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Mozilla lays off 70

(techcrunch.com)
929 points ameshkov | 5 comments | 15 Jan 20 19:48 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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falcolas ◴[15 Jan 20 20:44 UTC] No.22058292[source]▶
70 employees, at a grossly over-estimated cost of $200,000 a year each (QA "leads" would probably cost a fraction of that), would cost Mozilla about $14M to retain. They are retaining their $43M budget for blue sky research intact (per TFA).

It feels like a better compromise could have been made.

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ameshkov ◴[15 Jan 20 20:49 UTC] No.22058363[source]▶
This might be a sign for other employees that they need to focus on the things that can help Mozilla actually earn more and not just be a good guy. It may sound horrible, but considering their market share dynamics it makes sense.
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1. Hydraulix989 ◴[15 Jan 20 20:54 UTC] No.22058439[source]▶
Remember the PR disaster they had when they bundled Pocket?
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2. ameshkov ◴[15 Jan 20 21:01 UTC] No.22058521[source]▶
Well, yeah, but focusing on earning does not mean they should start doing stupid things like that or adding a banner place to the start page.

For instance, I would have considered paying for some premium features like additional privacy-related functionality or a VPN.

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3. untog ◴[15 Jan 20 21:02 UTC] No.22058532[source]▶
Remember how it really didn’t matter at all in the long run? Even “disaster” is overselling it, I doubt many outside of HN circles are aware of it at all. Did they even lose a noticeable number of users from it?

I don’t mean to imply that it was absolutely nothing, but the day Mozilla gives up launching new money making features because they’re terrified of the backlash from an absolutely tiny set of vocal users is the day they should give up trying to make money at all.

4. endorphone ◴[15 Jan 20 21:25 UTC] No.22058829[source]▶
It wasn't so much of a disaster as a poorly-considered move.

Speaking of Pocket, the Pocket you see on the fresh Firefox instance often provided me interesting, enjoyable articles. I went to sign up -- keep this good stuff coming, I thought -- to learn that Pocket demanded the social element, requiring that I link up with other Pocket users to drive my feed. Yet it had done a great job without that, and now had turned completely stupid.

Which of course is by design to drive engagement, and it is absolutely obnoxious. Fuck social as a trend. If the only way a network gains users is by trying to make them pitchmen to other people, the network should die.

5. Yoric ◴[15 Jan 20 21:56 UTC] No.22059184[source]▶
Well, Mozilla is selling VPN services (in some countries). Are you a user?