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1. Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 21-Dec-2022 20:34:43 JST Aral Balkan

   #Mozilla is creating a fediverse instance. What is Mozilla?

   • A “not-for-profit” that owns multiple for-profit businesses and pays its CEO $5.6M
   • Gets ~83% of its revenue (~$500,000,000) every year from surveillance capitalist Google
   • Makes a browser that protects your privacy (*some configuration required)
   • Is now a VC…

   This is the best we can expect from Silicon Valley/capitalism. Question is: can we do better than that?

   Sources: https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2021/mozilla-fdn-2021-fs-final-1010.pdf, https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2021/mozilla-fdn-990-ty21-public-disclosure.pdf

   1/2

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 21-Dec-2022 20:42:58 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     … Perhaps the best way to understand Mozilla is in the words of their president on their new VC arm:

     “We see a lot of startups who want to tackle things like privacy, trustworthy AI, and alternatives to Twitter… alternatives are not going to emerge unless there’s founders and companies who build them. And the founders are not going to build them unless there’s money aligned with their vision … So I think we need to still be about commerce and creating wealth”

     https://www.yahoo.com/video/mozilla-foundation-mark-surman-rethinking-120004066.html

     2/3

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 21-Dec-2022 20:56:58 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     … Or, in what a previous head of public policy at Mozilla told me while we were chatting before our talks at a data protection conference:

     “Aral, we’re just another Silicon Valley tech company, I don’t understand why you’re holding us to a such a higher standard.”

     When I finally managed to pick my jaw off the floor the only retort I could manage was: “But that’s not what you tell people.”

     3/3

     #Mozilla #fediverse #SiliconValley #ventureCapital #BigTech

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 21-Dec-2022 21:01:33 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     PS. Please don‘t reply asking me which browser you should use :) This is not about that. It’s about understanding the nature of a thing so we can recognise what is a stopgap and where we (in the EU?) need to invest differently (e.g., using our taxes) in longer-term solutions. If you want to use Firefox, please do (I do & I’m glad Chrome isn‘t the only game in town*). Just make sure you configure it to turn off Mozilla’s own data collection or try LibreWolf.

     * the problem is the town is a sewer

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 21-Dec-2022 21:18:02 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     PPS. Remember that the way you keep a system going is to control all sides of the narrative, not just your own. Be careful who you allow to shape the narrative around the alternatives. Ask yourselves whether they are part of the system that they purport to offer alternatives to.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 21-Dec-2022 21:28:16 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     PPPS. (I know, sorry, last one, I swear) Finally, remember that a “startup” doesn’t just mean “a new business.” Startup is a Silicon Valley brand. It’s a very specific type of business: one that’s catalysed by venture capital to either fail quickly or grow large enough to be sold (either to a larger corporation or to the public in an IPO). Only when a startup is sold do the investors get (multiples of) their money back (this is that ROI or “return on investment” you always hear about).

     #startup

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 21-Dec-2022 21:40:09 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Jedidiah

     @jedidiah Mozilla is a honeypot. It does, of course, attract exactly the kind of people you describe due to how it brands itself. That’s one of the things that guts me. They deserve better. Way better.

   • Jedidiah (jedidiah@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 21-Dec-2022 21:40:10 JST Jedidiah

     in reply to

     @aral That makes me so sad that their head of public policy would say that, I can see why you would struggle to reply!

     I used to work quite often from their offices in London as they allowed charities and other non-profits to work there for free. That certainly wasn't the attitude or belief of the people I interacted with, or the energy of the place compared to other tech campuses. Really upsetting.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 21-Dec-2022 22:32:48 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • tychosoft

     @tychosoft Oh I knew, the context of the conversation was that they were asking me not to put them into an uncomfortable position with questions after their talk. This was the same conference of “data protection officers” where, after I did ask them the uncomfortable questions, I was “asked” by the organisers to keep my questions for the Facebook lawyer (whose previous gig was at the French data protection office) to myself.

     Sometimes I wish I knew half of what I know about all this crap :)

   • tychosoft (tychosoft@fosstodon.org)'s status on Wednesday, 21-Dec-2022 22:32:49 JST tychosoft

     in reply to

     @aral You didn't know? I had not been that innocent or naive since last decade... but in respect to Mozilla in particular, I had hired people from there. Next time ask them about cia funding in SV ;).

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 21-Dec-2022 22:39:34 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Emon

     @emon This is “Brave”: https://basicattentiontoken.org/

   • Emon (emon@h4.io)'s status on Wednesday, 21-Dec-2022 22:39:35 JST Emon

     in reply to

     @aral or use brave for chromium addicts

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 21-Dec-2022 22:41:19 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • VoxofGod

     @VoxofGod Depends on what you think of Bing and Yahoo (their search partners). Planting trees is nice PR, though, I guess.

   • VoxofGod (voxofgod@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 21-Dec-2022 22:41:20 JST VoxofGod

     in reply to

     @aral any opinions on ecosia?

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 21-Dec-2022 22:44:36 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • tf

     @tf Which is why I’m not relying on it. Perhaps, once we’ve proven it works and it’s something people want to use, then. But public funding in the EU (which better than elsewhere) is still hugely myopic about funding alternatives at the earliest stages and providing long term funding for tools instead of one-off funding for features or academic tomfoolery.

   • tf (tf@mastodon.scot)'s status on Wednesday, 21-Dec-2022 22:44:37 JST tf

     in reply to

     @aral it’s unescapable. Software costs (loads) of money. 99.999% of us using mastodon have not contributed financially to its development, this sort of crowdsourcing as a funding model is simply not viable at large scale. I like your ideas about #SmallWeb, but I am less optimistic about the prospects of funding coming from taxes.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 22-Dec-2022 01:52:55 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • ophiocephalic 🐍

     @ophiocephalic I know, it’s a really difficult one and a reflection of how screwed up things are and how few choices we actually have. We basically need an independent web browser funded by the EU.

   • ophiocephalic 🐍 (ophiocephalic@kolektiva.social)'s status on Thursday, 22-Dec-2022 01:52:56 JST ophiocephalic 🐍

     in reply to

     @aral I always cringe at Aral's anti-Mozilla tirades (in the best sense of the term) bc the nightmare scenario, a Chrome monopoly monoculture, is rapidly approaching and people always take this critique as a prompt to stay away from Firefox. The reality is - short of Tor - arkenfox-configured Firefox is far and away the best privacy-respecting browser choice. Librewolf is a Firefox fork that embeds many of the arkenfox protections off the shelf. Keep going Aral, you're right about Mozilla

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 22-Dec-2022 01:55:59 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Dario Hudon

     @dariohudon Here’s to a future with peers, not heroes :)

   • Dario Hudon (dariohudon@mas.to)'s status on Thursday, 22-Dec-2022 01:56:00 JST Dario Hudon

     in reply to

     @aral

     We need heroes. We find them in every space we occupy and Silicon Value was no different.

     So embedded is the need that tech startups began using the ideology in their marketing, and it worked.

     The desire to believe Mozilla has our best interests in mind is also rooted in our historical distaste for government despite leaning on it heavily — it also hosts the dichotomy of good vs evil and binary thinking.

     It’s all fascinating until I realize, I believe it too 😳

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 22-Dec-2022 01:59:51 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Jérémie Zimmermann🎶💗🧀🧉5946

     @jz In their annual report, they go out of their way not to name Google/Alphabet, Inc. I know JavaScript obfuscators that can’t do as good a job as this:

     “Approximately 83% and 86% of Mozilla’s revenues from customers with contracts were derived from one customer for the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively”

     https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2021/mozilla-fdn-2021-fs-final-1010.pdf

     Gee, which customer is that, Mozilla?

     #mozilla #google

   • Jérémie Zimmermann🎶💗🧀🧉5946 (jz@mamot.fr)'s status on Thursday, 22-Dec-2022 01:59:52 JST Jérémie Zimmermann🎶💗🧀🧉5946

     in reply to

     @aral I asked several #Mozilla VPs over the years to just show me (if not publish) the contract that linked them to #Google (i think GGL money has been *billions* in Moz' finance).

     Always had the same answer: "oh i don't know. / it's not me / i haven't even seen it". Pathetic and quite miserable. 😳

     We left to speculate why GGL has a financial interest in Moz to exist: "feeling lucky" in the URL bar? GGL as default engine? phoning home? not blocking ads by default?

     No way to trust Moz. :(

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 22-Dec-2022 02:18:15 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • VoxofGod
     • Blake Leonard

     @blake From what I read in their privacy policy, they use Bing and Yahoo (at least now). @VoxofGod

   • Blake Leonard (blake@fosstodon.org)'s status on Thursday, 22-Dec-2022 02:18:16 JST Blake Leonard

     in reply to

     • VoxofGod

     @aral @VoxofGod I thought Ecosia used Google, or did they change?

   • Adrian Cochrane (alcinnz@floss.social)'s status on Thursday, 22-Dec-2022 15:46:48 JST Adrian Cochrane

     in reply to

     • lnl

     @lnl @aral I've got some efforts:
     https://nlnet.nl/project/Haphaestus/
     https://argonaut-constellation.org/2022/12/22/nlnet.html

   • lnl (lnl@fosstodon.org)'s status on Thursday, 22-Dec-2022 15:46:49 JST lnl

     in reply to

     @aral
     If it's a stop gap,
     how could a longer term solution look like?

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 22-Dec-2022 16:09:50 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Earthling

     @Raven47 Venture Capital (sorry, I ran out of characters; I hate acronyms too) :)

   • Earthling (raven47@mastodon.world)'s status on Thursday, 22-Dec-2022 16:09:51 JST Earthling

     in reply to

     @aral
     What is the meaning of "VC"?

   • Noah Mittman :oh_no_bubble: (noah@finkasaur.us)'s status on Thursday, 22-Dec-2022 16:13:32 JST Noah Mittman :oh_no_bubble:

     in reply to

     @aral I don't know but thanks for reminding me that I need to do my EOY Wikimedia and Internet Archive donations

   • sparseMatrix ✅✅ 📻 (sparsematrix@ioc.exchange)'s status on Thursday, 22-Dec-2022 16:14:19 JST sparseMatrix ✅✅ 📻

     in reply to

     @aral

     Note that there is nothing illegal or or immoral in non-profits paying their corporate officers and employees.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 22-Dec-2022 16:14:19 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • sparseMatrix ✅✅ 📻

     @sparseMatrix Depends how much they’re paying them. But don’t worry, the CEO is paid by the for-profit owned by the not-for-profit so it’s the for-profit that’s paying, not the not-for-profit that owns the for-profit.

     *wink, wink, nudge, nudge*

   • sparseMatrix ✅✅ 📻 (sparsematrix@ioc.exchange)'s status on Thursday, 22-Dec-2022 20:21:25 JST sparseMatrix ✅✅ 📻

     in reply to

     @aral

     As someone who has participated in the formation and operation of a 501(c) non profit and who served as it’s unpaid CEO for two years, Ican tell you that that’s not how that works at all, *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 22-Dec-2022 20:21:25 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • sparseMatrix ✅✅ 📻

     @sparseMatrix Are you literally contradicting their financial returns which state that their CEO’s salary is $5.6M? I truly do not understand what it is you’re arguing here.

     (I have a not-for-profit too so I’m very aware of what you can and cannot do with one.)

   • Adrian Cochrane (alcinnz@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 23-Dec-2022 06:42:39 JST Adrian Cochrane

     in reply to

     • lnl

     @lnl There's some search engines!
     http://wiby.me
     https://searchmysite.net (not exclusively noJS, but high chances)

     The thing is I find there's actually significantly which don't use JS than those that do, its just that the few who do are incredibly entrenched.

     @aral

   • lnl (lnl@fosstodon.org)'s status on Friday, 23-Dec-2022 06:42:40 JST lnl

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane

     @alcinnz @aral Just out of curiosity, is there a list of websites with no JavaScript.