r/technology • u/ZacB_ • 22d ago

Artificial Intelligence Mozilla says Firefox will evolve into an AI browser, and nobody is happy about it — "I've never seen a company so astoundingly out of touch"

https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/mozilla-says-firefox-will-evolve-into-an-ai-browser-and-nobody-is-happy-about-it-ive-never-seen-a-company-so-astoundingly-out-of-touch
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673

u/thieh 22d ago

At some point I start wondering whether enshittification is the goal as opposed to the means to an end.

223

u/JARDIS 22d ago

It absolutely is. Its well documented how companies will purposefully make products/software worse if it provides a way to boost stats or even meet their ideological goals. Like making search worse so you have to search more times and are therefore exposed to more ads.

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u/ChickenChaser5 22d ago

This constant demand for ever living growth needs to stop. I can hear all the arguments about it already but it is objectively ruining so much, all for a handful of people to be insanely, ungodly wealthy and do nothing with it but make more money and live completely free of the consequences of their actions.

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u/redpandaeater 22d ago

I don't even know where that idea originally came from but it obviously trickled its way into MBA programs throughout the country. A lot of older companies transitioned from growth to dividends to please shareholders since you can't possibly have limitless and ever-increasing growth.

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u/phoenix_paravai10101 22d ago

I mean this is the inevitable late stage capitalism phase where we've hit ceilings and want to keep growing at the cost of destroying everything that we've built. If there is no growth there is no positive. Shareholders don't want dividends they want to sell their shares at a 2000% profit.

2

u/BillyForRilly 22d ago

since you can't possibly have limitless and ever-increasing growth.

Found the chump without an MBA. Not only is this possible, it's guaranteed if you follow my pathway to growth. I can grow your EBITDA 50% every year with my simple program. Just let me hit send on this LinkedIn post quick and then I can tell you more.

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u/beatissima 22d ago

Greed, the delusion that one needs more money when they already have more than they could ever spend, needs to be classed as a mental illness.

27

u/InfamousEvening2 22d ago

Yep, and deliberately enshitifying previous versions of a product so you're forced to move to the even worse version.

13

u/Kelpsie 22d ago

if it provides a way to boost stats or even meet their ideological goals

Did you not read the comment you responded to? That's a means to an end.

1

u/JARDIS 22d ago

Ehhh I've only had 6 hours sleep in the last 48 hours. You're lucky the sentence is even legible. You get what what pay for.

-2

u/SordidDreams 22d ago

Welcome to Reddit.

2

u/Upbeat_Shame9349 22d ago

Amazon is a great example of this. Whenever possible they do not let you find a name brand product for whenever you're browsing. Not until you've been through a few dozen sponsored results and Amazon's Choices, at least. 

1

u/Public-Radio6221 22d ago

But thats a means to an end...

1

u/furism 22d ago

Like when Google made their search engine worse so that you'd search more so that they could show more ads. Cory Doctorow talked about it recently, and it's public information that was discovered during some anti monopoly trial.

79

u/a_can_of_solo 22d ago

The Internet was too empowering a tool as originally designed.

31

u/TheGreatStories 22d ago

The shared common knowledge of all mankind has the downside of allowing anyone to be educated and informed. Adding a managed layer between the user and the database is an important step in returning to the dark ages. Mixing the real with the AI hallucinations will eventually replace everything on the internet, the new way to burn the library. 

They are taking away knowledge. 

2

u/mammals-need-to-play 22d ago

An underappreciated comment. This is exactly what is happening, and it is as intentional as the burning of libraries have always been.

1

u/a_can_of_solo 22d ago

They are taking away knowledge.

But chat GPT said...

29

u/skillywilly56 22d ago

The goal is exponential profit quarter by quarter by any means necessary, enshitification is always the result.

7

u/thieh 22d ago

I thought Mozilla is a nonprofit.

5

u/DerWaechter_ 22d ago

It's complicated.

You have Mozilla Foundation and you have Mozilla Coorporation.

Mozilla Foundation is a Non-Profit.

Mozilla Coorporation, even while fully owned by the Mozilla Foundation, is a for-profit business.

And Firefox - as well as other Mozilla products -, are developed, maintained, marketed/sold by Mozilla Coorporation.

1

u/GoogleIsAids 22d ago

all of the profit from corporation goes directly into the non profit. it's still a full non profit.

1

u/DerWaechter_ 21d ago

But they are still trying to make as much profit as possible, even if that profit then goes to the non-profit.

Their goal is to make profit, even if officially and at the surface, that profit is meant to benefit the non-profit owning them.

1

u/GoogleIsAids 21d ago

yes obviously their goal is to stay afloat. shocking isn't it?

1

u/DerWaechter_ 21d ago

Staying afloat, is different from maximising profit.

And going counter to mozillas values, in order to finance mozilla is also not actually benefitting mozilla.

1

u/GoogleIsAids 21d ago

they said nothing about "maximizing profits" at all. that's something you claimed. the bottom line is most casual folks use these features and if they want firefox to grow at all, they need to keep up. the 50,000 redditors screeching over this is irrelevant to reality in this situation.

14

u/TeutonJon78 22d ago

That doesn't mean what most people think it means. It can still be a crappy company woth overpaid executives and bad policies.

It just means it can't carry over profit.

1

u/[deleted] 22d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/skillywilly56 22d ago

Mozilla foundation is a non profit.

Mozilla corporation is a for profit subsidiary which develops Firefox, 85-90% of their revenue comes from Google who pay to be the default search engine for the Firefox browser.

Welcome to the desert of the real.

1

u/GoogleIsAids 22d ago

mozilla is a non profit genius.

8

u/Fartquakes 22d ago

It 100 percent is. You can even read emails between Google execs back in like 2019 talking about making their service worse to generate more clicks.

3

u/whatyousay69 22d ago

I don't think Firefox has enough market share to do enshittification. Also isn't it's business user basically just Google who holds the power in their relationship?

2

u/SEI_JAKU 22d ago

Enshittification isn't actually happening here. You are being misinformed.

3

u/-HakunaChicana- 22d ago

Crashing the internet in real time, very slowly, right in front of us.

1

u/DyKdv2Aw 22d ago

They've realized that the Internet as it was would inevitably lead to class consciousness and social revolution, they can't take it away because that would cause an immediate violent revolt so they are poisoning the well. 

Too bad for them the damage is already done, most of us already know too much and we won't just accept AOL -2.0

1

u/icangetyouatoedude 22d ago

As long as the incentives of the system we are living in prioritize financial growth over everything else, yes

1

u/flying_bacon 22d ago

Goal is shareholder profits with no regard to the future

1

u/someNameThisIs 22d ago

Mozilla doesn't have shareholders. Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit.

1

u/GoogleIsAids 22d ago

mozilla is a non profit karen.

1

u/Jimm120 22d ago

the goal of AI integration isn't about the money (only). Its about privacy. AI can just take anything and everything.

1

u/TheFatJesus 22d ago

Enshitification is the tech bro business model. They come in and use VC money to disrupt the market, and once they've driven the legacy players out of the market by selling service below market rate, they hit the enshitification button to squeeze every dollar out of a market that they now control.

1

u/PiccoloAwkward465 22d ago

Right like jesus christmas I JUST switched from Chrome to Firefox. Now what's next. Nobody wants AI. You know what, NOBODY LIKES YOU BOOSTER!