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Firefox Businesses Mozilla

Firefox Usage is Down 85% Despite Mozilla's Top Exec Pay Going Up 400% (calpaterson.com) 169

Software engineer Cal Paterson writes: Mozilla recently announced that they would be dismissing 250 people. That's a quarter of their workforce so there are some deep cuts to their work too. The victims include: the MDN docs (those are the web standards docs everyone likes better than w3schools), the Rust compiler and even some cuts to Firefox development. Like most people I want to see Mozilla do well but those three projects comprise pretty much what I think of as the whole point of Mozilla, so this news is a a big let down. The stated reason for the cuts is falling income. Mozilla largely relies on "royalties" for funding. In return for payment, Mozilla allows big technology companies to choose the default search engine in Firefox - the technology companies are ultimately paying to increase the number of searches Firefox users make with them. Mozilla haven't been particularly transparent about why these royalties are being reduced, except to blame the coronavirus. I'm sure the coronavirus is not a great help but I suspect the bigger problem is that Firefox's market share is now a tiny fraction of its previous size and so the royalties will be smaller too - fewer users, so fewer searches and therefore less money for Mozilla.

The real problem is not the royalty cuts, though. Mozilla has already received more than enough money to set themselves up for financial independence. Mozilla received up to half a billion dollars a year (each year!) for many years. The real problem is that Mozilla didn't use that money to achieve financial independence and instead just spent it each year, doing the organisational equivalent of living hand-to-mouth. Despite their slightly contrived legal structure as a non-profit that owns a for-profit, Mozilla are an NGO just like any other. In this article I want to apply the traditional measures that are applied to other NGOs to Mozilla in order to show what's wrong. These three measures are: overheads, ethics and results.

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Firefox Usage is Down 85% Despite Mozilla's Top Exec Pay Going Up 400%

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  • by Rockoon ( 1252108 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @10:30AM (#60535932)
    Its been a very long time since firefox was a compelling power-to-the-users experience.
    • by Thelasko ( 1196535 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @10:54AM (#60536048) Journal

      Its been a very long time since firefox was a compelling power-to-the-users experience.

      Yes, it's particularly bad on the mobile version. They've deleted so many options.

      For example: You can no longer manage cookies. You can only delete all of them.

      I still use it because it's pretty much the only option for uBlockOrigin on a mobile device that's not rooted, but I'm not happy.

      • by LatencyKills ( 1213908 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @11:45AM (#60536298)
        To me the mobile version became so useless I uninstalled it, and now as a consequence surf on my phone far less frequently. When I went online to read the FAQ about features I used that were either moved or lost entirely in the update, the first question on the list was "I hate the new Firefox, can I go back to the previous version?" to which the answer was "no.": That says all you need to know about what Mozilla thinks about the needs of their customers.
        • Old mobile Firefox is still available as Fennec via the F-Droid store/app on Android.

          https://www.f-droid.org/ [f-droid.org]

          to download the F-Droid app and then search for "fennec" to download and install the previous mobile version of Firefox.

          And all the add-ons for this version are still around.

      • by williamyf ( 227051 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @12:03PM (#60536400)

        Its been a very long time since firefox was a compelling power-to-the-users experience.

        Yes, it's particularly bad on the mobile version. They've deleted so many options.

        For example: You can no longer manage cookies. You can only delete all of them.

        I still use it because it's pretty much the only option for uBlockOrigin on a mobile device that's not rooted, but I'm not happy.

        I feel your pain, I use Firefox mobile too (and also firefox on the desktop), but let me put forward the explanation on what happened.

        Before this transition, mobile firefox was based more or less on the ESR. This change is akin to Quantum, they did a lot of work on the plumbing, the wiring, the gas and the HVAC to get them up to modern code "with us still living in the house" *, but while the plumbing, electric, gas and HVAC are top notch now, the house still is a mess from the confort point of view.

        Now, the new mobile browser is in the same rapid release, to gain parity (and perhaps even surprass) the old mobile browser. In the meantime, we have to put up with a very messy house/browser for a few months (probably a year).

        Hopefully, in about a year's time, the mobile firefox browser will be more or less ussable, and we will get back to the ESR cadence on mobile.

        * My upstairs neighbour had to deal with that for his plumbing for months, and was a nightmare (for him and for mee too with all the jackhammering). I had to deal with it for two weeks for my hard wood floors, also a nightmare, is like moving out for two week, but not to a house, but to your living room :-s .

        • It never will. You can thank Adobe for going to a rental model as old Dreamweaver does an if/else in css to detect mobile. It then feeds non standard --webkit specific css tags which brake firefox mobile instead of html 5 standard css.

          Since all mobile and even edge is Webkit or Blink fork of Webkit it only makes sense to write it to this and not w3c or HTML 5 as that is non standard.

          Google decides which standards these days to use akin to IE 6 20 years ago

      • by Teun ( 17872 )
        I'm sometimes using the mobile version and believe it's OK.
        But for daily browsing I use the DuckDuckGo browser, it is based on Firefox and includes the required safety features by design.
    • When compared to Chromium based browsers, I don't agree. While I get some people are upset because of the clampdown on add-ons, they're still more powerful than what Chromium allows(still doesn't have proper hooks to match NoScript's current Firefox capability, for instance).

      Mozilla has been playing catchup a bit in the mobile space despite the fact that mobile Firefox was very "power to the users" oriented until the recently promoted their beta track, and I think if they add a few more simple QOL feature
      • by Rockoon ( 1252108 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @11:39AM (#60536268)

        Mozilla has been playing catchup a bit in the mobile space despite the fact that mobile Firefox was very "power to the users" oriented until the recently promoted their beta track

        Umm no. Its been over a decade since they fucked it up.

      • When compared to Chromium based browsers, I don't agree. While I get some people are upset because of the clampdown on add-ons, they're still more powerful than what Chromium allows(still doesn't have proper hooks to match NoScript's current Firefox capability, for instance).

        Don't expect Chrome to allow selective script blocking any time soon.

        Google lives and dies by being able to run their scripts on every single web page you visit.

        • Oh I agree. Giorgio raised the issue with Google over a decade ago and Google has never elected to support it. I don't ever expect them to do so. It's why I've never left Firefox
    • since the number of power users who want / need those features is pretty small. Firefox grew like crazy because IE sucked and FF didn't. Chrome came along and not only didn't suck but is pushed by the largest search provider on Earth. It was inevitable they'd bite big into FF's market.

      I'm not sure there's a solution. I'm not sure there needs to be one though. Firefox will likely find itself kept alive for the sake of having a 3rd competitor.

      OTOH if we keep packing the courts with the kind of justice
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by Build6 ( 164888 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @10:31AM (#60535938)

    ...that Mozilla isn't some kind of "enthusiast project". That's how they market themselves etc. but no organisation that signs deals where Google pays them hundreds of millions per year for search engine placement is something that is for "enthusiasts" alone.

    I heard somewhere their CEO uses a private jet? Can anyone confirm?

    • They need to fix the financial model. My approach would be to focus on the features the users actually want enough to pay for. As long as the costs are covered, the feature could be implemented, but I would not contribute a nickel towards any of the recent features I've noticed.

      At this point I think Firefox is walking dead. Pretty sure it's the source of daily forced reboots, so the projects I would actually be motivated to support would just focus on improving the stability. But a losing battle against the

  • by tonique ( 1176513 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @10:33AM (#60535952)
    I wonder if those have anything to do with each other. Priorities, I mean!
    • by dysmal ( 3361085 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @10:42AM (#60535990)

      This is pretty common when you look at every other company CEO's pay even when they're failing.

    • by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <hmryobemag>> on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @11:13AM (#60536140) Journal

      No they don't. Executives must receive all benefits from increases in productivity since the early '80s, not suffer any consequences for anything short of gross ethical disasters that get mainstream press attention, and whatever else happens, happens. We do not spill the blood of kings.

    • by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @11:17AM (#60536168)

      It is an odd dynamic when a company is failing the pay of the CEO is increased.

      The reasoning is the following. If a company is failing, it is more difficult to find qualified people willing to be its CEO. (Supply is down) At the same time, when a Company is failing that is when they need a qualified CEO (Demand is up) So the CEO will often be paid more for running a high risk failing organization.

      Also when a company is failing the CEO will often not be getting much benefit from other corporate perks. Like going on Business related meals, travel to many luxurious hotels for business meetings. A high end company car.... Then if it is publicly traded they get a load of stock. If the company is failing, then the stock is normally worthless.

      Now that being said, if a company is going down, it probably isn't the best idea to keep the current CEO and give them a raise. But dump the non-performer and give the raise to a New CEO who may have a better track record of turning businesses around.

      An organization normally has 3 key business cycles that require drastic different types of leaderships, very few CEO's are able to really manage all these phases well.
      1. Startup/Growth: This is often the Young Scrappy CEO, good at motivating workers to get the business going. Spends a lot of time securing funding, and getting something out to wow the customer base.
      2. Production/Expansion: You now have a product that people want, and now you have a lot of orders. The company now needs to pace itself, put in place controls and regulations. You now have a larger workforce, where you as the CEO cannot meet and know everyone and give personalized motivation and advice, You will need to delegate responsibilities. The employees while hardworking and motivated probably have grown up a bit, and no longer is willing to push crazy hours and want benefits and better pay. New Ideas which were once your core business model are now risks, or cannibalizing your current top sellers. So R&D focus is now on improvements vs new things.
      3. Retraction/Reorganization: What you have offered and sold has peaked. Growth in that particular market is no longer possible. So you will need a CEO who will help reorganize the company into a leaner efficient company. Put out feelers on the next new thing and try to get that going so you can bring your company back to #1.

      Rarely a company is able to loop the process. The most famous example of this is Apple

      1. Popularized Personal Computer Market, (Apple II) Growth.
      2. Updates to the Apple II model, push on the Macintosh models (In many ways the Macintosh hurt Apple more, and probably should had expaned on the Apple II and upgrade it further) Production/Expansion
      3. Apple went nearly bankrupt, as people wanted PC's vs Macs they used their Macintosh lineup to cannibalize the Apple II market. They had dumped a lot of projects Pippen, Newton... And started back with the new iMac design. As well worked on just refining the powerbook lineup. Retraction/Reorg.
      1. Released the iPod and iPhone a few years later. And moved back onto Startup and Growth methodology.
      2. Make the iPhone versions expand the store and Apple services around such devices.
      3. Are we there yet or is Apple still on phase 2. It is tough to tell.

      Steve Jobs was more comfortable around the Growth Period. He was good during Reorganization and changed it back to growth. However he got fired for Apple Phase 2 the first time, and he had passed away the second time. However I would expect he wouldn't be too happy with Apple not making new things, and just making money off the same old product just updatred.

  • "Of course", says the executive.

    "Basic physics teaches us that every action has an equal and opposite reaction"!

  • Classic lawyer (Score:5, Informative)

    by Ecuador ( 740021 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @10:45AM (#60536010) Homepage

    Put a lawyer as head of a tech company and expect results. Classic.
    I mean, there are some people who have a law degree in addition to a related BS/BA, I am not complaining about those, but it is quite common to have lawyers run companies (or ministries) with a completely unrelated focus to their training, quite predictably, to compete ruin.
    There are numerous essays and jokes about how lawyers are the bane of society. They are not wrong.

    • The vast majority of presidents and politicians have been lawyers. It has to do with one thing, being able to speak eloquently and argue their point better even if wrong. I guess their failures is why we now have Trump.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      in an advanced society where people have organized themselves to solve conflicts without resorting to trial by combat or raiding nearby communities and mass murdering everyone, lawyers are basically the substitute for soldiers.

      people obsessively praise soldiers without question but lawyers are considered scum.

      ironic.

  • Firefox had a very low bar to meet when it became popular: be a better browser than IE 6. That's why and when it became popular. It's been surpassed by all the big players who have a stake in producing their own browsers, and the deep pockets to make it happen and make their browser the default.

    • Re:Low bar (Score:4, Insightful)

      by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <hmryobemag>> on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @11:20AM (#60536184) Journal

      Firefox is still technically a very good browser, perhaps the best out there. The problem is that many competing browsers are nearly or just as good, especially from a common user's perspective. Firefox's advantages now only appeal to people who care about nerdy things like customization, extensibility and privacy, rather than just anyone who didn't want to use an awful slow-as-molasses browser.

      • by gtall ( 79522 )

        And a sidebar. Chrome sucks eggs in managing my bookmarks.

        • Chrome sucks eggs in managing my bookmarks.

          I've managed my own bookmarks for years by putting them (often with comments) into a file using vi. This completely isolates my bookmarks from the vagaries of browsers and lets me find bookmarked items very quickly with grep and other tools. My bookmark file currently has 11,005 links.
    • They had a low bar in terms of technology. But it was a High bar in onder to get people's hearts and minds.
      IE Dominated over 90% of all browser activity. Anyone who made a Website or a WebApp. Built it for IE, and if they felt like it they may check it to see if it worked for the likes of Safari and the Mozilla Browser.
      Getting people to switch to Firefox took a good effort back then. People were afraid that their stuff will not work in Firefox or work poorly. Like how Netscape a few years ago, became a

    • Actually IE 6 was the best most standards compliant browser 20 years ago if you can believe it. Netscape and Mozilla were truly aweful.

      What changed was people sucked at software engineering back then and computer science circulumn was loaded with math algorithms and calculus and not coding. Application programmers in a rush to beat with no architecture make buggy desktop programs.

      Chrome won because it was a threaded low rights mode architecture and the compiler for javascript is now high end jit based and n

  • Mozilla's problem (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Joe Jordan ( 453607 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @10:48AM (#60536022) Journal
    Mozilla's problem has never been the tech. The developers that built Firefox did a fantastic job, and they navigated the transition from XUL as best as could be expected. The problem has always been in leadership. Mozilla didn't need to spend however much they did on a logo redesign in order to incorporate :// into their name, yet they did. Mozilla didn't need to scrap their focus on power users in order to futility chase Chrome's dumbed down interface, yet they did. Mozilla didn't need to rent waterfront property on Harrison St for their San Francisco office, yet they did. I'm sure there's countless other examples of dumb decisions by management. This is just what I've witnessed as a longtime user.

    I hope that somehow the ship that carries Firefox can at the very least sacrifice itself in order to save the project for future generations. We need a competitor and an alternative to Chromium, and Firefox unfortunately appears to be the last game in town.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @11:12AM (#60536138) Homepage Journal

      The tragic part is that Firefox is just now becoming a really good, competitive browser again. They still need to sort out some stuff on the Android side but I'm seeing improvements with every version.

      If they had put all their effort into getting here but 5 years ago Firefox might be a real contender now. I'd have switched over for sure.

      • They still need to sort out some stuff on the Android side but I'm seeing improvements with every version.

        That's actually their biggest problem. Most web browsing is on mobile devices these days. They need to focus on Android first, and have the desktop follow.

    • I disagree. Yes, it WAS the tech that was big problem. Prior to Quantum, Firefox was getting their lunch eaten by Chrome's technical superiority. It's only been recently that they've reclaimed technical parity.

      How many years did Firefox suffer from debilitating memory leaks? How long was performance constrained by an outdated single-threaded model, even after multi-core processors were ubiquitous? How long did they pay short shrift to their many security issues? And the fact that they couldn't figure

      • How many years did Firefox suffer from debilitating memory leaks

        Until ~2 years ago, I stuck with 32-bit builds, for general use, just to avoid the possibility of any given browser process being able to consume enough RAM to start swapping on a fairly high-end machine... 4GB is right out... even 8GB often doesn't give enough headroom if you're not paying active attention to memory consumption; with 16GB, it seems like the browser manages to otherwise implode before it can fill RAM (assuming other consumption is low). These days, I find it's generally able to behave well

      • by reg ( 5428 )

        I agree with you. And I say that as someone who's name is in the credits. For a long time there was a culture of chasing the next big thing, like Rust, and ignoring the small issues. Regularly you'd get super-smart Stanford PhDs committing code that 90% worked and was great, but they couldn't be bothered to solve the last 10%, so the old interfaces lived on in parallel to the new ones, weighing down the product and making tracking bugs and memory leaks more and more difficult. They also let these super

    • Wasting money may be part of the issue, where it may have gone to better use. However sometimes such trivial and expensive things are net positives too.

      However I feel Firefoxes biggest problem was it tried to copy Google Chrome vs Trying to be its own thing.

      It happened a while back when they decide to change their version numbering scheme around to match Google Chrome, Placing Tabs on top on the window border, getting rid of icons that do common features, overload the use of the location bar....

    • I hope that somehow the ship that carries Firefox can at the very least sacrifice itself in order to save the project for future generations. We need a competitor and an alternative to Chromium, and Firefox unfortunately appears to be the last game in town.

      Somewhat on a tangent, but you made me think a little. Maybe not enough, but a little at lesat.

      It used to be IE vs Netscape. Then it became Phonenix, and Firebird, then Firefox. Still battling for an open web. Now there's Chromium. It became a four horse race, IE, Chromium, Opera and Firefox. The thing was we needed something to stop ActiveX taking over and other blob formats.

      Given IE is effectively Chromium, we need FF more to protect user rights on the MS platform than just a usable browser on GNU/Linux.

  • by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @11:00AM (#60536094)

    Mozilla received up to half a billion dollars a year (each year!) for many years. The real problem is that Mozilla didn't use that money to achieve financial independence and instead just spent it each year, doing the organizational equivalent of living hand-to-mouth.

    It's hard to beg for more funding when you have money in the bank.

    Firefox Usage is Down 85% Despite Mozilla's Top Exec Pay Going Up 400%
    Mozilla recently announced that they would be dismissing 250 people.

    Which is how Mozilla is paying for that executive pay. Executives know to get while the getting is good -- or while they can squeeze funds for their compensation from somewhere else -- before they cut and run.

  • This is the most negligent scandal in the open source world. Unforunatley scandals keep happening in the open source world too many to list. We could have had a dominant Firefox, a Linux desktop with over 10% market share, an accurate and comprehensive Wikipedia and a fully free computer architecture but greed and sjws got in the way. I am disgusted with Mozilla for letting Google exploit the web and gnome and systemd for allowing Windows 10.
    • So what social justice actions have stopped a 10% Linux desktop market share? I'd switch over to Linux tomorrow if SolidWorks released n Linux build, Altium too for that matter.

      • by Octorian ( 14086 )

        SolidWorks was basically designed to be a "Windows-only CAD package" in an era where pretty much all of the other options had broad UNIX support. So I'm not sure I'd get my hopes up.

        • About the closet you can get right now is AutoCad for OSX. I'm actually on the lookout for really ancient versions of CAD. Stuff that would run under SunOS or VMS.

    • TIL that SJWs are responsible for google's massive advertising push for Chromium AND Microsoft's monopoly abuse to ensure desktop dominance.

      Is there anything SJWs haven't done?

  • by Anonymous Coward

    I hope that somewhere there is a small team of competent investigative journalists looking into every gory detail of the Mozilla story.

  • by theJavaMan ( 539177 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @11:09AM (#60536124)

    The update to Mobile Firefox on Android is a showcase example. They redid the UI and lost a lot of functionality and Add-On support in the process, and only gained an awkward way of managing tabs. My favourite, uMatrix, isn't supported any more. As a result their Play Store rating is now 3.9/5.

    • My favourite, uMatrix, isn't supported any more.

      What?!?!? Which version is that? I will not upgrade unless uMatrix works. It is THE reason I'm running Firefox on Android.

  • Firefox for mobile devices is clearly taking a back seat to desktop. Guess what? More people are doing the web browsing on mobile devices these days.
    • Firefox for mobile just suffered a terrible update. Reverting to the previous release would be an upgrade.

      • Firefox for mobile just suffered a terrible update. Reverting to the previous release would be an upgrade.

        It's much faster, but it also broke a lot of stuff that worked in the previous release. I call it a wash.

        • I guess with uMatrix script blocking I had working previously (broken in this release, naturally), I didn't notice performance issues. But the tab UI is just awful now, and the actual tabs I could use on a tablet are also gone. Blech.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @11:29AM (#60536226)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by dnaumov ( 453672 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @11:34AM (#60536236)

    If had taken 1/5 of that annual 500 million income and invested it with common sense, they could've been perpetually self-sustaining since a long time ago.

    • Actually they have insane amount of money invested sensibly. There is no shortage of money in Mozilla, at least if you go by their official documents linked to from the Wikipedia page.

  • Occasional clearing of dead wood can improve performance. Making them lay offs instead of firings just makes it less political.
  • We need to find alternatives to the Web. Unfortunately due to extensions and bloat, the web became more and more centralized on both ends. Browsers may be free by license, but they are in a sense unfree because no person or small group can change them in any meaningful way. Browsers are to complex to truly be free, and browsers need to be complex because of complex web standards.

  • Still on Firefox and still not having any issues with it. What do you expect me to do, start using Chrome all the time instead? LOL. Before that I may as well just send an email off to Google with all the info to access my financial accounts, email accounts, and the names and addresses of everyone I know, and install cameras and microphones all over my house and give Google the passwords to all of them. Is there a Google-enabled internet buttplug? I'd think there would be considering how much they can be up
  • by Dracos ( 107777 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @11:45AM (#60536302)

    They haven't made a good decision for over a decade. From killing Thunderbird to the UI crime that is FF79 on Android, Mozilla has earned its challenges and the Internet has essentially lost an important asset to dalliances and lack of focus.

  • There are two big points of confusion in this write up.

    The first is the relationship between COVID and the loss of revenue. In rough terms, the amount of money that Google pays for search referrals is proportional to the money that those referrals produce. COVID has hit a large number of companies pretty hard, making Google's ad placements plummet (which you can see in Google's recent shareholder reports). So, while the number of Firefox search referrals since March has gone up significantly, the amount pai

  • To me the problem is really that Mozilla has for quite a long time behaved as if they were a high-growth startup jumping on the latest fads like smartphones, IoT, and buying companies like Pocket.
  • by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @11:58AM (#60536370) Journal

    We are repeatedly told that to attract the best and brightest corporations need to shell out big bucks for executive pay. It's the only way to get people in place who know what they're doing and can lead the company into excellence.

    It's like how if you cut corporate taxes money will trickle down to the plebes in the form of higher salaries. After all, that's what's happened every time trickle down has been attempted. You all got your salary boost when your company's taxes were cut, right?

    Same with this. Higher executive always lead to better performance. Something else must be going on that we're not being told about. Let's just wait until insiders give us the real scoop and not this fake news.

    • We are repeatedly told that to attract the best and brightest corporations need to shell out big bucks for executive pay.

      There seems to be a shortage of workers with the correct skills. There should be a visa program to recruit qualified executives from overseas. I'm surprised corporations aren't lobbying congress...

      Oh, wait, no I'm not.

    • Your ideology is showing.

      No pro-capitalist who defends high CEO pay promises a utopia or claims the system is perfect. You can have incompetence at all levels, even the CEO level. The reasons to not want to cap CEO salaries are:

      1. It's a really difficult job that most people would not want to do - requires working pretty much 24/7 and living for the sake of the job. It's hard to attract people who are willing to do that if you cap the potential compensation.

      2. It's no one's business what shareholders choose

      • by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @03:43PM (#60537450) Journal
        No pro-capitalist who defends high CEO pay promises a utopia or claims the system is perfect.

        Neither was the point I was making. We are told the reason for high executive pay is because this attracts the best people for the position. And yet, even when a company's stock is sinking, business is floundering or even declaring bankruptcy [observer.com], executives continue to receive exorbitant salaries and bonuses.

        Which raises the question: if these people were already being well paid and the company still failed, why would you continue to pay them even more exorbitant salaries? Shouldn't you get rid of underperforming employees rather than keep them on to do more damage?

        As of last year, executive pay has risen over 1,000% in the past 40 years [cnbc.com] whereas the average worker has seen their compensation rise 11.9%. In other words, accounting for inflation, the people producing goods and services are making less now than they were 40 years ago.
  • Looks like have this in a pocket.
  • https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]

    "Firefox To Replace Menus With Office Ribbon"

    This is the kind of dumb shit they keep doing. STOP trying to be like everyone else and focus on being good at what you do!

  • by BrendaEM ( 871664 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @12:40PM (#60536582) Homepage
    I don't trust that 85% figure. Still, the people at Mozilla have been ruining Firefox with 3rd party commercial crap. Recently, they destroyed Firefox Mobile by removing bookmarks, as In WTF. Slashdot would not run my article, but then again, they don't usually post anything I write.
  • The real problem is not the royalty cuts,

    No.

    The real problem is people are completely pissed by constant UI changes.

    If your UI actually works, then any change is bad for your users.

    If your UI does not work, you won't have any users.

  • by guacamole ( 24270 ) on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @04:30PM (#60537686)

    For decades Mozilla has been removing features from Firefox that millions of users depended on, and added shitty annoying features that nobody asked for. When somebody complained about "what happened about feature X" Mozilla's answer has often been "simply install an extension that does X". Of course, chasing such extensions has been problematic because the recently civilized goat herder from Morocco who wrote a popular extension could move on after a couple of years abandoning the extension. Even the extensions that don't become abandonware eventually are broken and stop working because of constantly changing APIs.

    I could give a million examples of what I wrote above, but the greatest case in point in Firefox 79 for Android. It's all you need to know how much Mozilla cares about the existing user base of Firefox.

Computer programmers do it byte by byte.

Working...