But it’s a completely separate codebase right, and that’s the monoculture we’re aiming to prevent here.

If it’s not about tech but rather about funding, then should we be concerned of the monoculture of American browser vendors, or English speaking browser vendors? I don’t think we need to be, but I also think the tech side is the important place to prevent a monoculture for the open development of web technologies.

I might argue that being funded by Google gives Firefox stability, and allows it to deliver to a broad audience. If it were funded exclusively by, say, HN readers then it would probably end up being used exclusively by HN users.