> The trouble is, it costs money [..] I would imagine getting some funding helps keep things afloat. Mozilla has accrued a lot of money over the years. So much

> The trouble is, it costs money [..] I would imagine getting some funding helps keep things afloat. Mozilla has accrued a lot of money over the years. So much money that they could have funded--just on interest--a comfortable loft somewhere filled with hackers on a decent salary who are fanatical about the open web, and maybe a single guy with a tie to "call google", in perpetuity. That should have been the base case for Mozilla: open web, modern browser, users first. Unfortunately, brass doesn't vote itself out for the greater good. A modern browser is a delivery platform. The "open web" is a marketing tool. And users are not as important as advertisers. The rationale is that without clout, they'll be unable to prevent worse things from happening, so they have to allow for these compromises on the open web to maintain that clout, and every setback is relegated to "not our hill to die on," with every next hill becoming "not our hill." It seems like an unavoidable tragedy, but if we look at similar organisations, can we imagine the FSF or the EFF making compromises on their respective missions, even if they lose popularity or even run out of funding? I feel they would rather cease to exist than allow for corruption of their stated mission.