more closely to performance? What are the implications of optimizing for those metrics over all others?
Define performance? (not trying to be rude, just using a little Goodhartian pedantry)
Turns out about two days ago I moved the Chrome icon back to my Android home screen. The latest Firefox Android version (80.1.3) had a catastrophic UI facelift. The top bar moved to the bottom. The colors are ugly. And there is a race condition between the address/search bar and your finger: suggested items appears at the top of the list with a timing such that it is very likely you hit them instead of the recently visited site you were aiming at.
The article makes me sad, but I am also sad to see time/work being wasted for needless UI updates.
I feel like the only thing that can save Fx at this point is a community-funded, community-led fork. The only problem is: this project would need a lot of monies, so unless there's a corporate sponsor (or sponsors) it's unlikely to happen. And corporate sponsorship would require some sort of incentive that makes the investment worthwhile but at the same it it can't compromise the spirit of the project.
Let's say that the cost of a single full time contributor is $200k/y on average. Every 10 people working on the project cost $2mil/year - that's roughly the funds FreeBSD raises each year (and 3-4x more OpenBSD does). And I don't think you can continue independent fork with 10 people; you'd need 30-50 for the fork to make sense. I suspect it would be possible to get corporate sponsorship for the infrastructure needed so I'm not counting those costs but at this scale there's some legal and administrative overhead that has to be taken into account as well.
So the bottom line seems to be that you need around $10mil per year to let Fx survive as a community project. And I'm pretty sure you can't crowdfund that much. :S
If that "fork" was to survive as an independent browser engine with competitive performance and features you'd need at least 10x that number of developers.
[+] [-] bambax|5 years ago|reply
This is true, and indeed very strange. I use FF on mobile and it works perfectly. So Mozilla's problems aren't only technical, there's also a question of market awareness.
That said, there are also technical problems. Some bugs on the desktop linger on for years and are never fixed.
As described in the article, Mozilla spent a lot of energy into side projects that never went anywhere and were only loosely related to the browser.
This is all, obviously, a management problem.
[+] [-] panpanna|5 years ago|reply
Not anymore!
To be consistent with their business screw ups, they addressed this with the latest updates. Now the mobile app a mess like the rest of Mozilla.
[+] [-] vex|5 years ago|reply
Literally the only reason I use Chrome instead is because of the flow ui tab switching. I just can't stand the Firefox mobile UI for tab switching. I with there was an extension or something to change it. It's a huge shame.
[+] [-] wutbrodo|5 years ago|reply
To expand on the quality point: I used Firefox a long time past most of my laymen friends had switched to Chrome, despite it being painfully slower, and I spent years giving it trial periods on a regular basis. But the quality gap was just too reliable and persistent, with it always being slower, jankier, and less featureful (from a product perspective, I still can't believe how many years it took for them to get per-tab processes). When I've tried it recently on mobile, it's seemed quite a bit slower, and
Combined with a decline in confidence in their ability to be an effective organization that started with Eich's ouster and has only gotten worse over time, it's difficult for me to see why most users would choose mobile FF over Brave. The only advantage i can see is extensions, but it's my impression that most users don't much care to use them.
[+] [-] TheArcane|5 years ago|reply
Even Firefox Focus' content blocker works on Safari and not the main Firefox app
[+] [-] chaostheory|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0-O-0|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drieddust|5 years ago|reply
I don't know what it is for sure but seems like its malice. No one knows what deals they are making with the devil under table.
[+] [-] xster|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lumberingjack|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] srtjstjsj|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RobertoG|5 years ago|reply
"Mitchell Baker, Mozilla's top executive, was paid $2.4m in 2018, [..]. Payments to Baker have more than doubled in the last five years."
and this at the same time:
"Mozilla recently announced that they would be dismissing 250 people."
It's shameful. Specially for a "non profit".
[+] [-] Jonnax|5 years ago|reply
And they can't reduce their salary now because it'd be unfair on their families.
Firefox has a problem. It gets most of its revenue from Google. They need a different revenue stream but their ideas haven't worked.
Their executives are clearly failures. But with such high pay, they're cashing out. Buying themselves mansions etc.
Isn't that pretty much admitting that they're on a sinking ship?
[+] [-] shp0ngle|5 years ago|reply
Firefox OS has been pretty much unsuccessful, but it sort of made sense? It started to be made when Firefox was still on top on desktop, but mobile started eating its lunch; and it was clear that Firefox need to do something about it, or the future will be all Chrome and Safari, on the two locked-down platforms.
Which eventually happened, of course, and Firefox share is neglible nowadays on mobile.
The identity management with Persona or what was the name also made sense. People at that time started using Google and Facebook for unified identity, and it made sense to make a decentralized identity.
None of these project ultimately worked, but they made sense?
What never made sense to me was Pocket or Send, or even the teleconferencing they had, but it seems that Firefox doubles down on Pocket now.
[+] [-] drenvuk|5 years ago|reply
Why is there no system for calling them out on this, swiftly kicking them out and staunching the bleeding?
[+] [-] jacquesm|5 years ago|reply
That must be a real comfort to all the people they laid off.
This CEO needs to go, needs to be replaced by someone who is well versed in technology instead of in law.
[+] [-] sacomo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cs702|5 years ago|reply
"In recent years Mozilla has created:
* a mobile app for making websites
* a federated identity system
* a large file transfer service
* a password manager
* an internet-of-things framework/standard
* an email relay service
* a completely new phone operating system
* an AI division (but of course)
* and spent $25 million buying the reading list management startup, Pocket
Many of the above are now abandoned."
[+] [-] pkphilip|5 years ago|reply
https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2015/11/30/mozilla...
Also interesting to note that Brendan Eich too plotted a chart showing Baker's pay vs Mozilla stock's performance: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1217512049716035584
How anyone can claim that sort of pay hike when showing very poor results is beyond me.
This was on HN just a few months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22058629
[+] [-] antonyh|5 years ago|reply
I'd also pay to remove junk like Pocket, or rather I'd consider paying for Pocket as a separate service. It irks me that it's forced into my browser.
I want to be free of Google. This includes Chromium which has too much of Google included. Mozilla is the last hope of a free (as in speech) internet.
On iOS Apple have enforced WebKit so there's little reason to use Firefox. It may have only ~4% market share but it's still my preferred browser. I hope beyond hope that they find a way to recover and rise again.
[+] [-] bawolff|5 years ago|reply
I'd certainly argue that for a normal company. For mozilla though, there is a question of why do you even need a CEO? Does Linux have a CEO? I suspect at least some of mozilla's problems is trying to run an open source project with an unsustainable (and very non-diversified business model) as a normal company.
[+] [-] belorn|5 years ago|reply
Being a CEO of a stead fast ship show evidence of stability, and people with high stability should get higher compensation than low stability.
This create this perfect situation where regardless how the ship is doing the CEO should get paid more. There is always an argument for more pay.
[+] [-] edude03|5 years ago|reply
I agree with you, but isn't the problem more that they're sinking the ship? To take it to the extreme, if I joined a fortune 50 company as the CEO, and started losing billions a year with my decisions, should the board pay me more because I've created a risk to my reputation?
[+] [-] zgiber|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cskinner|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rv-de|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bananaface|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pjmlp|5 years ago|reply
https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/leadership/
[+] [-] fierarul|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rattray|5 years ago|reply
The author presents firefox market share (a relative term) on one axis and CEO pay (an absolute term) on the other.
The sad reality is that the CEO pay should be a relative metric to tech companies of similar size in the bay area, where Mozilla is based. Or at least US tech companies of similar scale.
As the internet has enveloped the globe in the last 10 years, a huge amount of money has accumulated to this one industry & area. Even if executive salaries were constant, returns from stock at FAANG and startups would, I think, make $2.5mm a pretty small total package for an org like Mozilla.
Eg GitHub founders are now worth billions. A lifetime at 2.5mm wouldn't get you there.
This sucks. It's sad. It's weird. But blaming the good people at Mozilla feels pretty unfair here.
[+] [-] roca|5 years ago|reply
Another problem is that it's all very well to wish for an alternative revenue stream, but the reality is maintaining a competitive browser with an independent browser engine and the wraparound service regular users expect (accounts, updates, sync etc) costs hundreds of millions a year. Finding an alternative source for revenue like that is just really incredibly hard. Mozilla's been trying for a long time. Saying "Mozilla needs an alternative revenue stream" is just not helpful at all.
[+] [-] londons_explore|5 years ago|reply
Mozilla's approach is "spend lots of cash and grow fast like a VC backed company".
The guardian is a "let's try and have a stable user base and keep the company alive for another 100 years".
In this case, Mozilla's approach has failed badly. I think it's unlikely they'll turn it around without the help of another big tech company making a strategic purchase.
[+] [-] mattlondon|5 years ago|reply
Why does it need a company with highly-paid executives and HR departments and all that to exist?
If Firefox/Mozilla the company goes out of business then .... nothing changes? Apart from of course a bunch of people sadly lose their full-time jobs and development speed slows dramatically as people are no longer working on it full-time and only volunteers contribute. Maybe some slick marketing goes out of the window and there are no more budgets for server farms to run Pocket (Oh no...</sarcasm>) and other centralised servers for distractions from the main Firefox product etc, but I am sure donations will cover the cost of a few .com domain names to keep those going (I'll stump up the $20 for the first year registrar costs if they need it)
Can everything go back to normal OSS development and distribution with almost-zero overhead (host on github, distribute over torrent/dat etc) if the business fails?
Don't get me wrong: I like Firefox and use it as my main desktop & mobile browser.
[+] [-] panpanna|5 years ago|reply
While the money is available (google) having a team this big requires enterprise level management, which leads to enterprise level shenanigans...
[+] [-] marcthe12|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dcchambers|5 years ago|reply
I understand it's hard to get someone "good" in as CEO of you can't offer competitive pay - they'll just go somewhere else. But I think the last few years of Mozilla and Firefox falling into the realm of niche developer/nerd tools needs to serve as a sharp reminder that even "good" executives can fail.
Time for an ultimatum - offer a reasonable salary with a large bonus based on improving market share. Get someone in there that really wants it.
[+] [-] fcantournet|5 years ago|reply
If you are a For Profit company with share-holders, you can define performance as money gain by shareholders, i.e financial performance. This is always short term and it's the #1 cited reason why private long term investment has basically disappeared in the last 40 years. BigCo are managed with a 6m horizon and both eyes lock on the stock prices.
But if you are a non-profit how do you define performance ? How do you define Good ? What horizon do you set ?
And BTW : why do you think higher comp will lead to better work ? Was Einstein the most paid individual ?
[+] [-] karlkatzke|5 years ago|reply
Short term or long term? How do you measure performance in a way that can't be gamed? How do you prevent alignment of the company to achieve the metrics you set at the expense of all of the other things that make a thriving corporation?
[+] [-] sertraline|5 years ago|reply
So please remember: every time you want to say 'meritocracy', you say 'discrimination' instead. Therefore, any your statement about performance is not valid.
[+] [-] ntsplnkv2|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] avs733|5 years ago|reply
Define performance? (not trying to be rude, just using a little Goodhartian pedantry)
[+] [-] logifail|5 years ago|reply
Q: Can you define "good"?
[+] [-] jerome-jh|5 years ago|reply
The article makes me sad, but I am also sad to see time/work being wasted for needless UI updates.
[+] [-] atomlib|5 years ago|reply
There's an option to restore its rightful position at the top.
[+] [-] ZeroGravitas|5 years ago|reply
https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity
As a firefox user, thats not great news, but it's different from current users leaving en masse.
[+] [-] DominikD|5 years ago|reply
Let's say that the cost of a single full time contributor is $200k/y on average. Every 10 people working on the project cost $2mil/year - that's roughly the funds FreeBSD raises each year (and 3-4x more OpenBSD does). And I don't think you can continue independent fork with 10 people; you'd need 30-50 for the fork to make sense. I suspect it would be possible to get corporate sponsorship for the infrastructure needed so I'm not counting those costs but at this scale there's some legal and administrative overhead that has to be taken into account as well.
So the bottom line seems to be that you need around $10mil per year to let Fx survive as a community project. And I'm pretty sure you can't crowdfund that much. :S
[+] [-] roca|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jowsey|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ainiriand|5 years ago|reply
That pay is abhorrent for a company that failed to communicate the mission, even though the browser is better than ever.
[+] [-] shrimp_emoji|5 years ago|reply
Same with Windows. : D