The rest might as well be seen as make work programs for product managers.
Do a company's products need to be only products that only they can produce? I mean, almost nothing fits this bill, not even things like office suites. You're ruling out stuff like milk, glass, tires, text editors, etc.
> Only one provides a meaningful challenge to the hegemony of webkit.
Like, if your argument is that they have a super important product and should only focus on that, then OK. That's an interesting discussion that maybe I agree with (maybe not though).
> The rest might as well be seen as make work programs for product managers.
This is pretty dismissive, but also probably true for at least 30% of all tech products (which are also make work programs for software engineers, management, etc). I don't know why you're singling out Mozilla here, Google has a division of people making blimps so they don't go work for competitors.
I think there's value in Mozilla using its (admittedly dwindling) mindshare to push services that make browsing the web more private and more secure. Maybe you disagree, but it doesn't change the fact that they're products. And arguably, the "focus on Firefox" crowd should be pleased by this: it means Mozilla didn't "waste" resources on making their own VPN service, etc.
N.B. Firefox Focus is an Android/iOS mobile app that wraps the browsers on those platforms and essentially just blocks trackers. There's some other stuff but that's the gist.
P.S. thanks for the formatting advice
They'd have to walk a careful line though: people hate any kind of advertising in Firefox (Mozilla VPN had a big ad that everyone hated and got pulled; the Mr Robot debacle). That kind of limits your options.
Fair point about Thunderbird haha; I'm so annoyed that they did that.