Mozilla is going to shut down their Mastodon instance

Why? Doesn't look like there's any explanation for this move.

The new CEO of Mozilla, Laura Chambers, already said on march she want to reduce investment for mastodon and other products (VR, VPN, Relay). So this is just another part in reducing cost on section that doesn't produce money. I'm not surprised. Sadly i have only a german source for that and the soure of them, bloomberg has a paywall.
- So this is just another part in reducing cost on section that doesn’t produce money.
  That's what I immediately thought - they're cutting corners to decrease dependency of googlebux, as depending on how things go those bux will go dry.
- They have/had stuff for VR?
  Edit: Oh yeah. They had a VR browser but it's a full environment one which is far less handy than simply using the android version of Firefox on the overlay screen in whatever environment I am already in.
- Damn. I use relay a lot
- But the VPN produces money...?
- I would've, or rather had at the time of its creation, fully expected it to shut down either way. Because that's kinda been the trend with most new Mozilla products from before the new CEO anyway.
The trolls in the comment section at least hints at the fact that creating a more positive and constructive online space proved more difficult than they imagined.
I was curious, and joined the queue for the closed beta a long time ago. Never heard back. They explored something new in closed channels, decided not to go for it, backed out. I don't really think they need to justify the decision.
Running a social media is a huge effort, and there's a lot of trolls out there actively targeting Mozilla. I imagine it's just more trouble than it's worth.
- Everyone: I wish Mozilla would just focus on their browser and not their other BS
  fast forward to them cutting costs on a Mastodon server that nobody uses
  Everyone: WTF???? I KNEW MOZILLA WAS A FAILURE OF A COMPANY CORPORATIONS ARE NOT OUR FRIENDS WHAT CLOWNS
  Threads like this make me wonder why any corporation would bother with the fediverse when this is how most people are on mastodon
- Folks in that masto thread were being quite rude. Like it's ok to be upset, but not nasty.
- They shouldn't be "running a social media", they should be working on making their browser the best client for the Social Graph that is ActivityPub.

Fediverse is so 2022. It's all about AI now.

I did not see a reason given. Anyone know why?

Political. Steve Teixeira was the one championing the focus on social. Apparently the faction that wanted him out won, and now they are getting rid of his babies, too.
Details of the lawsuit.
- I would suggest not trusting anything Lunduke says, the man went off the deep end and became a harmful conspiracy theorist.
  For example, he believes there is a trans advocacy group going around and destroying open source projects from within. That's right, only the Lunduke Journal has the truth, and the truth is that trans kids are killing open source.
- Lord of the Flies up in there, hot damn!
- Gutting defeated/ousted manager's projects is an obligatory and unavoidable ritual in corporate environment. Competent or convenient employees are pulled into other teams, pesky/unconvenient ICs are fired since everything can be pinned on the loser. Projects are often dismantled - even profitable ones to remove any possible foothold for a comeback. Shit, now I want to write a corpo book but styled like high school biology textbook.
Probably because nobody was using it.
307 users over the last month is barely worth keeping the server running when mastodon.social is getting 249 thousand.

Sorry to hear, the comments on the post aren't happy

Doesn't help that they have offered no explanation at all.
The comments on the post also aren't from Mozilla.social. It's not like they would have been happy to see Mozilla as a successful actor on the Fediverse either.
I think it's to be expected with their current decisions of chasing the AI trend and buying an advertising company, but mostly from chasing the AI trend. After all as much as the few AI-bros here would like to claim most of Firefox users are not happy about the idea of AI chatbot integration into Firefox, and especially aren't happy about AI search history integration into Firefox.
Many people think that Mozilla is trying to cut off communication with their customers or move to more corporate social media like threads or Twitter since their AI efforts are not being well received in this community. And will I definitely can say it's more complicated than that, that's not a wrong idea either, since their AI efforts are absolutely not well received by this community.

I guess along with all the google money, they also got Google's pathological need to cancel everything, too.

Well running a server and no longer interacting with a service can be two different things. From an organizational standpoint I could absolutely understand them not wanting or needing the expense of another service to maintain. Even for just their own use. As long as they still have accounts and post to the fediverse. I don't see a big issue

They'll probably still have an instance in the sense that mozilla folks with have @mozilla.social addresses. That's the kind of thing their hosting staff can easily administer on the side, and moderation is already covered by HR.

I hope that means that they can and will put more power into Firefox development - to concentrate on their main thing.

El oh el

Well that’s lame.

Normally these kind of announcements come with some kind of explanation. The lack of one reflects very poorly on Mozilla and leads me to assume the worst.

I have a feeling it's so they can use the money for more AI garbage. They've been heading in that direction lately, so it wouldn't surprise me.
Honestly I'm starting to think that their "experiments" are more about chasing trends than actually trying to provide good products and services for their users.

Are they leaving Fediverse?

i'm legitimately sad about this since i loved having a nice wholesome social media network that actually takes moderation seriously to keep up trolls and harassers :(

It is sad, really thought they were trying to do something good but I guess they were just trying to chase trends, they're pursuing the AI trend now heavily, and a lot of Firefox users are pissed about it, many think they are shutting down because they don't get the positive feedback and enthusiasm about AI that they were hoping to on Mastodon, as they do on other platforms like twitter and threads.

Man, Mozilla used to be nice but they have just turned so shit. I hope the core firefox people quit and make a new browser so that I can donate directly to the new browser instead of some middle man (or woman right now) who siphons off the money (aka Mozilla).

The replies are a prime example of the fediverse microblogging sphere's greatest qualities.

This entire event is unfortunate, but unsurprising.

Like what qualities?
- I'm sorry, banana, that was sarcasm. I saw nothing I'd call a quality.

I never interacted with mozilla.social, but I wonder if they considered organising mozilla.social through a connected volunteer association, before deciding to shutdown.

Managing unpaid volunteers is its own kind of headache

I bet its two users are both very sad

First I heard they even had a fedi.

Really sad to see it go and really annoyed to see them pushing AI

I was actually thinking about to go through the profile directory and follow interesting people on there. I guess I should wait.

Might be actually better to follow them now. In case these profiles move to another instance, you will still follow them after the move. But if you don't follow them it might be harder to find out if and where they moved to, to find them again.

Thats sad. I'm sure mozilla could have pushed the Fediverse

Lol...people sayin mozilla goin downhill...they have been putting up a fake premise to the public for 10 years.