Former Firefox VP on What It's Like To Be Both a Partner of Google and a Competitor via Google Chrome (twitter.com)

Sidewalk Labs, the urban innovation arm of Google's parent company Alphabet, plans to build a $1 billion high-tech neighborhood in Toronto. The problem? It is facing an opposition from residents who have called for its demise. As the backlash gains momentum, it could force Sidewalk Labs to abandon or alter its vision. On paper, Sidewalk Labs' idea arguably has some merits: It wishes to "set new standards" for how cities are designed and built. But some are apprehensive of Google's plans, because the company has a knack for assuming more control over things and killing local competition.

Johnathan Nightingale, a former VP of Firefox, has seen such behavior first hand. He draws some parallels: I spent 8 years at Mozilla working on Firefox and for almost all of that time Google was our biggest partner. Our revenue share deal on search drove 90% of Mozilla's income. When I started at Mozilla in 2007, there was no Google Chrome and most folks we spoke with inside were Firefox fans. They were building an empire on the web, we were building the web itself. I think our friends inside Google genuinely believed that. At the individual level, their engineers cared about most of the same things we did. Their product and design folks made many decisions very similarly and we learned from watching each other.

But Google as a whole is very different than individual Googlers. Google Chrome ads started appearing next to Firefox search terms. Gmail and Google Docs started to experience selective performance issues and bugs on Firefox. Demo sites would falsely block Firefox as "incompatible." All of this is stuff you're allowed to do to compete, of course. But we were still a search partner, so we'd say "hey what gives?" And every time, they'd say, "oops. That was accidental. We'll fix it in the next push in 2 weeks." Over and over. Oops. Another accident. We'll fix it soon. We want the same things. We're on the same team. There were dozens of oopses. Hundreds maybe? I'm all for "don't attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence" but I don't believe Google is that incompetent.

This is not a thread about blaming Google for Firefox troubles though. We at Mozilla wear that ourselves, me more than anyone for my time as Firefox VP. But I see the same play happening here in my city and I don't like it. And for me it means two things: The question is not whether individual Sidewalk Labs people have pure motives. I know some of them, just like I know plenty on the Chrome team. They're great people. But focus on the behavior of the organism as a whole. At the macro level, Google/Alphabet is very intentional. When Google wants to get a thing done, it is very effective. Mistakes happen, but when you see a sustained pattern of "oops" and delays from this organization -- you're being outfoxed. Get there faster than I did.

Comments

Past, now and then

[hcs_$reboot]

At the macro level, Google/Alphabet is very intentional. When Google wants to get a thing done, it is very effective. Mistakes happen, but when you see a sustained pattern of "oops" and delays from this organization

It seems only your 3rd statement is true nowadays.

Re:Past, now and then

[arglebargle_xiv]

All of this is stuff you're allowed to do to compete, of course. But we were still a search partner, so we'd say "hey what gives?" And every time, they'd say, "oops. That was accidental. We'll fix it in the next push in 2 weeks." Over and over. Oops. Another accident. We'll fix it soon. We want the same things. We're on the same team.

"I'm so sorry I hit you. I won't do it again, I'll change. It won't be like all the other times. I don't really mean to hurt you. I'm only doing this because I care about you. And you have to admit you brought this on yourself to some extent. Without me you'd be nothing, no money, no way to survive. Don't you dare think of leaving me!".

Firefox popup blocker

[Anonymous Coward]

Mozilla removed live bookmarks, and still hasn't got the popup blocker to work, yet pushes 'pockets' on me, and "send usage feedback to Mozilla". Thunderbird continues to be the best email program.... all those loyal users, what did you do there? Abandon it.

Honestly, know your audience. Your audience isn't the Google audience, so part ways and move on. But clearly there is something rotten in Mozilla's management, something incompetent.

I use Here.com for maps, I use DuckDuckGo for search and only Youtube remains to be replaced, and Mozilla? Well they seem clueless, adrift, lacking in managerial direction.

If you think Google can't be beat? Well, look at their Pixel phones.... see all those sales? No? All those Chromebooks flying out the factory? No? They're on shark arc.

Re:Firefox popup blocker

[Anonymous Coward]

Mozilla has tried really hard to drive away their existing users. If one of the most used extension was Classic theme restorer, a sane management might have wondered if there was something wrong in their new user interface. But Mozilla took the typical corporate decision and just broke the API so CTR-extension would not work anymore. Just to add insult to injury, the APIs used by ad-blockers were equally broken so even the most common reason for using Firefox was terminally removed. For years, even non-techies could teach the adblock to suit their needs and web pages, but not anymore.

As the Firefox UI is cloning Chrome on each release, the plugins and extensions are broken and even Google's pages load slower, there really is no reason to use Firefox anymore. Only the privacy reasons are remaining, but in the big picture, most people have already given away their data to Facebook and Google already, so browser does not really matter anymore.

"stuff you're allowed to do to compete"

[Anonymous Coward]

Ehe, no you fool. Even if they weren't officially a monopoly, sabotaging one service for a specific competitor's product to promote your own is the definition of anti-competitive practices.

Fact of the matter is, Google isn't keeping Mozilla around out of good will. Much like Intel and AMD, they HAVE to keep at least one competitor alive or they'll get officially declared a monopoly. And just like Intel, while doing so they'll sabotage the competitor just enough so they'll retain market dominance without ever risking the regulators.

But lets be honest, he's not a fool. He never complained because he understood Firefox is just a regulatory loophole. And the real damage was in the protocols and other internet bodies decision that kept being ruled over in Google's favor since Mozilla was tipping the balance in their favor thanks to this relationship.

Decentralized protocols... DRM... Ad blocking... Mozilla been lining up to Google's agendas time after time.

It's all a huge scam.

Hanlon's razor applies.

[DrYak]

Which is more likely?

- That Google engineers are laughing maniacally in the style of a movie's evil character, while thinking at the best strategy to kill their competition in a horrible death?
For no reason except for the evulz, because they aren't making their money by *selling* software, they make money by marketing the shit out of people online, no matter what browser they used, as long as these people online to be marked?

- Or that they're just horribly lazy, because they test of their product on their own web engine, because that's what they use themselves while developing? And it happens to work anyway, because once you factor in Google Chrome and all the other browser running on a Blink/WebKit/KHTML core, you happen to cover close to 90% of all only browser, so often errors go unnoticed and later aren't put on top of the priority list due to low exposure?

In the absence of equivalent to the Halloween documents leak, I would more likely presume the second options.

I'm not saying that it's not bad. It *is*. Their careless-ness could very easily lead to a new era of microsoft-levels of monopolies and smothering of alternatives. They are seriously at risk to fuck up the computing ecosystem, and instance taking care about competitive behaviour (like the EU) should monitor them closely and force them out of such destructive behaviours.

It's only that the phenomenon probably isn't conscious and planned, it very likely due to very massive levels of carelessness, simply because they can get away with it. Somebody (like e.g.: the EU) should come and slap them on the hands, and theach them not to try to get away with carelessness but pay attention.