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Comment by probably_wrong | Hacker News Reader

I believe that the Mozilla execs have no faith in Firefox and instead are using whatever branding remains to position themselves as champions of digital rights.

And I mean sure, it's not a bad goal, but they are letting Firefox die in the process. And once you lost your place at the standards negotiating table, then what? They already capitulated when Google decided that browsers needed DRM, and I don't see them stopping WEI either.

I don't need yet another VPN. I need a strong browser to rival Chrome.

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I'm just going to copy/paste my comment from the other day, because this thread is a perfect example.

HN loves to simultaneously criticize Mozilla for

1) being financially dependent on Google

2) spending resources on literally anything except Firefox

3) doing anything that smells like monetizing Firefox, no matter how innocuous

Spoiler alert: They have essentially no hope of avoiding 1 without doing at least a little bit of 2 or 3. Unlike Google, Apple, and Microsoft, they don't have billions of dollars coming through the backdoor from other business units. The money can't just magically appear, so either they make it from Google, from Firefox, or from alternative services.

> I believe that the Mozilla execs have no faith in Firefox and instead are using whatever branding remains to position themselves as champions of digital rights.

That’s a charitable interpretation. An uncharitable one would be that, due to flaws in American 501c3 legislation, at least some people involved in Mozilla view their job as a sinecure. Capture of a non-profit for personal benefit is a longstanding phenomenon in the USA.

> Capture of a non-profit for personal benefit is a longstanding phenomenon in the USA.

No. Capture of a non-profit for personal benefit is key to the express purpose of non-profits in the USA.

The foremost function of non-profits in the US is to displace community organizations, especially democratic worker organizations which remotely resemble a workers' political party like you can find in other countries. Non-profit law in the US makes such organizations perfectly illegal while providing anti-democratic resemblances of them instead.

Ah yes, meanwhile I still get to use the only browser not made by the Gigacorp trying to put advertising anywhere they can.

People get so pissy about mozilla pissing away a few dollars here and there, or maybe is full of people just extracting cash from the brand.

Meanwhile google as a corporation extracts a tax on pretty much anything that touches the internet.

But sure, mozilla is the bad guy here and we shouldn't use their browser......

> People get so pissy about mozilla pissing away a few dollars here and there

It’s more than a few dollars. For years now, the majority of the Mozilla Foundation’s income goes to things other than developing Firefox.

Yes, mozilla is desperate to diversify income so google can't shut them down, and if you are a manager who can usefully direct improvements and plans for a web browser project, google can afford to pay you basically any dollar amount to keep you out of the hands of mozilla, so they probably don't have stellar management.

Meanwhile firefox works well, is plenty performant, and isn't pushing "standards" that try to make it easier to advertise to me, against my wishes. Why would you use the browser made by an advertising company instead?

Yours is a false dilemma. Being aghast at Mozilla’s non-profit mismanagement does not mean that one is using any other browser. A lot of us here are using Firefox but hoping and praying that the Foundation will be called to account or development will be taken over by some more benevolent and competent force.

Your efforts come across as facile to me. You're wanting a democratic organization, or at least one capable of acting in the interests of the consumers despite the fact that more consumers does not necessarily benefit the organization. This is an unrealistic expectation given the political economic circumstances, being those of late-stage capitalism. Even the most benevolent leader is constrained by their circumstances and hard power. You cannot resolve this through the consumer marketplace; you need to engage in politics one way or another.

Look, I’ve only seen two comments from you (with your very new account), but both of them are trying to introduce an element of political battle beyond the subject of discussion here. Not interested, sorry.

>the majority of the Mozilla Foundation’s income

The Mozilla "Foundation" does not develop Firefox at all. In fact they cannot do so. Because that would be tantamount to a nonprofit devoting resources towards the service of a for-profit business.

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