It's amazing the inhumanity that little thought terminating cliche validates. Basically "Just following orders" for capitalists.
The reality is hurting others for money as the motivation makes hurting others worse not better. I might hurt someone to save my child's life from certain death in some odd hypothetical, or to avenge my child's death in another, but hurting people... for money? That's as monstrous a reason as doing it for fun.
It's like we're taking crazy pills. "Oh, they were cruel and hurt that person? Let's get them! Ohhhh they did it for private profit, well that's ok then nevermind!"
Sounds like Mozilla is done for (whether or not they win the suit) and it's just a matter of time before Firefox ceases to exist. You can't tell me this level of political corporate bullshit doesn't scream that they're intent on destroying the company as fast as they can.
I'm withholding judgment until we get more details. I remember reading good things about Teixeira from people who worked with him, so putting aside this doozy of a case, hopefully his health and family will be alright.
Nothing of worth to comment on the case, but something in the article caught me off guard:
Firefox, [...] is the company's only profitable product.
Is Pocket seriously not profitable? I keep seeing contradicting claims about it. Thinking I'll need to learn how to read financial reports to get an actual answer.
Edit: the audited financial statements 2020–2023 show continuous growth in subscription and advertising revenue, which is where Pocket is bundled alongside VPN, Monitor, etc. That doesn't tell me anything about their individual operational expenses and whether any are profitable, though. Understandably, the organization might not have such a clear distinction between their expenses, or even if they do, they might not need to publish that... So how does one know if Pocket (in this instance) is profitable or not?
If anyone out there who has made claims regarding the profitability of products such as Pocket can point me the way to finding this kind of information, I'd be immensely grateful.
Fuck I'm reevaluating my life choices in terms of browsers. I assumed the situation of firefox is what it is because mozilla is morally superior and doesn't compromise. It now seems like it's not morally superior at all, so the reason for the current situation of firefox must be just sheer incompetence.
"Mr Teixeira had ethical concerns regarding the layoffs because they were primarily motivated by a desire to increase profit margins at Mozilla, which was already operating at a profit," the complaint claims. "Mr Teixeira viewed this as antithetical to Mozilla’s values as espoused on their website: 'We're backed by a non-profit, which means we prioritize the interests of people first, not corporate profits.'"
Mozilla is the primary developer of the Gecko web engine which Firefox uses. Open source or no, web engines are complicated things to develop and maintain. Even Microsoft gave up and just started using Chromium.
Would it continue to work without a significant organization dedicated to maintaining it? Sure, probably, for awhile. Would it continue to be safe to use for things like finances? No.
Is there any point to switching web browsers to one that is based on the same engine? Not really, no, the browser application is basically just a wrapper for the engine... a skin, a theme, like having an SUV shell vs a pickup shell on the same frame and drivetrain.
Texeira is managing their one profitable product profitably and looks destined to be CEO.
The old CEO Baker suddenly resigns, and appoints Chambers as (permanent) successor CEO.
Chambers and/or Baker is in tight with the head of HR Chehak, and gets her to declare that Texeira is physically unfit for his job as Chief Product Officer or any other job at Mozilla.
Chambers and/or Baker get their wish for Chambers to become CEO;
Demonstrably competent exec Texeira is essentially out of a job;
As bad as this is if true (and it's abhorrent), is google really any better with how they continuously treat their employees and their produc--er... customers?
Nope, google sucks at everything. Plenty of other browsers though that are based on chromium and hopefully not as shit as chrome. I'd need to do some research.
Whoa, that is fucked up. They had no empathy for the guy, and the dude was one step away from CEO. Wtf is going on over there? They've been making sketchy decisions lately.
That's why I say it's silly to stick with a company because of some hypothetical moral stance or some higher ethical goal. They always end up disappointing you.
Its the only browser that has issues with some websites and web apps. That's not a badge of honour. Use what works. There will be a time and place where correct decisions will have to be made, Firefox is not it.