We're not holding Mozilla to higher standards than Google - we just have already discarded Google as an option.
Not collecting telemetry that many users have explicitly stated they do not want and even turned off at every opportunity is not a particularly high standard. Not wanting advertisements integrated into the web browser is not a particularly high standard. Criticizing that the CEO salary has been increasing to absurd levels while the browser has been declining and regular engineers are facing is not holding them to a particlarly high standard. Not wanting the last remaining competitive free web browser run as a commercial project rather than a non-profit foundation is not a high standard. Mozilla chooses to be shittier and shittier. Inaction would be better.
[M. theresa...VLC foundation....Mozilla.......You.......................Microsoft.......................................Nazis]
There's some nuance there, too.
It's "turned beige", in part, because people refused to use it while it was still "white". Mozilla has had to make the tough calculation of whether to be pure with zero users and therefore zero good impact, or to be beige to try to get some of these fickle users back and maybe have SOME good impact.
So, basically, people aren't satisfied when Mozilla is pure/idealist, and they aren't satisfied when it's compromising/pragmatic ("If they do that, I might as well keep using Chrome!").
I'm not letting Mozilla off the hook, or giving my blessing for every single decision that's been made. But, there's probably some utility to us taking the view of "just shut up and use Firefox" for the next N years.
I can't really recall any decisions made that were unpopular with existing users, but likely to lure new users in. Ads on new tabs doesn't seem like something that would bring new users in. Pocket doesn't either, since iirc you could install the extension in Chrome if you really wanted it.
Most of the controversies I remember were either to increase Mozilla's revenue, or boondoggles like their mobile OS. My major annoyance was that the increase in revenue seems like it was spent on boondoggles or weird, unrelated charity rather than going back into improving the browser.
I'm still also a Firefox user, but it's like 99% because ads are not their primary source of revenue rather than any remaining fondness towards Mozilla.
But, also, bringing money in is proxy enough for being able to do "good" for whatever definition we'd like to use. So, money or users, I think my general point about compromising their ideals for pragmatism is still valid (not necessarily true or correct, but it's an argument that can potentially be made).
I suspect those are mostly different groups. And my personal take is that Mozilla did indeed make that calculation... and proceeded to sacrifice the die-hard core userbase in order to get wider appeal, but they managed to not actually get the wider audience to buy in either, leaving them with nothing.
Has there ever been a case of an underdog company/product actually gaining market share by becoming less different than the market leader? It always seems like a mistake from the outside, to me. I feel like an underdog is more likely to succeed by actually being different and attracting people who would prefer those differences. Why would anyone change from what they're currently using to an alternative that is almost exactly the same?