> Or the third option: they feel the tradeoff of HN & co's criticism style is not a big deal in the end.
Well, right now, with their dwindling market cap, I feel like their only userbase is HN & co's type of user.
They repeatedly failed to increase their user base with non privacy conscious adjacent communities. So antagonizing the ONLY folks that go through the trouble of installing a non default browser to have a worse user experience seems like a big brain moment.
I wonder what the market share in that segment is? From my experience, startup types almost exclusively use Chrome or Safari. Firefox doesn't even register with most devs.
It seems somewhat questionable whether or not it is possible to sustain something as complex as Firefox based on users like us. There might not be enough, or enough people willing to pay.
They’d be really screwed if Google didn’t give them a good deal. Somewhat wondering if Google just keeps them around to stave off the appearance of being a monopoly.
The web seems to have gotten pretty unsustainable in general. Might consider upgrading to Lynx or something like that.
> It seems somewhat questionable whether or not it is possible to sustain something as complex as Firefox based on users like us.
I have this crazy theory that Firefox could be completely sustained by users willing to pay for it.
I mean... Mozilla Co definitely couldn't be sustained by users money only, but Firefox could.
The only path I can see for a healthy web (if this is even possible right now) is to completely liberate Firefox from Mozilla's shackles and mismanagement. A free and open-source browser should be treated more like a public good, such as a Linux distribution, than a money-making machine.
Well, right now, with their dwindling market cap, I feel like their only userbase is HN & co's type of user.
They repeatedly failed to increase their user base with non privacy conscious adjacent communities. So antagonizing the ONLY folks that go through the trouble of installing a non default browser to have a worse user experience seems like a big brain moment.