As we read this, let us reflect that this reasonable and mature position resulted in a ~2% market share [0]. Still respectable at 1 person in 50, I suppose, but not trending in a way people are going to feel proud about.
Mozilla accepted Google's framing on what a web browser should be, and ended up in a world where it only makes sense to use chromium-based browsers since they better implement that vision. Firefox was always going to be a niche browser once Google got serious, but at least it could have been an interesting niche. Possibly it could be compared to Emacs - some people just love it because it was that customisable but it doesn't get a lot of love in the mainstream.
Now it is just unimpressive. Which is remarkable given the wide range of impressive things it could do up to 2016 that it cannot do today.
Mozilla accepted Google's framing on what a web browser should be, and ended up in a world where it only makes sense to use chromium-based browsers since they better implement that vision. Firefox was always going to be a niche browser once Google got serious, but at least it could have been an interesting niche. Possibly it could be compared to Emacs - some people just love it because it was that customisable but it doesn't get a lot of love in the mainstream.
Now it is just unimpressive. Which is remarkable given the wide range of impressive things it could do up to 2016 that it cannot do today.
[0] https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/all/worldwid...