To me it seems like they’re really pushing for mass-market appeal right now compared to just maintaining or slowly growing their existing more dedicated/niche base.
You can see it with them adding widgets, a free VPN, more visibly advertising trackers blocked (at least on Android, not sure about iOS), rebranding with a new mascot, and now going back to a platform that still has a ton of user lock-in keeping people there. They’re trying to pull in regular people, I presume so they don’t become as dependent on a base that has more strongly held convictions that Mozilla has to comply with to keep its users.
If it works out for them, it’ll be good for their long-term funding and security, market appeal, etc, but bad for users that care a lot more about fundamental principles.
To me it seems like they’re really pushing for mass-market appeal right now compared to just maintaining or slowly growing their existing more dedicated/niche base.
You can see it with them adding widgets, a free VPN, more visibly advertising trackers blocked (at least on Android, not sure about iOS), rebranding with a new mascot, and now going back to a platform that still has a ton of user lock-in keeping people there. They’re trying to pull in regular people, I presume so they don’t become as dependent on a base that has more strongly held convictions that Mozilla has to comply with to keep its users.
If it works out for them, it’ll be good for their long-term funding and security, market appeal, etc, but bad for users that care a lot more about fundamental principles.