Leadership within a realm begets influence. The entire goal of the FSF as a political organization is to influence the software industry to follow the core prin

Leadership within a realm begets influence. The entire goal of the FSF as a political organization is to influence the software industry to follow the core principles of Free Software that it espouses. By failing to be in a leadership position, and failing to do things to (re)gain the position, the organization as a whole is failing. The fact that companies representing "100s of billions of dollars in capital" had to put out statements regarding RMS returning to the FSF should tell you just how much of a leadership position the FSF used to have and how much they are damaging it by continuing to associate themselves with RMS.