this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
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Why? Doesn't look like there's any explanation for this move.
The new CEO of Mozilla, Laura Chambers, already said on march she want to reduce investment for mastodon and other products (VR, VPN, Relay). So this is just another part in reducing cost on section that doesn't produce money. I'm not surprised. Sadly i have only a german source for that and the soure of them, bloomberg has a paywall.
Good. They should focus on their browser. No one wanted their side projects. It was scope creep and took away resources from their main product offering. Sounds like the right move.
But then how do you make money with a browser if you aren't getting Google money and don't spy on users?
I have no idea :-)
Kagi is making some money by providing value that Google can't. I'm not sure if it would be enough for mozilla, but Kagi is making a profit now.
Sadly, both of these companies still depend on Google.
Kagi is no better than Mozilla though. They even bought a T-shirt factory lol https://d-shoot.net/kagi.html
My understanding is that they are focusing on adding in “AI” features in a big way, and that’s why they cut development on the other work. 🫤
Fuck AI too. No one wants that garbage. I hate that everything has a chatbot now
There's already AI in firefox: The integrated translator. From what I've heard they're looking into ingesting browsing history locally so that you can find stuff again easier.
What do you mean ingesting browsing history locally? For AI? I don't want that. But I'd interested in your opinion and explanation though!
So you can find things by "that spicy chicken recipe" instead of having to remember what it was actually called, or slog through a gazillion chicken recipes in your history when you realise that "spicy" was nowhere in the name. Basically stemming/thesaurus search on steroids.
It's quite likely to be opt-in as I imagine ingesting the sites you're looking at is a significant computational load. The translators are also opt-in, there's enough stuff inbuilt to detect languages but not to translate, you have to download those models first. And they're quite good btw.
Another thing I could see them offering is stuff like tl;dr bot. It's probably not for everyone, but I definitely can see that it can be a useful feature for many people.
If it's all local and no telemetry is sent to mozilla or 3rd parties, then I'd potentially be interested in it.
Think like Microsoft recall for your browser history. Yeah that sounds awful, it's not surprising why people would not want it. Just goes to show that Mozilla is dumb and blind like all other companies.
Yea.....sounds terrible. I don't even save my browser history normally.
Stuff like Recall is okay if it’s local and opt-in
I hope thats what they will do but i very much doubt it. Looking at her track record makes me think that she has no good intemtions with mozilla.
Yea probably not lol.
They're going to continue chasing the AI trend right up until the bubble bursts. At which point they'll continue wasting money on the next big trend, assuming that the bubble bursting doesn't kill Mozilla in the process.
I wanted some of their side projects. Their web-things iot automation controller (and related standards) was pretty sweet. Until they spun it off into its own company without any staff.
That's what I immediately thought - they're cutting corners to decrease dependency of googlebux, as depending on how things go those bux will go dry.
Tap for Golem Article
Mozilla baut Stellen ab und fokussiert sich neu
Kommt die Wende bei Mozilla? Unter der neuen Chefin Laura Chambers startet Mozilla eine umfassende Reorganisation.
Artikelveröffentlicht am 14. Februar 2024, 7:39 Uhr, Andreas Fischer
Für Firefox könnten wieder neue Zeiten anbrechen.(Bild: KI-generiert durch Bing Image Creator/Dall-E)
Keine Woche nachdem die langjährige Mozilla-Chefin Mitchell Baker ihren Wechsel vom CEO-Posten auf den der Executive Chairwoman der Mozilla Foundation bekannt gegeben hat, baut das Unternehmen 60 weitere Stellen beziehungsweise etwa fünf Prozent der Belegschaft ab. 2020 verloren bereits 250 Mitarbeiter ihren Job bei dem Firefox-Anbieter.
Der erneute Stellenabbau betrifft laut Bloomberg vor allem Mitarbeiter in der Produktentwicklung. Man wolle sich in Zukunft mehr auf Bereiche wie Firefox Mobile konzentrieren, in denen man die größten Erfolgschancen sehe, kündigte Mozilla an.
Auf der anderen Seite werde man Investitionen in Produkte wie VPN, Relay sowie einen Dienst reduzieren, mit dem Anwender bei Datenbrokern über sie gespeicherte Daten löschen lassen können. Darüber hinaus will Mozilla seine 3D-Umgebung Hubs abschalten und weniger Aufwand bei seiner Mastodon-Instanz mozilla.social betreiben.
KI und Firefox im Fokus
Techcrunch veröffentlichte zudem ein internes Memorandum, in dem Mozilla ankündigte, sich künftig unter anderem mehr auf "vertrauenswürdige KI für Firefox" zu konzentrieren. Dazu werde man die Teams zusammenfassen, die sich bislang mit Pocket, Inhalten und KI beschäftigt hätten.
Die Umstrukturierung erfolgt kurz nachdem das Unternehmen Laura Chambers zur Interims-CEO ernannt hatte. Die Australierin nannte als eine ihrer wichtigsten Aufgaben eigentlich die Suche nach einem neuen Chef für den Firefox-Anbieter und nicht eine Reorganisation.
Die Änderungen deuten nach Ansicht von Techcrunch aber darauf hin, dass sich Mozilla wieder stärker auf sein Kernprodukt – den Browser Firefox – konzentrieren könnte. In der Vergangenheit brachte die Organisation zahlreiche neue Produkte heraus und vernachlässigte Firefox. Wohl auch deswegen verlor der früher sehr beliebte Browser immer mehr Marktanteile.
Tap for Bloomberg Article
Firefox Maker Mozilla Is Cutting 60 Jobs After Naming New CEO
By Mark Gurman
February 13, 2024 at 7:16 PM UTC
Mozilla Corp., the maker of web browser Firefox, is cutting about 60 jobs as part of a shake-up under a new chief executive officer.
Mozilla said that the move affects about 5% of its workforce and that the cuts were primarily in the product development organization. The company informed employees of the decision on Tuesday.
“We’re scaling back investment in some product areas in order to focus on areas that we feel have the greatest chance of success,” Mozilla said in a statement. “We intend to re-prioritize resources against products like Firefox Mobile, where there’s a significant opportunity to grow and establish a better model for the industry.”
The move comes a week after the company named Laura Chambers as its CEO. She’s a former Airbnb Inc. and eBay Inc. executive who joined Mozilla’s board three years ago. Mitchell Baker, Mozilla’s longtime chief, stepped down to become the company’s executive chairman.
Mozilla last cut a significant number of jobs four years ago at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. The not-for-profit company, which competes with Alphabet Inc.’s Google Chrome, Apple Inc.’s Safari and Microsoft Corp.’s Edge, has been grappling with sliding market share of its Firefox web browser in recent years.
In addition to Firefox, Mozilla’s products include email software Thunderbird and article-saving app Pocket.
The move comes after a string of tech layoffs, with more than 32,000 jobs lost in the industry so far this year. Several major tech companies have made cuts in recent weeks, including Amazon.com Inc. and Snap Inc.
— With assistance from Jackie Davalos
They have/had stuff for VR?
Edit: Oh yeah. They had a VR browser but it's a full environment one which is far less handy than simply using the android version of Firefox on the overlay screen in whatever environment I am already in.
Damn. I use relay a lot
So far it's still online right, as well as vpn. At least those both service maybe generate money. Not sure what it means to invest less in those services.
But the VPN produces money...?
Maybe, not sure how much they have to pay to mullvad to use their server and developement. But hard to imagine vpn couldn't generate money. (not sure about relay). Ant it's still online. But at least, it doesn't seem to be a priority.
I would've, or rather had at the time of its creation, fully expected it to shut down either way. Because that's kinda been the trend with most new Mozilla products from before the new CEO anyway.
The trolls in the comment section at least hints at the fact that creating a more positive and constructive online space proved more difficult than they imagined.
I was curious, and joined the queue for the closed beta a long time ago. Never heard back. They explored something new in closed channels, decided not to go for it, backed out. I don't really think they need to justify the decision.
Running a social media is a huge effort, and there's a lot of trolls out there actively targeting Mozilla. I imagine it's just more trouble than it's worth.
fast forward to them cutting costs on a Mastodon server that nobody uses
Threads like this make me wonder why any corporation would bother with the fediverse when this is how most people are on mastodon
If they were shutting down their mastodon instance but continuing their efforts to work on Social Media that is open and not just an instrument of Surveillance Capitalism, you'd have a point.
But they didn't. They shut down the instance because of some internal political struggle and their interest in becoming an ad company themselves.
The only redeeming feature about this is that it only looks about as awful as any other social media.
Which is not very redeeming at all, of course.
Good, i hope they don't bother with the Fediverse. Corporations can fuck off out of our people spaces.
Folks in that masto thread were being quite rude. Like it's ok to be upset, but not nasty.
They shouldn't be "running a social media", they should be working on making their browser the best client for the Social Graph that is ActivityPub.