It’s not a product that you pay for or product that is sold. It is a product that is provided for free. However, that product can no longer be provided for free because Mozilla doesn’t profit off of you using their free product.
Mozilla (the non profit) actually doesn’t aim to profit at all. They aim to support the ongoing development of Firefox and similar projects. Which is currently under risk of not having the necessary funding to pay engineers to build and maintain it.
Mozilla needs more money so that they are not under the risk of sudden collapse if they stop getting money from Daddy Google.
Honestly, it’s a shitty situation to be in. As the grand majority of users don’t understand just how involved browser development is. And those users instead donate to projects that are either forks of Firefox (and directly depend on Mozillas investment) or are (at this stage) toys, like Ladybird.
Which leaves a slim set of choices for the continued funding of the project. All of which it’s core user base hates (Market trend following, new features to see what sticks, AI related integrations, ads, subscription services…etc)
Yet it’s core user base isn’t willing to donate so it’s kind of a self-caused problem.
Side note. IIRC the foundation’s highest paid executive employees make about what a senior engineer at Netflix makes. To put that into perspective.
What you say is true.
It’s not a product that you pay for or product that is sold. It is a product that is provided for free. However, that product can no longer be provided for free because Mozilla doesn’t profit off of you using their free product.
Mozilla (the non profit) actually doesn’t aim to profit at all. They aim to support the ongoing development of Firefox and similar projects. Which is currently under risk of not having the necessary funding to pay engineers to build and maintain it.
Mozilla needs more money so that they are not under the risk of sudden collapse if they stop getting money from Daddy Google.
Honestly, it’s a shitty situation to be in. As the grand majority of users don’t understand just how involved browser development is. And those users instead donate to projects that are either forks of Firefox (and directly depend on Mozillas investment) or are (at this stage) toys, like Ladybird.
Which leaves a slim set of choices for the continued funding of the project. All of which it’s core user base hates (Market trend following, new features to see what sticks, AI related integrations, ads, subscription services…etc)
Yet it’s core user base isn’t willing to donate so it’s kind of a self-caused problem.
Side note. IIRC the foundation’s highest paid executive employees make about what a senior engineer at Netflix makes. To put that into perspective.