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Mozilla

Mozilla Founder Slams Mozilla Foundation For Adopting Cryptocurrency Payments (twitter.com) 130

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
A user writes: Jamie "jwz" Zawinski, famous for being one of the original Netscape developers, being a founder of the Mozilla project, and for this axiom, has laid into Mozilla after the Firefox developers announced they was accepting Dogecoin, Bitcoin, and Ethereum cryptocurrency payments, via Bitpay, for Mozilla's services and donations. Quote jwz: "I'm here to say fuck you and fuck this. Everyone involved in the project should be witheringly ashamed of this decision to partner with planet-incinerating Ponzi grifters."
UPDATE (1/6/2021): Days later the Mozilla Foundation announced they were instead pausing cryptocurrency donations to review whether the idea "fits with our climate goals."
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Mozilla Founder Slams Mozilla Foundation For Adopting Cryptocurrency Payments More

Mozilla Founder Slams Mozilla Foundation For Adopting Cryptocurrency Payments

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  • planet-incinerating Ponzi grifters

    Ouch, however you feel about our ability to "incinerate" the planet, that's as memorable as the "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" [wikipedia.org] was...

    • I prefer "Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't." - Margaret Thatcher

  • Its the new oil... with the good and bad. Maybe even worse in a few decades
    • What are the good parts again?

      • Re:Well he is not wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Entropius ( 188861 ) on Monday January 03, 2022 @02:11PM (#62139081)

        It lets extortionists extort, speculators speculate, and grifters grift.

        It hasn't, to my knowledge, facilitated any of the things that money is good at -- like letting me exchange my ability to program computers or teach science or play music for bread or a place to live. US dollars do that, though.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          It lets extortionists extort, speculators speculate, and grifters grift.

          That does sound remarkably like the history of oil exploitation.

          • Yes, it does. And the burning of oil is contributing to climate change, and we need to stop doing it.

            But that doesn't change the fact that burning oil has advanced human society in some pretty significant ways.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

              The problem with taking analogies too far....

              Until quite recently there wasn't a realistic alternative to oil, never mind superior ones. Crypto currency is such a poor currency that it's very rarely used that way, and most of the people who have tried have quickly given up. So if you're expecting it to revolutionize the world, you should probably think about backing something more realistic. Like the EM drive.

              • Bitcoin uses enormous amounts of electricity and does nothing, while EM drive uses moderate amounts of electricity and does nothing.

                So this begs the question: with a thousand EM drives, could you mine bitcoin?

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

                  This is a fascinating question, clearly worthy of some advanced project grant funding.

        • So does USD.

          • Yes. But dollars also let me exchange my labor for turnips. I cannot get paid for my labor in bitcoin (unless I am a cybercriminal, I guess) and cannot go to Wegmans and exchange said bitcoin for turnips.

            • I have received and paid for both goods and services, all legally, in Bitcoin. It's not the default, but it's certainly not impossible.

              (Though, in hindsight, I do rather regret spending 2 BTC on mybackpack I bought from Overstock way back when. It's an excellent bag and I use it often, but I rather wish I'd held onto it a bit longer. ;) )

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Bert64 ( 520050 )

              There are legitimate employers that will give you the option to accept all or part of your salary in the form of bitcoin or other crypto.
              There are legitimate companies as well as individuals who will accept bitcoins or other crypto in exchange for goods and/or services.

              There are plenty of legitimate companies that will not pay your salary in USD, and will not accept USD as payment for goods or services. Most companies will only pay your salary or accept payments in whatever native currency is used in the co

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by swep ( 7578022 )
          I don't know what you're talking about. I exchange BTC for gasoline, gadgets, food, travel, clothes and more every day. Just because you don't do it doesn't mean it can't be done, or that it is even particularly difficult or weird. I do this by using giftcards which are denominated in fiat currencies, but that does not equate using fiat currencies (lookup indexed currencies for by a nobel laureate that also hates bitcoin regarding this concept).
      • Honestly i dont think there really is any at this point. Now its mostly a self sustaining fomo monster. The idea was great and perhaps the blockchain technology will bring something good to humanity in the end. But as it is now its not really any good. And when they say it made a lot of people rich the only ones that mafe money of it is miners, exchanges and the gov. Guess the ones producing electricity and asic miners are happy also. The rest are just shuffeling money around... and for sure noone is spendi

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Zagnar ( 722415 )

        You can buy some pretty good drugs with it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Sloppy ( 14984 )

        What are the good parts again?

        The main advantage is this: it's always accessible and you don't need any particular party's permission to use it. 99% of the world can have the attitude of "fuck that business and its customers" and you still get to perform the transaction anyway. You can't do that with proprietary payment forms such as credit cards or paypal (and in fact their proprietariness means you really only need epsilon% of the world to say "fuck you" for you to lose).

        Some businesses simply won't ever

  • RTFL (Read The F*** Links) (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Nahor ( 41537 ) on Monday January 03, 2022 @01:35PM (#62138951)

    Jamie "jwz" Zawinski, famous for [...] this axiom ["now you have two problems"]

    ... then links to an article that debunks it and says David Tilbrook is the actual author.

    • I wish I had mod points. This post is completely incorrect it debunks nothing and does not say Tillbrook is the actual author.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Nahor ( 41537 )

        This post is completely incorrect it debunks nothing and does not say Tillbrook is the actual author.

        Then you didn't read the whole article either:

        As cute as the “now you have two problems” quote is, it seems that Jamie wasn't the first to come up with the idea. The same quote (but with AWK rather than regular expressions as the punch line) shows up in the sig of John Myers post from 1988, where he credits a “D. Tilbrook” for it:
        “Whenever faced with a problem, some people say `Lets use AWK.'
        Now, they have two problems.” -- D. Tilbrook

        and the December 16th, 2020 update, which quotes Tillbrook saying he came up with that phrase in a conference in 1985.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • None of your words are unique to you. They've all been said by somebody else before.

      Next time you use a cliche... did you provide a citation?!?!?!?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fedos ( 150319 )
      It's amazing that someone with reading comprehension as bad as yours made it to the part about David Tilbrook.

  • I'm using that - Ponzi grifters...

  • Some people, when confronted with a problem, think “I know, I'll use regular expressions.”
    Now they have two problems.

    Quoting Jason Mendoza [youtube.com] in The Good Place [wikipedia.org]:

    I'm telling you, Molotov Cocktails work.

    Any time I had a problem, and I threw a Molotov cocktail ...
    Boom, right away, I had a different problem.

  • I shouldn't hold my breath for DNA Lounge to start accepting crypto payments any time soon

  • Bitcoin (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Artem S. Tashkinov ( 764309 )

    Don't wanna talk about other cryptos but if you study Bitcoin's history just a tiny bit you'll quickly realize it's never been a Ponzi scheme or even something remotely related to it. None of bitcoin's developers has ever advertised it or offered to invest in it and get more on your investment.

    • Re: Bitcoin (Score:5, Informative)

      by sabian2008 ( 6338768 ) on Monday January 03, 2022 @03:22PM (#62139303)
      Hi birdie! Due to the decentralized/consensual nature of it, if most people act with Bitcoin like in a Ponzi, then Bitcoin **is** (present tense) a Ponzi.

      • Hi, a very big "if" don't you think? ;-)

        There are so many things about Ponzi schemes which are not present in Bitcoin, comparing them is kinda ... illogical to put it mildly:

        • A creator(s) who tries to flog it while promising insane ROI based on very dubious logic
        • The said creator(s) knowing when to pull out of it and pulling out eventually
        • An insane amount of advertising
        • A whole chain of privy people trying to recruit new investors and then bailing out

        Bitcoin's only promise so far has been: "An attempt

        • But they do promise insane ROI based on very dubious logic. Bitcoin is _deflationary_. There's a finite supply of it. Bitcoin is also designed to get harder over time, thus making its supply/demand ratio skyrocket over time.

          It has an insane amount of advertising - this advertising doesn't have to come from the primary developer. The deflationary nature of it insures that those that jumped on early will tout it for you.

          The ledger aspect of it is merely a side-effect in that transactions have to be rec

          • But they do promise insane ROI based on very dubious logic.

            No one on Bitcoin's team has ever done that. Media does, media hypes but that's media, not Bitcoin developers. The rest of your comment is very much beside the point (of a Ponzi scheme).

      • Do original holders get their money from new holders? Yes, but only in the same way a previous owner of a car gets money from the buyer of the car. Even if someone advertised the hell out of a really bad car and sold it for more money than it deserved that is still NOT a Ponzi scheme. While some tokens are literally programmed to dish out to holders insane amounts of tokens, it still isn't a Ponzi scheme, its just programmed in inflation. I agree that most and maybe all crypto are speculative investments t

    • of course BTC and other coins qre Ponzi scams, whether it is explicitely stated or not, this is their entire purpose. In 2021 all gains in BTC happened early in the year, since then whenever new people purchased it, they only saw the prices drop. Also major TV network entire business model seems to be pumping Bitcoins (and other crypto currencies), developers don't have to do it, many other people do.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      What worries me is that they seem to be trying to pivot away from making a browser. They keep trying different things until one works.

    • This is like arguing whether Beanie Babies were a pyramid scheme. I think the only correct answer is "no," while simultaneously nodding.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dAzED1 ( 33635 )
      Almost nothing stays what it originally was. Any sane person could have seen it would have become a Ponzi scheme, given the whole increasing scarcity thing.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      So if I sell you a car that will likely explode but don't claim it "won't explode", I'm not selling you a dangerous car?

  • partner with planet-incinerating Ponzi grifters

    Why is he so opposed to US fiat currency?

  • planet-incinerating Ponzi grifters

    That's golden.

  • I just wish he wasn’t so reserved. It’d be good if he learned to occasionally come out of his shell and let us know what he *really* thinks.

  • I wonder how much energy usage our monetary systems used prior to cryptocurrency. I don't have any metrics but I'd imagine that energy cost to produce; paper cash, bonds, certificates, coins, coin wrappers, transporting and logistics of said currencies, visa servers, banks servers, and more probably add up to quite a bit of energy usage. You never hear anyone complaining about that though....

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Moloth ( 2793915 )

      Yea but we have way more efficent money transfer systems now. For every 1 bitcoin transaction you can do 1,200,000 Visa transactions [statista.com]

      • Bitcoin is 13 years old. When VISA was 13 years old it couldn't process any transactions in real time. In fact, fees were so high up until the 90's that even though you could process them individually, companies would wait til the end of the day and batch process them all to save money. Some companies still do this and it can take DAYS for your transaction to process.

        Just like the first credit cards, it took some time for it to evolve into a system that works for most everyone. I expect the same from c

  • "I'm here to say fuck you and fuck this. Everyone involved in the project should be witheringly ashamed of this decision to partner with planet-incinerating Ponzi grifters."

    Nice ..
  • Mozilla is trying to adapt to the currency of value to the younger user base (?)

  • If you can define a criteria by which crypto is a Ponzi scheme, that same criteria will show that traditional cash too is a Ponzi scheme.

  • ... has Woke Mind Disease.

  • JWZ is just your basic leftist. Of course he'd be against crypto and be a supporter of establishment govt. fiat currency.

  • "Reason cannot defeat emotion, an emotion can only be displaced by a stronger emotion" --Baruch Spinoza (b. 1632)

  • If you're going to criticize a thing, organization, or person, it's helpful to be able to answer the question: Compared to what?

    National currencies can also be used for ransoms, bribes, etc. In some circumstances one is better than the other for a criminal's purpose. The same is true for beneficial uses of currency.

    National currencies can be devalued via inflation, with devastating effect on the populace -- modest with moderate inflation, severe with hyperinflation. In a country where, on payday, you a

  • https://www.lynalden.com/bitco... [lynalden.com] Never mind your own energy use. Or the energy consumed by the banking industry. Or the energy spent on guns and fighter jets to back up the ever shrinking dollar thanks to political money printing by our good friends at the Federal Reserve.

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