>I think this is because simply chasing Chrome didn't have the desired effect anyway. By doing so, Mozilla hurt Firefox by gradually reducing what differentiated it from Chrome in the first place, relegating it to be kind of just a worse Chrome that looks even weirder.

That logic might work for firefox's product direction as a whole, but narrowly looking at the EME issue, what should have they done? If they didn't implement EME, then people will have to install chrome to watch netfilx. The users who are there as a matter of principle (eg. HN readers) might still use firefox as their daily driver, but they'd almost certainly lose some normies who were using firefox on inertia. Meanwhile because they refused to negotiate, they won't be able to influence the direction of the standard, which means no sandboxing of DRM modules and other privacy features. Both firefox and their users lose out in this scenario.

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jchw an hour ago | parent [-]

Simple: allow those users to be lost to preserve the product. The entire Internet is not Netflix. Most Netflix users today don't even use their laptops or desktops for Netflix: they use it on their TVs, phones, video game consoles.

Firefox is a bad way to use Netflix anyways. It doesn't support high resolutions because it has limited Widevine support anyways. It doesn't support Widevine l1 and never has. So... It is a worse way to watch Netflix.

I'm sorry but this "we can't possibly take a risk like this" mentality is cancerous. It is comfortable to "play it safe" and all, but nobody takes any risks for anything anymore. It's not calculated when the calculation is "avoid risk at all costs".

	▲	netdevphoenix 9 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> Simple: allow those users to be lost to preserve the product. Lose the users lose the funding. Firefox can't live out of HN as its sole userbase. Have you checked how much it costs to build and maintain a modern browser? Plenty of users who have no money for TV or consoles, watch it on their laptop on low quality. I am one of those who watches Netflix on Linux Firefox :) This isn't just any risk. It's an existential one for Firefox. You are asking them to make something that would be unpopular to the majority of its userbase at a point when they are borderline extinct. You are asking Mozilla to jeopardise Firefox for the same of a feature that YOU dislike enough to want to burn Firefox to the ground to get rid of it.
	▲	Mindwipe 6 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> It doesn't support Widevine l1 and never has. Firefox supports Widevine Level 1 on Windows 11 devices with the requisite hardware and has for a year or so. Not many providers other than Netflix support it still, but it does.