Mozilla did their biggest Reddit AMA yet on Thursday, June 13, with eight members of the Firefox leadership team. With 400 total comments on the post, they c…
I feel like they would’ve got more challenging questions had they asked here. They could’ve even done it on mastodon, with the hashtag #AskMozilla. Instead they chose to prop up the closed web 🥺
Honestly, as much as I would like that as the next guy… I doubt they would’ve gotten anywhere close to engagement in the range of 400 comments sadly.
When it comes to reach this is still not the place to be. Now, how meaningful the comments are? That’s a different question.
They went for the biggest audience. By a country fucking mile.
That may be a consideration, but what’s important in the words of one mozilla employee in that thread is:
the future of the web. We work to push the industry forward and to push for decisions that enable people to shape their own online experience and that help consumers feel empowered and safe online.
If your goal is to help people transition to that future, would you engage with the people who are already there?
I’d probably announce to people in other places that I’m going to host an AMA in a place that aligns more with my goals and that they’re free to join and participate there.
Doing an AMA on mastodon would be a horrible experience for everyone. Others have pointed out the obvious difference in reach, blocks/defederation means some ppl may not even be able to participate, participants might never receive questions, users from different instances wouldn’t be able to see sibling comments, etc.
No they choose to ask they audience. You go where the people are if you want to ask them, you don’t make them come to you.
Surprised that nobody asked about their recent purchase of an advertising company.
Maybe they did, but got moderated.
Or maybe most of the critical community left reddit a while ago, I mean, the top rated question in the AMA asks about changelogs in video format…
🫠
The AMA was June 13th, the acquisition news was posted June 16h.
Ah. That makes sense!
Bobby responded that the desktop PWA prototype that Mozilla built a few years ago got “some pretty negative feedback” in user testing and they didn’t have the bandwidth to take another crack at it.
I love how much people forget about this. PWAs were not liked when they came out. And that’s putting it very very mildly.
And morover, at the time, people in general did not like PWAs as a concept. Independent of the browser. It’s a bit funny when nowadays people always ask for PWA support, considering it was once yelled at until it was axed, and the whole concept ridiculed.
I still don’t like it.
But it doesn’t change the fact that some big players insist on PWAs instead of standalone Electron/whatever wrappers if you want anything close to a native desktop experience instead of a browser tab.
And as for taking another crack at it, this time hopefully in a way that won’t confuse non-users, here’s some interesting followup looking for input: https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/how-can-firefox-create-the-best-support-for-web-apps-on-the/m-p/60561
PWAs were not liked when they came out.
By some ppl. There were also ppl who did like them. As soon as the desktop support was axed, fans of the feature started complaining immediately.
at the time, people in general did not like PWAs as a concept. Independent of the browser
Again, I think this is a sampling issue, because my experience was the complete opposite.
And one of the key parts of PWA features was the “Progressive” part. The site works without those features and you don’t have to use them so removing the support never made much sense to me.