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>Mozilla takes donations, so it isn't necessarely free.

This is a wild take. Taking donations doesn't invalidate the fact that it is available to everyone for free. By definition donations are voluntary. No part of Thunderbird is behind paywalls of any sort.

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Wonder why they didn't think about feature funding. As in, letting people donate to specific features.

Donations are a small part of their income.

Donations to Mozilla which go to Firefox may be a small part of Firefox's income.

Donations directed to Thunderbird go to Thunderbird, and are 99% of Thunderbird's income.

The income streams are not mixed.

Hmm. Maybe they have already experimented with "Donate to this specific feature if you really like it" style focused donation campaigns.

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