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Mozilla expanding into social media feels like it will be walking a very delicate line regarding privacy. Things like Pocket have already been contentious enough.
They are putting a lot of emphasis on recommendation feeds and helping content publishers “build audiences”, and of course there will ultimately be some form of (so far unspoken) monetisation. Mozilla are only going get so far with that until they start wanting user data, data which will be so temptingly convenient when it’s tied to Mozilla accounts.
Chrome has already demonstrated the negative consequences of web browsers and web platforms becoming too intertwined. Maybe I’m just too cynical, but even with the best of intentions I’m not sure Mozilla can avoid the same fate here.
I think Mozilla sees the writing on the wall, and they’re trying to find some sort of corporate revenue stream that isn’t based entirely on Google, which is a healthy exercise for them.
Unfortunately the core kernel of browser users, who are only hanging on by their fingernails, are very security conscious, FOSS supporters, opinionated users… which is a difficult audience to market to different business revenue streams.
Expanding their user base to more " normal " users would give them a larger marketable user base for their alternative revenue efforts. Building that increased user base though, it’s tricky.
Frankly, Mozilla ought to give up on trying to “monetize” the user base in the typical Silicon Valley abusive marketing way, and instead just resign themselves to soliciting donations.
Yup, Wikipedia banners not out of the question imo. But they need to ditch google to do it
I, for one, wish them the best of luck.
My politics and Mozilla foundation politics have not lined up for many years. But that’s no reason to discourage them, if they can become another social media provider that’s great. More diversity is a good thing.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Consumers are hungry for a new way of social networking, where trust and safety are paramount and power isn’t centralized with a Big Tech CEO in charge… or at least that’s what Mozilla believes.
The mission-driven tech company behind the Firefox browser, Pocket reader and other apps is now investing its energy into the so-called “fediverse” — a collection of decentralized social networking applications, like Mastodon, that communicate with one another over the ActivityPub protocol.
And, as a wholly owned subsidiary of a nonprofit, the company says it’s not motivated by generating earnings for shareholders or returning a VC investment, allowing it to progress with a collaborative approach where it takes in input from a lot of different voices.
“I think that it’s a pretty poor track record by existing companies that are only model motivated by profit and just insane user growth, and are willing to tolerate and amplify really toxic content because it looks like engagement,” she says.
However, the company is aiming to tackle some of the obstacles that have prevented users from joining and participating in the fediverse so far, including the technical hurdles around onboarding, finding people to follow and discovering interesting content to discuss.
What Mozilla wants to accomplish, then, is to help reconfigure the Mastodon onboarding process so that when someone — including a publisher or creator — joins its instance (or the fediverse in general) they’re able to build their audience with more ease.
The original article contains 1,792 words, the summary contains 242 words. Saved 86%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Because there is no other way for them to make money?
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How bout they stick to the browser?
They lost me on
Consumers are hungry for a new way of social networking
Did they get you again with the rest of the sentence, oh Lemmy user?
where trust and safety are paramount and power isn’t centralized with a Big Tech CEO
Then again, I’m not sure people are hungry for that - most of them just want old Twitter back.
They don’t actually want any of the underlying issues to be resolved, they just want to feel relevant by screaming at each other in the void.
Those same people will keep wondering why every platform they use turns to bullshit
We’ve tried nothing and it still hasn’t worked!
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First, Mozilla is just “joining” to something already existing. The aren’t inventing anything new and won’t revolutionize anything.
For starters, users will join the Mozilla.social instance with their Mozilla accounts.
It doesn’t look like a great idea privacy-wise, but who cares… I have already blocked the instance on my personal account, because fuck Mozilla.
For example, Mozilla is currently experimenting with a Discover feed that aims to surface engaging content. Over time, it plans to gather more signals from around the fediverse to determine what sort of content people are interacting with.
I’m not sure everybody would be happy that Mozilla is harvesting their social interaction. That’s what evil Google/FB usually do, right?
O’Hara says Mozilla is now in active discussions with publishers to understand their needs, including both their social needs and business needs, and how those goals may have changed over the past year. As part of these discussions, Mozilla aims to convince publishers that Mastodon isn’t just another place they have to support, but one that could deliver on their objectives. As it learns from the publishers and other content creators what they want and need, it then intends to use that understanding to build features and drive efforts that can help them reach their audiences.
Smells like corpo-bullshit, which in my opinion shouldn’t belong to the fediverse. But, again, who cares…
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I really appreciate the resentment for Mozilla of all things. It makes no sense whatsoever of course, but at least it’s colourful.
The mozilla foundation has expanded its scope and mandate many times. They’re taking an active political role in many different arenas, that’s not going to line up with everybody. People who support them in one domain might feel a little betrayed that their politics are not being reflected in a different domain.
This is one of the problems of scope creep in political organizations.
Glad you enjoyed it.
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You do understand that any instance who federated with yours has access to your social interactions?
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More reasons not wanting big Corps funded by Google to be on the fediverse.
They already are. You think, of all those tiny instances out there, that none of them are data farming?
As opposed to literally any other unknown entities? Which, let’s be honest, could also be google and you’d never know.
Not wanting “big Corps” includes Google, Facebook and the likes, besides Mozilla. No need to be “opposed to” anything here.
