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Mozilla lays off 250 employees due to the pandemic

Sqrt

Sqrt

Member
Oct 26, 2017
5,880
Mozilla is laying off around 250 employees as part of a corporate restructure caused by the long-term impact of COVID-19. In a blog post, Mozilla chief Mitchell Baker said that the pandemic has "significantly impacted our revenue." Consequently, the corporation, which has around 1,000 employees, has been forced to abandon its original product plans for 2020 as well as lose around 25 percent of its staff.

This is the second round of layoffs at Mozilla this year after the company let 70 employees go back in January. At the time, Mitchell Baker said that the cuts were due to a failure to earn enough money through Firefox's revenue-generating products. It will be interesting to see how Mozilla navigates this new normal and if it can make money through its offerings, but having a credible rival to browsers from Google and Microsoft is vital.
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www.engadget.com

Mozilla lays off 250 employees due to the pandemic

Mozilla, makers of Firefox, is restructuring to give it a chance of surviving the pandemic.
www.engadget.com www.engadget.com

Some worrying tweets:





If Firefox is no longer an option... what should I run? No, I do not consider Chrome.
 
whatsinaname

whatsinaname

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,054
Fuck no! This is the only holdout from the web browser standards essentially being at Google's whims.
 
Slayven

Slayven

Never read a comic in his life
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Oct 25, 2017
93,026
Goddamn they are that big, how do they make money?
 
Chopchop

Chopchop

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,171
That really sucks. Hopefully the employees can find work elsewhere.

What's Mozilla's business model, anyway? I didn't think it would be hit that hard since its main product is digital, but then I realized I don't know how Mozilla actually makes money.
 
less

less

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,836
This is deeply concerning and now I'm concerned about Firefox's future. Threat detection team gone? Yeah...I think that I'll stick with some other browser for the foreseeable future.
 
Kyuuji

Kyuuji

The Favonius Fox
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Nov 8, 2017
32,014
This is really rough news. Hope as many as possible find new opportunities soon.
 
chrominance

chrominance

Sky Van Gogh
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Oct 25, 2017
13,576
Fuck.

Firefox was the last big non-corporate holdout in the browser world. Without it and Mozilla we might not have our Internet Explorer-free world. This is devastating if true.
 
jelly

jelly

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
33,841
Chopchop said:
That really sucks. Hopefully the employees can find work elsewhere.

What's Mozilla's business model, anyway? I didn't think it would be hit that hard since its main product is digital, but then I realized I don't know how Mozilla actually makes money.
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They get a lot of money from Google for the search engine default and others. 2017 values.

An expanded Firefox search deal with Google helped push Mozilla's annual revenue up 8 percent to $562 million for 2017 -- money that should come in handy as the nonprofit tries to salvage what's good about the internet.

Why they are firing 250 employees, seems a bit over the top possibly.
 
Damaniel

Damaniel

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
6,535
Portland, OR
Jubern said:
Nooooo. I don't want to use Chrome or Edge...
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Both based on Chrome. At this point, something like 75-80% of all browsers in use are derived from the Chrome/Chromium codebase - everything but Firefox, Opera and Safari. Losing Firefox (the largest non-Chrome browser) would be a huge blow to the Web. Just think how shitty things would be if Google controlled nearly everybody's access to the Web.
 
mrchad

mrchad

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Oct 27, 2017
765
Where does Mozilla get the majority of their funding from these days? I know it used to be Google in the pre-Chrome days (and maybe it still is).
 

Deleted member 1476

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Damaniel said:
Both based on Chrome. At this point, something like 75-80% of all browsers in use are derived from the Chrome/Chromium codebase - everything but Firefox, Opera and Safari. Losing Firefox (the largest non-Chrome browser) would be a huge blow to the Web. Just think how shitty things would be if Google controlled nearly everybody's access to the Web.
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Opera is chromium too.
 

Deleted member 1476

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Damaniel said:
Well, shit. We may all have to switch to using Macs at this point.
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Thing is, I'm not so sure that's going to be an improvement. One of the rules about adblockers that chrome wanted to change / remove (and caused quite the uproar last year I think), safari did that quite some time ago.

Of course there are other issues with chrome, but I don't see safari as the solution.
 
subpar spatula

subpar spatula

Refuses to Wash his Ass
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Oct 26, 2017
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How were they losing revenue? Wouldn't more people be browsing the Internet out of sheer boredom due to no work?
 
entremet

entremet

You wouldn't toast a NES cartridge
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Oct 26, 2017
59,981
Popstar said:
Most of their income comes with their deal with Google as the default search engine. Google isn't renewing the deal which is why this is happening.
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Makes sense. This is why monopolies suck btw.

subpar spatula said:
How were they losing revenue? Wouldn't more people be browsing the Internet out of sheer boredom due to no work?
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Google didn't renew their half a billion dollar deal with them for default search.
 
Dogo Mojo

Dogo Mojo

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Oct 27, 2017
2,157
A few people have recommended Opera to me, is it any good? Admittedly I hadn't heard of it before, I refuse to download Chrome.
 
pechorin

pechorin

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Apr 13, 2020
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I work for a medium-sized UK tech company and we also lost our whole security team recently, it's absolutely crazy. :(
 
Aangster

Aangster

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Oct 27, 2017
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Both Servo and anti-malware teams gone?

What on earth are Baker and upper management up to? Take a fucking pay cut to reflect your lousy performances from the top.
 
KatieKatsup

KatieKatsup

Prophet of Regret
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Oct 27, 2017
964
Servo, threat management team, the dev tools team (one of my favorite parts of Firefox) all were gutted, along with others.

Awful news and I hope all these talented people are able to land on their feet. At least the severance pay through December should help.

Was fearing this earlier in the year and now it seems inevitable: Firefox is going to adopt Chromium. Browser diversity is dead.
 
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