Criticizing is easy, I'd like all critics to suggest alternatives to how FF development should be funded. I don't like this at all but I also cannot come up with any realistic alternatives.
For one, it would probably help a lot if Mozilla didn't try to be everything at once. They have a specific product niche, but both Firefox and Thunderbird (both of which should be their core development efforts), just don't seem to be what they're focusing on, instead seeming to thinking they have to be the EFF... before MBA rot seems to have kicked in and now Mozilla is a non-profit that owns an internet ad company (whilst deprioritizing and scaling back a bunch of the advocacy efforts that could upset advertisers. It's kinda funny that they're torpedoing their EFF-esque advocacy to invest into a business sector whose core existence runs contrary to their purpose.)
And that's before we dive into just how much they pay their executives and how much they could probably cut into the executive salaries to fund Firefox and Thunderbird before resorting to sponsorship deals.
The Mozilla Foundation isn't the most disconnected free software org where I have the suspicion that a lot of money is being spent on unnecessary side projects or funneled into rainy day funds while begging on the streets like they're poor (they're guilty of the former, they spend too much for the latter), but make no mistake - every major cut in their own browser market share was of their own making. And it's always tied to harebrained schemes to try and inject sponsored shit into Firefox. (Their original major dent that wasn't just gradual decline/rebalance due to Chrome entering the Browser market originated from Mozilla installing a tie-in extension with the show "Mr Robot".)
A lot of statements you throw out here are demonstrably false. It appears that you haven't tried in the least to actually become informed on this topic, and just spout the same tired talking points.
I am critical of some things that Mozilla does, but shouting blatant falsehoods and repeating "exec salary" ad nauseam is not helpful.
I just posted this the other day:
Firefox is massively profitable, (with a rising share of income not coming from Google). Change in net assets before taxes in 2022 was +168 M$, it was +220 M$ in 2021. This is on expenses of 425 M$ in 2022.
Software development was 220 out of the total expenses. General and administrative coming in second at 108 M$.
I don't know exactly what comparable software companies invest, but assuming that the 220 is entirely SWE salaries this seems appropriate overhead to my mind.
Marketing and Branding is next with 58M$ other program services come in at 34 M$.
So yes, Mozilla could drop all income generating activities other than Google without having to cut anything in development. That means staying dependent on selling the search bar to the largest and most invasive advertisment company there has ever been forever.
Instead, they are running a strategy that seems to aim to get independent of Google money as quickly as possible: Build up a war chest, increase other revenue streams. Other revenues are up to 75M$ in 2022 from 56M$ in 2021.
So looking at the actual figures, rather than making stuff up out of nowhere, it does not seem to me that you can accuse them for a lack of strategic focus. Nor have you articulated the actual trade-off they are facing: Rely on Google money or get better at monetizing Firefox in other ways.
Instead you straw-man their activism and make completely unfounded and implausible statements: "every major cut in their own browser market share was of their own making." I am sure that Google using their Web properties and massive ad campaigns to push Chrome and Microsoft using Windows to push Edge had no impact whatsoever.
> So looking at the actual figures, rather than making stuff up out of nowhere, it does not seem to me that you can accuse them for a lack of strategic focus.
$220 millions are the aggregated expenses of ALL software 'development' efforts of Mozilla Corporation like VPN, Relay, Pocket, mozilla.social, etc. And there are a lot of interesting expenses which are billed as development (like MCKENSIE MACK GROUP payments). How much of that went to Firefox nobody knows.
Net assets are growing but user base is shrinking (and of course it was Google and MS who alienated their users in 2016-2018 by introducing a lot of breaking changes and made FF not usable /s). That's why CEO deserves a big fat bonus and raise.
You can't accuse them for a lack of strategic focus, indeed. But what is their strategic focus? Is it filling their pockets with money and living a lavish lifestyle?
What they could do better is move Firefox development into a separate fund and manage it from there. Just like they did with Thunderbird.
They could let users give them money for the browser. The two obvious ways are to make a "Firefox Pro" that is completely identical but with a different logo or something just to let people pay for it, or make a "Firefox Pro" that, y'know, doesn't have ads. The second one doesn't exactly sit well with me but either is better than the current approach.
I see far too many people essentially saying, "If it wasn't funded unethically, it couldn't exist!" Or "my business needs to do [unethical thing] or I can't compete!"
Okay, then it shouldn't exist. That's not an excuse.
The irony is that if Mozilla had just taken the search deal money over the past decade and a half and quietly kept it away in a rainy day fund instead of wasting it all on ideas that mostly didn't go anywhere or reinvented the wheel from existing projects, they probably would be just fine for the rest of their lifetimes.
The only reason they're looking for unethical funding is because a. Mozilla has grown so bloated beyond it's original purpose that they have ludicrous operating demands and b. because they have a bunch of MBA types in charge who can only think up the most unethical schemes you can think of to make money.
iOS only is for sure a limitation but I've been using it for a while and it's great! Chrome and FF add-ons on iOS including full uBlock Origin.
This is exactly the browser HN has been asking for: no ads, not funded by ads, fully funded by users directly paying them. Fully bootstrapped business with the only funding round they've ever taken coming entirely from their user-base.
