On Thu, Dec 17, 2015 at 3:24 PM, Mike Connor <mcon...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> Hi all, > > Let's be perfectly clear here: the decision to integrate (and continue > shipping) Pocket in Firefox did not, and does not, have anything to do with > money. I can understand how people can fear the worst, so I'd like to set > the record straight as much as I can. > > On Thu, Dec 17, 2015 at 4:08 PM, Benjamin Kerensa <bkere...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> Would you agree though that while you were not paid to integrate >> that it was probably known that there was a revenue sharing deal >> going into this and that roughly translates to incentivizing >> the integration? >> > > Frankly, I don't know if revenue sharing was widely discussed, but I would > be somewhat surprised. I know that the focus of the Firefox team was > entirely on getting a great feature into the product, and the idea to > bundle Pocket instead of Reading List came from that product team. That we > negotiated a revenue sharing arrangement was more about getting to share in > what a for-profit entity would potentially gain from inclusion. (Much like > our various search deals!) It wasn't a priority or driving factor at all. > > I'm sure someone on the Firefox Team didn't wake up one morning >> and say "Great Scotts we are missing Pocket in Firefox!" and AFAIK >> this was not on any long term roadmap. >> > > If you look at the history (as Adam just linked), we'd been working on > Reading List as a Firefox feature/service for months, with various pieces > landed across products and deployed on our infrastructure, even shipped in > a beta. There was considerable research that suggested that this was a > core use-case for browser users that we were not meeting ourselves, which > is why we were making significant investments into the feature. The > decision to partner with Pocket instead of building our own service was a > shift in strategy, based on the belief that they offered a significantly > better feature and service than we were going to be able to deliver in a > timely fashion, and (as a bonus) at significantly less cost to Mozilla. > > So I can only assume that this was a money versus something that >> Mozilla that users wanted. > > > Even if your other assumptions were correct, revenue sharing requires > generating revenue, which really requires a lot of usage (especially in a > freemium business model like Pocket's). If users didn't want the feature, > it'd be silly to ship it, let alone try to profit from it after the cost of > making the deal, building, shipping and promoting the product, and > maintaining the code long term. The _only_ way for us to even > theoretically profit from an integration like this is for it to be > successful with users, which means we have to give users something they > want and need. > > Happily, we're actually doing all of this for the right reasons, and with > no revenue pressure. > Have you even looked at Input? Because the feedback about Pocket continues to be overwhelmingly negative. https://input.mozilla.org/en-US/?q=pocket&date_start=2015-09-18&selected=90d Let me share some feedback from users: "unable to remove Pocket from menu. it does not show up in bookmarks or bookmark toolbar. and generally such 3rd party items are unwanted." "I really don't like you force things upon users. You remove innovative unique features like tab grouping that I use and you add vendor specific addons like pocket which I don't use. Why there's no feature voting system already? You asks for donation while forcing ideas upon users. I regret my donation." "How do i remove pocket from the browser? WIll be using chrome until this is fixed." "Fuck DRM, Pocket, Hello and all of that bullshit. Fuck Yahoo too." "Because you integrate Pocket. It hurts the web!!! And Mozilla Foundation is against this!! WE ARE AGAINST THIS. That's the reason i choose Firefox." "Please remove pocket and hello from Firefox and make a separate plugin instead" " 现在简体中文版的火狐42.0不能用pocket！既没有集成在火狐软件中，又在添加附加组件中被删掉了（无法搜索到），浏览器重装后就没法用pocket了！！！！希望能解决！！！" There are hundreds of other pieces of feedback about Pocket including new comments left daily and I would encourage Mozilla to really look at whether this feature serves users and is what they want. We cannot keep taking risks and making mistakes if we want Firefox to be around in the future and I am of the opinion this was a mistake and to be utterly honest I think this feature will be gone in a year or two when Mozilla realizes it. _______________________________________________ governance mailing list governance@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
