“Thought” is really a misnomer and giving them too much credit.

But here is the Mozilla thought process on Firefox.

1) Covertly decide to remove a feature because, well, who knows? All the data analysis of theirs I’ve seen would be laughed out of a fucking fourth-grade science fair.

2) To placate power users and to give themselves more justification, first hide the feature by burying it or moving it into about:config.

3) Then run shoddy “analysis” and conclude that no one is using the now very-well-hidden feature. Of course usage decreases. You’ve hidden the damn thing.

4) Remove the feature completely with the above claim that it is not being used.

5) When an uproar occurs among the hundreds of thousands of people actually using the feature or who are mourning its disappearance, claim that people “just hate change” and that “the data analysis show only 4 dead people in Mongolia were using this feature, one of whom was actually a marmot. Also dead.”

6) Repeat as needed until Firefox is only suitable to run on phones and/or whatever asinine, unadvertised goal that they are actually trying to achieve occurs.

Here is the evidence.