this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2024
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Well, they're rolling out their Shopping sidebar and ad network really quietly. Been rolling it out since 5 versions ago. But something tells me they don't really want feedback on that, so who knows.
If you've got qualitative feedback about the implementation, like you wanted to use the Shopping sidebar, but the text was much too small on your device, or maybe you found a vulnerability in their ad network implementation, which allows tracking individual users, then the developers absolutely want that feedback.
If your feedback is "Don't roll these out!", you're still free to give that feedback, but yeah, that's not useful in the development process.
You'd need to address that to management and ideally include a really good idea for how else to secure the wages of their employees. "Don't make any money!" and "Please, fully rely on the money from Google!" are not useful as feedback.
Wow, what awoke the status quo defender in you. Apparently your expectations for Mozilla are that it chases dollar signs like any other for-profit, but okay...
Stop overpaying your CEO
Average CEO pay went down in 2022... but Mozilla CEO pay skyrocketed. For no good reason. The browser is crashing and burning.
Stop laying off employees
There was another round of layoffs because Mozilla was "diversifying" like you said they should.
Aka fad chasing.
But yes they should learn and...
Stop chasing new fads
They should have learned from their mistakes instead of buying an AI/NFT corporation for an undisclosed sum...
Keep your promises
That new Mozilla-branded company sells customer data to 3rd parties for advertisement purposes. Location data, "inferred profiles," browsing and search history, the works.
If that's what Mozilla fully turns into, you should want it destroyed too.
You seemed to be going off on a tangent about their strategic decisions, when I was talking simply about the feature development process.
I have no interest in discussing their strategic decisions, because flaming about it in some random internet forum isn't going to change anything anyways.
If there was a chance that we worked out a more viable strategy, which Mozilla could tangibly realize, that would be different. But presumably, neither of us work in a full-time managerial position at Mozilla, so to assume so, would be absolute madness.
I hope you consider what I actually wrote rather than brushing it off.
Because when you say
you sounded interested a couple hours earlier when you told me to
Make a decent tab grouping feature
Good news, they're actually working on this one!
I've gotten so used to Sidebery and its folding tabs that groups almost feel a little rudimentary, but the ones on Chrome are proof that a simple killer feature like that could really go a long way.
Make tabs look like tabs again, and not like huge buttons!
I don't see anything in the OP's comment that defends the status quo.
The OP was focused specifically on technical feedback. Telling the devs you don't like their management process isn't going to change anything. Telling them you think the implementation is substandard because of technical reasons A, B, and C can help change things, because the dev team can respond to that.
If you want to target their management, make an open letter or something and get people talking about it. If you want to influence development decisions, keep the discussion technical.
Ephera is not the OP. And Ephera decided to talk about business structure for some reason. Maybe you missed that too.
Ephera is the OP you responded to, not the OP of the post.
This is the context I'm referring to. Their response highlights that they're not interested in talking about management structure, only the specific technical issues with the feature. They've been incredibly consistent about that.
You went on a tangent about business direction. They responded they're not interested in that, and if that's the way you want to engage, keep the developers out of it because it's completely unhelpful (i.e. don't post stuff like that on their bugzilla, which is unfortunately all to common). I don't think OP is implying that criticizing management decisions isn't worth doing, there's just a more helpful way to do that than including it in a technical discussion.
So you have no issue with the validity of my complaint?
You just want to argue pedantics? No thank you
It's irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Whether I agree with you (I do) has nothing to do with the shopping feature implementation.
If you have technical issues with the shopping feature, bring it up with the developers. If you have policy issues for the management, name and shame with an open letter or similar.
Ethos is crucial to code recommendations.
If Mozilla included a virus in Firefox, I wouldn't be suggesting bugfixes to make the virus more user friendly. I would point to the general ethos to not build viruses into their software.
And because Mozilla promises an open Web where you make the choices, hardcoding an addon that promotes the three biggest retailers and a handful of paying advertisers is antithetical to that ethos too.
The technical problem (i.e. the one relevant to the dev team) is how the virus got into the release product. If it was intentional, it's a management problem and there's no point in talking to the dev team further. If it was due to a breach in their infrastructure, then it absolutely is relevant to discuss w/ the dev team to ensure the breach is contained and fixed.
This again can be split into two groups:
Target the complains at the right group.