> So Mozilla tries to move in Chrome's direction, removing configuration options and "dumbing down" the UI, which frustrates its existing user base (including me) while apparently also failing to eat into Chrome's market share.

The funny thing about this is that it's a narrative, but is it correct? Configuration options may be low, but Chrome has added things like tab groups and a reading list / bookmarks sidebar. They're in no way aiming to be as customizable as Vivaldi/presto!Opera/xulExtensions!Firefox, but even stock Chrome is actually adding useful features, while most news I've seen from Firefox have been them removing unique features I've used and loved, like being able to sync keyword searches via bookmarks.

The only significant feature I've seen them add - and it's a doozy, I admit - is Containers. But that's cold comfort when other features get removed at a steady rate.

> It seems that the market niche of tech-capable people who value privacy and customisation over a simplified UX is not capable of sustaining Firefox on its own.

This may be true, but it can really come down to quality of product: Firefox is losing ground, but Brave for example is growing, and doing it by a privacy sales pitch (with some dumbfucks who think they're going to get rich off BAT added in - it's a cut from Brave's ad revenue, ffs, and individual ad viewers aren't worth shit except en masse when the money pools up at creators' and ad agencies' wallets).

> Okay, did you enable the telemetry that lets them know you use it? Receiving and analysing user data is increasingly important to delivering a good user experience. If open-source projects can't access the same data as proprietary ones do, we can't expect them to be able to react to user demands in the same way, and so we can't expect them to be able to compete in today's market.

This is true, but making decisions purely off telemetry stats and setting up self-fulfilling prophecies of making features harder to find and then saying nobody uses them isn't exactly the way either. Telemetry is a good jumping off point, I think, but as a sole director it's shit precisely because privacy-conscious users are going to turn that shit off if they can out of habit.

> I've never quite understood why Mozilla got such a hard time from users about telemetry.

I think a lot of the Mozilla userbase is from an earlier age, before everything became cloud-based subscription services. They long for the days of locally installable software, buying new versions vs. subscribing to an app, etc. Some are the kind of obstinate FOSS purists who'd use gNewSense even if it meant they had to use their computer as a command line only device.

Think about Pocket, for example. I was one of the abovementioned people and hated its inclusion, and people still grumble about it in part due to the source code, in part just due to the old bad blood.

They'd essentially need a relaunch with a new take and attitude - look at Brave, whose pitch is pretty similar, and how people are a-ok with monetized services within the browser so long as they're opt-in. The product's newer, and so the attitude people come to it is newer. And it's growing.

Finally, there's an issue of focus: The organization increasingly feels like general activists first, custodians of a product second, which is not a vibe much of the competition gives off. Actors like Brave and Vivaldi have firm, in some sense political stances, but they're of a narrower sort of user control and privacy. I know people at both orgs who do/have shown their politics, but it doesn't show at the org/product level. The user? Does. I never, ever want to hear shit like "we need more than deplatforming" from an ostensibly privacy and user centered organization.