Post

Firefox for Web Developers

1. "Calcifying around a single model". Make it pluggable like search. 2. "To use the prompt API you must acknowledge Google's Generative AI Prohibited Uses Policy.". Yeah that's very bad. 3. "Overstated web developer position". Come on. Let's not create another iPhone moment for the web.

@webdevs.firefox.com

For #1, you still have the situation where the developer doesn't know what model they're talking to, so the problem isn't solved. For #3, I think it's important to show good evidence for claims like this.

30/4/26, 9:39 am0 reposts14 likes

I was at Mozilla when the iPhone launched. Seemed obviously disruptive, but all I heard was "too expensive", "doesn't have a keyboard", "show good evidence for claims like this". But evidence is always backwards-looking. We missed the train, then spent a decade and a half trying to catch up to apps.

Fabrice

@fabrice.capyloon.org

You started at Mozilla in 2011 according to your LinkedIn. The iPhone shipped in 2007...

Oops, you're right. After the iPhone launched. Even worse... the trajectory was clear by then!

Fabrice

@fabrice.capyloon.org

groups.google.comBooting to the Web

Check when Moz started to work on Minimo and Fennec. This was very early. And FxOS was announced in July 2011 (groups.google.com/g/mozilla.de...) Mozilla was not late and saw it coming, they just didn't have the courage to keep the lights on. You can blame Beard & Baker for that.

Taylor Hodge

@hodge.bsky.social

On some quiet nights I can still hear "But there's no copy/paste" echoing faintly on the wind.

pumpkin potch

@potch.me

I was at Mozilla when exactly zero web developers believed origin trials were anything other than new APIs they should expect to exist and demand from every vendor- they simply don't work for reversible experimentation. Lots of other ways to use models in web pages today! source: every website

True! And it is also possible to put search boxes in web pages today. Source: every website. However, putting a search box into Firefox was a game-changer. The thing we don't want to do is exit the loop and lose the ability to steer this disruption in user-friendly and web-friendly directions.

pumpkin potch

@potch.me

Firefox for Web Developers

a) lots of ways to use models on the web today (even locally if you don't mind wasm/onnx-scale) b) the origin trial has shown it's not a way to prototype anything you do not intend to ship, especially if it becomes popular. c) in-browser search WAS transformative but cemented google as hegemon...

@webdevs.firefox.com

@jauntywunderkind.bsky.social

i think this maybe isn't actually an iPhone

JauntyWunderKind

1 May

Yeah, it's fucking obviously bigger and more important and all connecting by far.

JauntyWunderKind

@jauntywunderkind.bsky.social

1 May

It's just so fucking petty that you would bank so hard on refusing & denial & naysaying that you would prevent everyone else on the web from even trying, at all. That's so fucking conservative. So fucking anti-progressive, banking only on politics of fear & no, to stand against maybe possibly.