Technology

Mozilla expanding into social media feels like it will be walking a very delicate line regarding privacy. Things like Pocket have already been contentious enough.

They are putting a lot of emphasis on recommendation feeds and helping content publishers "build audiences", and of course there will ultimately be some form of (so far unspoken) monetisation. Mozilla are only going get so far with that until they start wanting user data, data which will be so temptingly convenient when it's tied to Mozilla accounts.

Chrome has already demonstrated the negative consequences of web browsers and web platforms becoming too intertwined. Maybe I'm just too cynical, but even with the best of intentions I'm not sure Mozilla can avoid the same fate here.

I, for one, wish them the best of luck.

My politics and Mozilla foundation politics have not lined up for many years. But that's no reason to discourage them, if they can become another social media provider that's great. More diversity is a good thing.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Consumers are hungry for a new way of social networking, where trust and safety are paramount and power isn’t centralized with a Big Tech CEO in charge… or at least that’s what Mozilla believes.

The mission-driven tech company behind the Firefox browser, Pocket reader and other apps is now investing its energy into the so-called “fediverse” — a collection of decentralized social networking applications, like Mastodon, that communicate with one another over the ActivityPub protocol.

And, as a wholly owned subsidiary of a nonprofit, the company says it’s not motivated by generating earnings for shareholders or returning a VC investment, allowing it to progress with a collaborative approach where it takes in input from a lot of different voices.

“I think that it’s a pretty poor track record by existing companies that are only model motivated by profit and just insane user growth, and are willing to tolerate and amplify really toxic content because it looks like engagement,” she says.

However, the company is aiming to tackle some of the obstacles that have prevented users from joining and participating in the fediverse so far, including the technical hurdles around onboarding, finding people to follow and discovering interesting content to discuss.

What Mozilla wants to accomplish, then, is to help reconfigure the Mastodon onboarding process so that when someone — including a publisher or creator — joins its instance (or the fediverse in general) they’re able to build their audience with more ease.

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Because there is no other way for them to make money?

How bout they stick to the browser?