LAURA CHAMBERS, CEO, MOZILLA CORPORATION As Mark shared in his blog, Mozilla is going to be more active in digital advertising. Our hypothesis is that we n
I understand that a high quality web browser in this modern age is really expensive to develop. Mozilla, which is like an ant compared to the gorillas called Apple and Google, needs to find the funds it takes to develop that browser and pay the people who work on it.
That said, it’s really the bigger picture here that’s totally fucked. The web browser is supposed to be a tool for the user, not for the advertiser. I don’t give a shit about someone else’s advertising, or their ability to reach me and to target my attention span. But in many ways the advertising model props up the entirety of the modern web as we know it. It’s kind of a condemnation of the entire ecosystem, but I don’t know if anyone has thought of a sustainable alternative model.
Further, I view it as a kind of condemnation of the modern WWW that web browsers must be so complex. It feels like half of the development of web browsers is just based on supporting advertising in some way or another, and making sure the 700 ad scripts that run when you load a page don’t bring the browser to a screeching halt (a form of supporting advertising). Another 25% is dedicated to making sure crap web frameworks like React run well.
There is real innovation in the web browsing space. Wasm, WebGL, and so on. The fact that you can play a fully interactive 3d game in your web browser without having to download and run it locally is impressive. But is it all really worthwhile?
The worst thing is I don’t have an answer to any of this. I realize most of this stuff is extremely dumb and pointless, but it feels like the Internet has been totally overwhelmed with AI spam, shitty websites that necessitate javascript to even view them for basic information, and endless ad and user tracking. This announcement is especially rich because Firefox is still both better than Chrome & basically second class compared to it. Many web devs (or their employers) treat Chrome like the standard and Firefox as an afterthought. I just imagine now Mozilla taking that beautiful little fire fox and caging it and poking it with cattle prods to see if it can find new ways to make its ember glow.
I’d love for an alternative to the WWW to spring up, and you’d think something like the Gemini protocol could be it. But if you’ve ever used it, you’d realize it kind of sucks to use. A website like hexbear wouldn’t even be possible on Gemini. It had its heart in the right place but doesn’t meet the moment, and IMO never will.
It would also be sustainable if browsers just added less features over time.
The problem right now isn’t so much that the browser is a monstrously complex thing (whatever just fork Firefox), it’s that Chromium has 97% market share so anything Google decides to push becomes a de facto standard, and they use this position to push more new shit than a hobbyist org could ever keep up with.
I understand that a high quality web browser in this modern age is really expensive to develop. Mozilla, which is like an ant compared to the gorillas called Apple and Google, needs to find the funds it takes to develop that browser and pay the people who work on it.
That said, it’s really the bigger picture here that’s totally fucked. The web browser is supposed to be a tool for the user, not for the advertiser. I don’t give a shit about someone else’s advertising, or their ability to reach me and to target my attention span. But in many ways the advertising model props up the entirety of the modern web as we know it. It’s kind of a condemnation of the entire ecosystem, but I don’t know if anyone has thought of a sustainable alternative model.
Further, I view it as a kind of condemnation of the modern WWW that web browsers must be so complex. It feels like half of the development of web browsers is just based on supporting advertising in some way or another, and making sure the 700 ad scripts that run when you load a page don’t bring the browser to a screeching halt (a form of supporting advertising). Another 25% is dedicated to making sure crap web frameworks like React run well.
There is real innovation in the web browsing space. Wasm, WebGL, and so on. The fact that you can play a fully interactive 3d game in your web browser without having to download and run it locally is impressive. But is it all really worthwhile?
The worst thing is I don’t have an answer to any of this. I realize most of this stuff is extremely dumb and pointless, but it feels like the Internet has been totally overwhelmed with AI spam, shitty websites that necessitate javascript to even view them for basic information, and endless ad and user tracking. This announcement is especially rich because Firefox is still both better than Chrome & basically second class compared to it. Many web devs (or their employers) treat Chrome like the standard and Firefox as an afterthought. I just imagine now Mozilla taking that beautiful little fire fox and caging it and poking it with cattle prods to see if it can find new ways to make its ember glow.
I’d love for an alternative to the WWW to spring up, and you’d think something like the Gemini protocol could be it. But if you’ve ever used it, you’d realize it kind of sucks to use. A website like hexbear wouldn’t even be possible on Gemini. It had its heart in the right place but doesn’t meet the moment, and IMO never will.
the sustainable model would just be the government funding it through taxes. there is no sustainable model under capitalism
It would also be sustainable if browsers just added less features over time.
The problem right now isn’t so much that the browser is a monstrously complex thing (whatever just fork Firefox), it’s that Chromium has 97% market share so anything Google decides to push becomes a de facto standard, and they use this position to push more new shit than a hobbyist org could ever keep up with.
i more meant the state of the internet as a whole, paying for all the servers and what not