I think this a logic fallacy. It’s a false/ incomplete comparison.
Mozilla is not an advertising company. They have no incentive to track users or invade privacy. Their whole ethos as a company is pro-privacy obviously.
Yes, they take take money from Google to make them the default search engine on a fresh Firefox install. They are a big company with lots of employees (less as of recently) that need to be paid, and they don’t really have any products that generate large amount of income.
Seems like a small price to pay if you ask me. I’ve never heard anyone who throws out the ‘Mozilla takes Google money’ criticism back it up with why that somehow compromises Firefox as a browser.
Pragmatically speaking, you're right. Something needs to keep the lights on. Further, even if they did not set Google as the default search engine, surely many users would configure Firefox as such.
The browser isn't compromised, but their principles are. When you compromise your principles or apply them very selectively, you lose credibility and authenticity.
A fitting example of this is their Facebook container. They have poured a lot of resources into minimizing the potential harm Facebook can do to its users. They totally can, as they have no dependency on Facebook at all. Yet no similar effort is made to isolate Google services.
Again, we know why. Most users are unlikely to care, but it demonstrates that principles are for sale. If we were to focus on privacy only, both Brave and Apple take a far more principled approach in protecting privacy consistently. So where does this leave Mozilla on this matter?
Brave is basically the result of the firing of Brendan Eich, for his private donation to a cause rejecting gay marriage. You can think of that what you want, but there is zero evidence of him ever projecting this private belief in the workplace in any way harmful to anybody at all.
But I get it, it looks bad for a progressive organization like Mozilla. A PR disaster.
Their progressive image indeed largely seems PR. For example, they've had a series of large layoff rounds, whilst at the same time drastically increasing executive compensation. You have to wonder where this compensation is based on, as leadership is running Mozilla into the ground. Market share keeps bleeding and there's zero alternative successful revenue streams.
That's classic neoliberalism. Firing workers whilst enriching yourself. At the same time, they are involved in "equity" projects to address the issue of some people unable to afford internet access.
This is all very confusing. Principles are sold out, contradicted, and only seem to apply to others. That's why to me, Mozilla's "values" have little value.
A Firefox user does not need to care about any of this, but here comes the problem: Mozilla is downscaling on Firefox engineering whilst increasing their more activist/political projects.
How is that strategy not a disaster? They're great at engineering yet terrible at activism.
You make good points, I don’t necessarily disagree. But at a certain point I just don’t have the time or energy to analyze and stress over every detail of every company’s business practices.
When it comes down to it and I’m presented with the choice of opening Chrome or Firefox, I’m taking Firefox every time and it’s not close.
I'm with you. None of the above affects my choice for using Firefox.
It does affect my choice of offering any help, such as a donation. They won't get a cent out of me, given the above.
It's indeed a Mozilla problem, not a user problem. Yet the user base is shrinking, so I'd be curious to know how this will end. I suppose Google will keep Mozilla in a zombie state for a while just to avoid regulation pressure.
> but there is zero evidence of him ever projecting this private belief in the workplace in any way harmful to anybody at all
Materially supporting a public, political campaign intended to remove my civil rights is NOT private behavior and IS harmful to me. I agree with the rest of your post.
I understand where you're coming from, and agree it's a morally questionable stance. Not only that, also a foolish one, as the legalization of gay marriage seems an inevitability, like a domino-effect.
I too am puzzled by how denying somebody this right that in no way negatively affects him, is something to put your weight behind.
That said, it is private behavior. He didn't use company funds, express the belief publicly or acted in any negative way towards the LGBT community in the workplace, this is confirmed by Mozilla leadership, so not my take on it.
People are free to have any private belief or donate to any campaign privately, as in, this is well within the law.
It can mean many things, depending on their actions.
If they were just taking Exxon's money to do good things and Exxon thought it was a great PR move but still completely failed at building a good image that would be a massive win for Greenpeace in my view.
Not OP, but my understanding is that the browsers 'compete' much less than the public thinks they do. The developers attend conferences together, they co-fund initiatives like the MDN, they ultimately collaborate on a common spec. Google wins as long as people are encouraged to spend more of their time online. Firefox needs market share to sell homepage defaults. Apple wins as long as desktop and mobile capabilities converge so that they can sell iPhones but remains hard to monetize so they can sell apps. No one wins if antitrust regulation gets involved.
