Comment from a Mozilla developer:

I enjoyed this, well done! I’m just speaking for myself (but I know many of my colleagues agree) when I say that I don’t feel great about the source of our revenue. That being said, developing a rendering engine is very expensive (apparently even too expensive for Microsoft) and I’m not sure what the alternative is. Ironically, every time we do try to diversify (pocket, directory tiles, snippets etc), there is an even bigger backlash than the one about Google.

:: https://lobste.rs/s/b6jkt4/i_was_wrong_about_google_facebook...

He's like Cassandra, fore-telling, but no one is listening. Hard to fight against a mountain.

I suppose Google and the rest would be the trojan horse?

This really shows the power of money, size and market dominance, and on the consumer side of course the power of the business model of providing 'free' products and services. Convenience, network effects, FOMO, and very little awareness of what the dangers and capabilities of progressing surveillance capitalism now and in the future are, or the impact of (big) tech on society.

There are hopeful trends, but it is a David against Goliath fight, going back and forth and really slowly.

Reference to Mastodon discussion on the article: https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/101399355594255147

I don't find his arguments convincing at all. The appearance of supporting privacy is not mutually exclusive with invasive behaviour internally, and records - even if supposedly kept private - is still potentially vulnerable to being hacked/leaked. The problem is they collect data to sell as this is literally their business, while true privacy is only achieved when personal data is not collected.