Mozilla is going to shut down their Mastodon instance

Nemeski@lemm.ee to Fediverse@lemmy.world – 398 points –
mozilla.social
78

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

So this is just another part in reducing cost on section that doesn’t produce money.

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.

::: spoiler 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.

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. :::

::: spoiler 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.

Everyone: I wish Mozilla would just focus on their browser and not their other BS

fast forward to them cutting costs on a Mastodon server that nobody uses

Everyone: WTF???? I KNEW MOZILLA WAS A FAILURE OF A COMPANY CORPORATIONS ARE NOT OUR FRIENDS WHAT CLOWNS

Threads like this make me wonder why any corporation would bother with the fediverse when this is how most people are on mastodon

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.

Fediverse is so 2022. It's all about AI now.

When it's not about simping for Trump

Wait what? Am I slow or are you saying Mozilla has been "simping for Trump"?? How??

Linkerbaan does every 5 minutes

Wonder why he's still on Lemmy.world if that's the case, last I checked alt-right and other bad-faith politics are a bannable offense on lw.

Yeah he's been banned from some subs for this exact reason. He makes a big stink about it every time he is banned anywhere.

Example: https://lemmy.world/post/18634532

I assume they stay on LW to reach a larger audience.

I mean it's kind of amazing that LW admins haven't banned him for this, really reflects poorly on our instance that people like him are allowed to thrive and troll here.

Yeah, nah reflects more poorly that you want to silence pro-Palestinian voices.

Oh fuck off you troll.

“Oh they post about Israels genocide and Bidens complacency in it, they must love Trump”

I did not see a reason given. Anyone know why?

Political. Steve Teixeira was the one championing the focus on social. Apparently the faction that wanted him out won, and now they are getting rid of his babies, too.

Details of the lawsuit.

I would suggest not trusting anything Lunduke says, the man went off the deep end and became a harmful conspiracy theorist.

For example, he believes there is a trans advocacy group going around and destroying open source projects from within. That's right, only the Lunduke Journal has the truth, and the truth is that trans kids are killing open source.

He used to be on a podcast I listen to (Bad Voltage) and there was an episode (pre-pandemic) where he came out as anti-vaccinations. I didn't listen to the show again until he left. I have zero time for people who think they know better than their children's doctors.

Unless the lawsuit is a fabrication, you are literally dismissing a story just based on who is telling it.

No, I'm trying to reduce the influence of a problematic individual. The lawsuit has, and will have, more coverage.

Gutting defeated/ousted manager's projects is an obligatory and unavoidable ritual in corporate environment. Competent or convenient employees are pulled into other teams, pesky/unconvenient ICs are fired since everything can be pinned on the loser. Projects are often dismantled - even profitable ones to remove any possible foothold for a comeback. Shit, now I want to write a corpo book but styled like high school biology textbook.

The incoming CEO kills the preceding CEO's cubs so the company will get back into estrus and they can have their own cubs.

Lord of the Flies up in there, hot damn!

Sorry to hear, the comments on the post aren't happy

The comments on the post also aren't from Mozilla.social. It's not like they would have been happy to see Mozilla as a successful actor on the Fediverse either.

I think it's to be expected with their current decisions of chasing the AI trend and buying an advertising company, but mostly from chasing the AI trend. After all as much as the few AI-bros here would like to claim most of Firefox users are not happy about the idea of AI chatbot integration into Firefox, and especially aren't happy about AI search history integration into Firefox.

Many people think that Mozilla is trying to cut off communication with their customers or move to more corporate social media like threads or Twitter since their AI efforts are not being well received in this community. And will I definitely can say it's more complicated than that, that's not a wrong idea either, since their AI efforts are absolutely not well received by this community.

I hope that means that they can and will put more power into Firefox development - to concentrate on their main thing.

Well running a server and no longer interacting with a service can be two different things. From an organizational standpoint I could absolutely understand them not wanting or needing the expense of another service to maintain. Even for just their own use. As long as they still have accounts and post to the fediverse. I don't see a big issue

They'll probably still have an instance in the sense that mozilla folks with have @mozilla.social addresses. That's the kind of thing their hosting staff can easily administer on the side, and moderation is already covered by HR.

Normally these kind of announcements come with some kind of explanation. The lack of one reflects very poorly on Mozilla and leads me to assume the worst.

I have a feeling it's so they can use the money for more AI garbage. They've been heading in that direction lately, so it wouldn't surprise me.

Honestly I'm starting to think that their "experiments" are more about chasing trends than actually trying to provide good products and services for their users.

Are they leaving Fediverse?

The replies are a prime example of the fediverse microblogging sphere's greatest qualities.

This entire event is unfortunate, but unsurprising.

I never interacted with mozilla.social, but I wonder if they considered organising mozilla.social through a connected volunteer association, before deciding to shutdown.

Managing unpaid volunteers is its own kind of headache

I was actually thinking about to go through the profile directory and follow interesting people on there. I guess I should wait.

Might be actually better to follow them now. In case these profiles move to another instance, you will still follow them after the move. But if you don't follow them it might be harder to find out if and where they moved to, to find them again.

i'm legitimately sad about this since i loved having a nice wholesome social media network that actually takes moderation seriously to keep up trolls and harassers :(

Really sad to see it go and really annoyed to see them pushing AI

Man, Mozilla used to be nice but they have just turned so shit. I hope the core firefox people quit and make a new browser so that I can donate directly to the new browser instead of some middle man (or woman right now) who siphons off the money (aka Mozilla).