No, it's worse than that - they chose to target geeks, then decided to throw out the geeks in an attempt to target a more mainstream audience[0] and then failed to actually get the mainstream userbase, leaving them with neither the nerds nor the normies.

[0] Firefox has always been at its strongest as a power-user's browser, chock-full of extensions and tweaks. Mozilla met this advantage with... two extinction events for extensions, and removal of customization options.

Yes, exactly. Google and Microsoft have huge anti-competitive advantages that they have been able to use to target casual users. As long as that continues Firefox will be facing an uphill battle to get casual downloads, but neither of those large companies care at all about power users. That gives Mozilla a big opening to get a niche of users that will heavily evangelize their browser and install it on friend and family devices.

Unfortunately Mozilla's leadership does not see it that way and have steadily pissed off a huge number of former fans, without making inroads with any other groups.

They are in a tough position regardless, but combining that with terrible product and organization management has gotten them into the state they're in now.

No, Firefox never targeted geeks. It's just that, when it came out, the only people who used a browser other than Internet Explorer happened to be geeks. The audience came to them, rather than them going to the audience.

Power user features were part of Firefox's marketing from day 1. They never targeted geeks only. But they did target geeks.

It also does not help that many of the big businesses break their website if you do not let them track you.

I use Safari + Wipr Content blocker with iCloud Private Relay, and it is just so inconvenient to do anything on many major websites. At the least I have to reload the website without a content blocker, and at worst, I have to use Chrome, giving up my privacy.

If a somewhat computer literate person like me who knows about content blockers/iCloud Private Relay/VPN/ublock Origin has to relent and use Chrome, then what chance does a layperson have? They will just use Chrome and go on about their business. They want to spend their life doing other things, not figuring out why Target is not letting them order this clothing item they spent 10 minutes looking for because they are getting flagged as a bot or fraudster or simply not letting themselves be tracked.

I especially love when you block location access to a retailer's website, and then the retailer breaks their functionality for choosing the actual store you want to shop at. They have your billing and shipping address from previous orders, they have your 2FA login, and yet, every single time, they ask for access to your location, and when you decline, they set your store to some random store within a few hundred miles of you because (I assume) they are trying to use your IP address to show you the store.

I have the same problem in Safari with Wipr, and iCloud Private relay. But I still have it as my default browser.

Firefox with uBlock origin works much better, and I use for most reading, research, coding related things.

Arc for hacker news.

Then I only use Chrome when the above don't work. Which is very rare.

I truly do not understand the complaints about Firefox, the browser (and not Mozilla's questionable stewardship thereof). Every time someone starts talking about their issue, it's either something super niche and inconsequential, or something that doesn't seem to have sufficient evidence to blame on the browser (turns out, crappy web apps will make any browser slow to a crawl). I used Chrome for a few years back in the mid-teens, then switched back to Firefox, and manage to use the Web just fine. It's a browser, it renders web pages. I really don't understand the fuss. Meanwhile, Google (the advertising company) would totally like you to use Google (the browser), for totally innocent reasons.