For many, many years I've never understood the zealousness with which fans of Firefox have relentlessly chased, accused, attacked and demeaned this project and the Pale Moon browser. But I think I got a handle on this today a bit better. It has to do with today's Cult of Personality.
With that I mean people identifying personally with a business or brand or product because they agree with them on a few issues. They chose to buy a product or use something or subscribe to a service because they agreed with the factors that made them make that choice and will from that point forward make excuses for that business or brand or product.
However, from an outside viewpoint, that's not an acceptable reason to give that business or brand a free pass when they do stupid things, and it shouldn't be for the people who make these excuses. So why does that happen anyway? After all, you're allowed to use something, subscribe to a service, etc. while at the same time pointing out "here's where you fucked up" or "didn't fulfil the promise you made to me".
I think people in this day and age don't do that anymore because they associate their identity with the person, or brand, or business they look up to.
So, my approach to these people has been wrong because I would talk about what Mozilla did. I did not like the way Mozilla treated their users. I didn't like that there were design defects in Firefox (e.g. UI choices) and that they would not address that and erode user choice in the matter. And when I would interact with Mozillians I would generally get very aggressive responses (with plenty choice words) when pointing out obvious things in the browser they were using and how Mozilla had changed things leading to objectively worse experiences. I did not understand this resistance or the blind ignoring of what was right in front of their faces. I was considered a PoS for even bringing it up.
That was really confusing to me; they would use a product that has clear design defects. What was I advocating for? That Mozilla improve their product, give users a better experience so I didn't have to fight for sanity in the browser space.
If I got what I wanted in that respect, as a result of demonstrating objective evidence of the browser losing essential functionality and user-friendliness, then Firefox could have been so much better of a product in the end, instead of this slowly degrading freewheeling experiment that it looks like more and more. But people were just pissed off at me, instead -- and I didn't understand that. Until today, really. It's that personal identification with Firefox and Mozilla that drives these emotions and drives this relentless leaning against what I created as an alternative.
When it comes to a person giving me a hard time, it goes something like this:
- That person chose to use Firefox.
- They made this conscious choice at the time based on their research and personality type, and how (of the choices) it fit their needs best.
- They accepted the brand, culture, and anything that goes into it to become a "Mozillian" (including the marketing like their "Manifest" and that Firefox has these high altruistic motives to do what they do)
- I was speaking bad of something Mozilla did.
I was annoyed at Mozilla because they screwed over their product and therefore the user. But the way the user interpreted it was that I didn't like them, personally, leading to such a strong and aggressive response towards Pale Moon and me as a person. I didn't understand that, as I've never identified with anything that way, myself. "Outside of my box", so to say.
If I had, I would have been able to make sure people better understood where I was coming from, and that they could feel it was not a personal issue I had with any of the Firefox users, just with the direction Mozilla was taking it in. I know I've said this plenty of times but probably not clearly or convincingly enough since I never thought about this being so directly personal to Firefox users, or rather not understanding why (beyond some form of zealousness or cult-like adherence). The strife created was not easily dismissed afterwards, of course, since the community culture had created animosity, as clearly expressed through MozillaZine and later r/palemoon.
In that different world, where I had understood this way back when and been able to express it, thousands of people would also not have been on these fora, running around talking shit about my project, sometimes blatantly making stuff up, or what a piece of garbage I was as a person. While the thing I was advocating for the entire time was a more usable and customizable version of Firefox, nothing else...
I guess what I'm trying to say to anyone who's still reading is this: You can like a product or business or brand, you can agree with what they say, you can feel connected with their world view or vision and still say that something they did was pretty dumb and they shouldn't have. You don't have to go all in on everything. It's never reciprocal from the business or brand side, anyway! You don't have to, and should not, hang your entire identity and personality on something you like, use or agree with. Don't be afraid to remain critical no matter how much you like something (and I mean that in every aspect of your life) and don't feel obligated to go out of your way to defend (to a fault) something that isn't actually yours, personally.
I hope this makes some sense to y'all. If not, just chalk it up to "old man screams at clouds" or something.
Thanks for reading.
