I think Mozilla is doing really important works incl. Firefox, Thunderbird, Llamafile and so on. I use them heavily and I want to keep supporting their works. However, their management keep doing shitty things like this.
I don't believe that privacy and advertising can coexist. I use Firefox specifically because I don't want to see ads, yet Mozilla is trying to push ads, which is a glaring contradiction. I'm worried that this could lead to their eventual disappearance in the future.
It’s possible for users to donate money directly for Thunderbird development (since it’s a separate for-profit subsidiary under Mozilla Foundation). All donated money goes into developing and supporting Thunderbird.
But it’s not possible to donate money to support Firefox development because that’s under Mozilla Corporation (another for-profit entity under Mozilla Foundation). This, I believe, has resulted in multiple monetization strategies and offerings, such as Mozilla VPN (which is actually reselling Mullvad), MDN Plus (not sure about how this money is used), etc.
With Google’s antitrust lawsuit going on and the real possibility of Google not being allowed to pay for being the preferred search engine (this was the main source of income for Mozilla Corporation), Firefox is at a bigger risk of not having enough money. Unless Mozilla restructures the organization and finds ways to get money for Mozilla Corporation, Firefox as it exists now will probably have to find a new home with a new name.
How much money does it take to manage and develop a web browser? Was it necessary for them to create a whole new way to deliver ads to support it? I feel like a lot of these tech nonprofits like Mozilla and Wikipedia are constantly begging for money despite their overall costs not needing to be that high, but they have this idea that have to continually develop new features and grow rather than just continue to deliver the same stable product.
I don't believe that privacy and advertising can coexist. I use Firefox specifically because I don't want to see ads, yet Mozilla is trying to push ads, which is a glaring contradiction. I'm worried that this could lead to their eventual disappearance in the future.