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Comment by gruez | Hacker News Reader

>Maybe the next Mozilla will understand that having principles is not optional.

But what does "having principles" translate to? Focusing on the EME issue, how many people are going to be like "humpf, firefox added EME so I'm going to use chrome instead!"? Is that small slice of the user base even worth keeping? If they're going to be incensed by random issues like this, they're probably not worth the trouble to cater to, or maybe they'll just flip flop between chrome and firefox (depending on what the latest outrage headline is) that there's not much point in catering to.

If you can't articulate specific benefits to "having principles", then you're not really interested in firefox winning, you just want it to die a martyr.

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> But what does "having principles" translate to? Focusing on the EME issue, how many people are going to be like "humpf, firefox added EME so I'm going to use chrome instead!"? Is that small slice of the user base even worth keeping? If they're going to be incensed by random issues like this, they're probably not worth the trouble to cater to, or maybe they'll just flip flop between chrome and firefox (depending on what the latest outrage headline is) that there's not much point in catering to.

> If you can't articulate specific benefits to "having principles", then you're not really interested in firefox winning, you just want it to die a martyr.

You've got it backwards. It's not that people use Chrome in retaliation for Firefox having zero principles, it's that people stop caring to install Firefox because there's no clear reason to keep using it.

Having no principles itself eventually loses you a small minority of users... and those were your core supporters and evangelists. It is not a huge number of people, but it's not good when your base of supporters is rotting from the inside-out.

> Having no principles itself eventually loses you a small minority of users... and those were your core supporters and evangelists

If pleasing that minority doesn't help Firefox gain more users (looking at the numers, it sure hasn't), then what's the point of having core supporters and evangelists at the cost of your existence? Would you rather have a Chrome only existence where you are forced to have EME on and no adblock just because you don't want Firefox to do something you morally disapprove of?

> it's that people stop caring to install Firefox because there's no clear reason to keep using it.

Who's going to switch to chrome (or not install firefox, next time they install a browser), even though that also has DRM, and unlike firefox's EME implementation, can't be disabled and is even more invasive? Either they care about DRM/EME and therefore they'll choose the least bad option, or it's all posturing.

People often don't bother chosing less bad options when they don't feel like they like either option very much, they instead choose the path of least resistance. It's one thing to put up with Firefox lagging behind when you think Mozilla is standing up for you, but it is a totally different story when they don't really seem to stand for anything. For a lot of people Chrome is the lowest path of resistance. It's often already there...

And frankly, they really don't seem to stand for a whole lot. Being a bit better than Google is possibly the lowest bar ever cleared.

Call it posturing, or whatever you want. Sentiment turned on Mozilla and sentiment matters, you can say whatever you want about why. For the record, I do not think implementing EME killed Firefox, I think it is just one poor Chrome-chasing choice among many that sealed its fate.

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