Mozilla Launches A New MDN, MDN Plus Coming Soon

[RahulSundaram]

I can tell you the kind of executives I've seen working in the private sector for much less, and delivering much more, with similar stake. “I had to lay them off even though they were productive” is incompatible with “I had to increase my own compensation” in 2020. Maybe in 2021 it'd make more sense, but in 2020 it was just an excuse.

If you have comparison numbers of executive compensation with similar stakes, feel free to point to them.

If they hired a bunch of developers to work on an offshoot product which didn't cover the costs much less generate any profit, it is reasonable to let go of the developers they hired to work on that product. So a lot of that depends on the context.

[tildearrow]

At least I hope they don't go around nagging people to enroll for MDN Plus...

[microcode]

If you have comparison numbers of executive compensation with similar stakes, feel free to point to them.

If they hired a bunch of developers to work on an offshoot product which didn't cover the costs much less generate any profit, it is reasonable to let go of the developers they hired to work on that product. So a lot of that depends on the context.

They've had people working on MDN for like a decade, it's not an offshoot product, it's a heritage product at this point. They specifically laid off a lot of MDN people.

[RahulSundaram]

They've had people working on MDN for like a decade, it's not an offshoot product, it's a heritage product at this point. They specifically laid off a lot of MDN people.

Whether it is an offshoot product isn't the important part of what I said and was just an example. Any non revenue generating things where they have invested in before would be an equally applicable situation.

[bug77]

I wasn't talking about the ad revenue of Mozilla, I was talking about the ad revenue of Google which it uses to promote Chrome heavily.

Mozilla originally rose up in marketshare when IE team was basically disbanded completely. Having an aggressively competing browser both technically and in heavily outspend marketing is bound to reduce marketshare for Mozilla. I doubt anyone in Mozilla leadership could really stop that bleeding completely. Google just has way more resources.

They have been trying to diversify with various efforts (the latest being their VPN service) over the years and most of them haven't panned out as they hoped. Some of the technical work has become successful including Rust which they funded for a while but that is a long term bet, not a short term revenue boost. You need millions of dollars more to move the needle.

Well, that's just it. They're not even focusing on Firefox anymore, they're diversifying. You don't have to be a genius to figure out what is the next step after a few of these "diverse" projects stick (btw, I'm very grateful for Rust).

Fwiw, I've been with "Firefox" since Seamokey was still in beta, I want this thing to go on.

[hvis]

Turns out, writing a web browser is a shitty way of generating income (to sustain said development). So of course they are trying to diversify.

There's nothing wrong with that, especially since most of those projects had been low-tech, or employed different kinds of expertise than what's required for browser development (thus avoiding spreading the talent too thin).

[Alliancemd]

From crypto crap to MDN Plus... Mozilla is only in name now, it's not actually Mozilla any more

[bug77]

Turns out, writing a web browser is a shitty way of generating income (to sustain said development). So of course they are trying to diversify.

There's nothing wrong with that, especially since most of those projects had been low-tech, or employed different kinds of expertise than what's required for browser development (thus avoiding spreading the talent too thin).

It's not that hard to generate revenue, or at least it didn't used to be.

The messed up part is that the main revenue source is ads or search deals. And Google is the gorilla is both of these markets, while also being a player in the web browser market.

[hvis]

The same kind of people who blame Mozilla for trying to diversify previously criticized it for relying on the Google search deal for its revenue.

[RahulSundaram]

It's not that hard to generate revenue, or at least it didn't used to be.

Yes, it didn't used to be but it now clearly is and even when they did get more revenue, the dependency on Google for most of their revenue put them in a precarious position. So they do have to figure out new ways to get additional revenue and that's precisely what you are seeing.