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Mozilla downsizes as it refocuses on Firefox and AI: Read the memo | TechCrunch (techcrunch.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Specifically, Mozilla plans to scale back its investment in a number of products, including its VPN, Relay and, somewhat remarkably, its Online Footprint Scrubber, which launched only a week ago. Mozilla will also shut down Hubs, the 3D virtual world it launched back in 2018, and scale back its investment in its mozilla.social Mastodon instance. The layoffs will affect roughly 60 employees. Bloomberg previously reported the layoffs.

Yo, wtf. Their VPN, Relay and Monitor are basically the only Mozilla services I'd use and pay for. To me this sounds like this is the wrong direction. What do you guys think?

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[–] Tash 58 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

Honestly I'm actually a little happy about this. I feel Mozilla needs to focus on its core job of advancing its browser and web standards so we don't get stuck with Chromium-only world (like when us old timers had to deal with Internet Explorer holding the majority market share).

These side projects like running VPN services and social networks may have the best intentions but have had to pull from their limited resources. I would prefer they get spun off as separate projects instead of pulling resources from the parent company.

[–] [email protected] 67 points 10 months ago (2 children)

It's the other way around - the side projects were intended to diversify revenue so they're not comprehensive dependent on google for funding. If they're canning them then they haven't been profitable.

[–] Tash 11 points 10 months ago

That may have been the intention but I can't find any which have panned out. Mozilla is straddling that weird line of operating both a non-profit and for-profit entity... and as a for-profit incubator for the next big thing, they have a pretty terrible track record.

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