Comment by khuey
2 days ago
> if Mozilla spent all money on the browser only, if Mozilla made the best browser ever, would that really make a difference? Would more people use it, would they be a healthier organization now?
I worked at Mozilla for a bit over six years and really enjoyed my time there. There were lots of brilliant people attracted by the mission and the work was technically interesting. I left in part because I came to the conclusion that the answer to these questions was no. Google's distribution advantages with Chrome and getting boxed out of mobile by the bundled Android/iOS browsers was simply too much to overcome by making a better product. People can gripe about Mozilla's management or product decisions all they want but the fundamental problem is the structure of the web browser market.
This is a good take honestly - Firefox could be perfect and efficient and secure but if the defaults are good enough why would people make the effort to switch ?
What we really need is normalised effort to provide an alternative to the systemic issues you are starting to bring up. Not just the browser market but the entrenchment of big tech in general. An organisation that can deliver on what the idealists individually want in a big, cohesive way.
Personally in our current day an age I think that's what a labor union can provide (in addition to the obvious other resources).