3 ms·

I mean if you reduce something enough you can say “x pays for y” in almost any case for anything since it’s all technically one big pot for one group. Even earm

I mean if you reduce something enough you can say “x pays for y” in almost any case for anything since it’s all technically one big pot for one group. Even earmarked money. If I give you $500 to help pay for your medical bills and a few months later (bills have been paid by then) I see you bought a PS5, can I say, “not cool you used my money to buy a PS5”? Don’t get me wrong I think Mozilla/FF has been very poorly managed. But I have just never liked these kinds of “transitive property” arguments or whatever we want to call it. Unless they’re straight up funneling donations into the CEO’s bank account I just don’t see it that way.

ozgrakkurt 1y ago
You could say “you bought a ps5 with my money” though. If that person had the money, they should have spent on medical bills. If they got it after, they should have paid you back before buying a ps5 maybe. Or if you just gave them the money and don’t expect any accountability, it is ok.
- sothatsit 1y ago
  But that's the whole point: they did pay their medical bills. It's not like they didn't pay their medical bills and instead bought a ps5. They did both. Mozilla develops Firefox, and they also pay their CEO a lot. Their CEO may be overpaid, the company may be mismanaged, but at least they are still upholding their commitment to maintaining Firefox. Picking out one expense that you don't like and saying "all the donations go to this, see!" is just disingenuous. Whether donating is worthwhile is another question, and it seems like the answer would be no. But it is a very different thing to say "All the donations just go to the CEO" instead of "I think the CEO is paid too much". We could also cherry-pick in the other direction and say the CEO is negotiating deals to bring in the 90% of non-donation revenue of Mozilla, in which case you could easily say that his pay is a result of that revenue creation.
  - rishav_sharan 1y ago
    I think the key here is that they didn't have money to do both. If they had money enough for medicine, then why beg for donation?
    - Forgeties79 1y ago
      You gift me $100 on Venmo or cashapp or whatever to go dinner with my partner. I transfer it to my bank. It’s in the same bank account as all my other liquid cash. How can either of us ever say whether or not I spent that specific $100 on dinner? Mozilla/FF has a pot of money that donations go in to, which is the same pot they use to operate as well as pay people, which includes their CEO.
      - chii 1y ago
        > How can either of us ever say whether or not I spent that specific $100 on dinner? there's no such thing as a specific $100. The donation of the $100 was contingent on you not having $100 for dinner. If it turns out you _did_ have $100 for dinner, but now that you received $100 in donations, you can choose to also spend the extra $100 on something else (which the donor may or may not like). It is on the donor to figure out whether donating the $100 is worth it - at least the recipient needs to declare all their financials, so they'd have the info to make a judgement on future donations.
        Forgeties79 1y ago
        You’re making this a very strict, binary situation. Either you’re broke and every single dollar you are gifted or requesting is specifically earmarked for a specific thing, or you have all the money you need and you can’t ever receive a gift or request a donation. Nothing is that simplistic. Charities doing well and able to meet all their goals/payroll still keep asking for money because they need it to be sustained for more than months or a year. Also at the end of the day, they are requesting donations to keep things operating. And that means paying people to run things, including CEOs. Every charity has somebody at the top, so your donations are also paying for those people as well. Unless you’re willing to say that all charities are therefore fraudulent because you are paying executive personnel, I just don’t see how this argument can really be put forth in earnest.
  - owebmaster 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - sothatsit 1y ago
      Mismanagement or waste isn't the same as corruption. Corruption means deliberately lying, cheating, or acting unethically for personal gain, not just spending money poorly. Paying their CEO $7 million is generous, but not particularly unusual for a corporation with $650m in revenue (as of 2023).
      - aspenmayer 1y ago
        Income they make from revenue from doing what? What is the revenue generating activity Mozilla/Firefox is doing?
      - owebmaster 1y ago
        Calling it mismanagement IS corruption. What we are discussing here is known by Mozilla high-ups and board. They know their current and past CEOs are getting a huge prize for destroying Firefox and they couldn't care less. That's clearly corruption.
  - ta1243 1y ago
    If donations doubled, would CEO pay double? If donations halved, would CEO pay halve? I suspect the answer is "no" to both of those.
    - sothatsit 1y ago
      Exactly, so the donations are not being funneled to the CEO, and suggesting that they are would be silly. If you split up your donation by how Mozilla actually spends its money, then most goes to operating Mozilla, and a small amount (~1%) goes to paying the CEO.
    - Forgeties79 1y ago
      I agree but your tone suggests you’re disagreeing with me? That’s the point I am driving at. Directly linking every donated dollar to the CEO’s pay simply because they’re close in number does not make sense.
JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> whatever we want to call it Fungibility [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungibility https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungibility
- Forgeties79 1y ago
  Thanks that’s the word I was fishing for
ccppurcell 1y ago
> straight up funneling Money is fungible. There's no such thing as funneling. There is ring fencing though - that's when a certain budget cannot exceed a certain source of revenue, some countries do this with road tax I think. Afaik Mozilla is not doing any ring fencing. It is perfectly appropriate to compare the fraction of their income as donations to the fraction of their costs as CEO salary.

ozgrakkurt 1y ago

You could say “you bought a ps5 with my money” though. If that person had the money, they should have spent on medical bills. If they got it after, they should have paid you back before buying a ps5 maybe. Or if you just gave them the money and don’t expect any accountability, it is ok.

sothatsit 1y ago
But that's the whole point: they did pay their medical bills. It's not like they didn't pay their medical bills and instead bought a ps5. They did both. Mozilla develops Firefox, and they also pay their CEO a lot. Their CEO may be overpaid, the company may be mismanaged, but at least they are still upholding their commitment to maintaining Firefox. Picking out one expense that you don't like and saying "all the donations go to this, see!" is just disingenuous. Whether donating is worthwhile is another question, and it seems like the answer would be no. But it is a very different thing to say "All the donations just go to the CEO" instead of "I think the CEO is paid too much". We could also cherry-pick in the other direction and say the CEO is negotiating deals to bring in the 90% of non-donation revenue of Mozilla, in which case you could easily say that his pay is a result of that revenue creation.
- rishav_sharan 1y ago
  I think the key here is that they didn't have money to do both. If they had money enough for medicine, then why beg for donation?
  - Forgeties79 1y ago
    You gift me $100 on Venmo or cashapp or whatever to go dinner with my partner. I transfer it to my bank. It’s in the same bank account as all my other liquid cash. How can either of us ever say whether or not I spent that specific $100 on dinner? Mozilla/FF has a pot of money that donations go in to, which is the same pot they use to operate as well as pay people, which includes their CEO.
    - chii 1y ago
      > How can either of us ever say whether or not I spent that specific $100 on dinner? there's no such thing as a specific $100. The donation of the $100 was contingent on you not having $100 for dinner. If it turns out you _did_ have $100 for dinner, but now that you received $100 in donations, you can choose to also spend the extra $100 on something else (which the donor may or may not like). It is on the donor to figure out whether donating the $100 is worth it - at least the recipient needs to declare all their financials, so they'd have the info to make a judgement on future donations.
      - Forgeties79 1y ago
        You’re making this a very strict, binary situation. Either you’re broke and every single dollar you are gifted or requesting is specifically earmarked for a specific thing, or you have all the money you need and you can’t ever receive a gift or request a donation. Nothing is that simplistic. Charities doing well and able to meet all their goals/payroll still keep asking for money because they need it to be sustained for more than months or a year. Also at the end of the day, they are requesting donations to keep things operating. And that means paying people to run things, including CEOs. Every charity has somebody at the top, so your donations are also paying for those people as well. Unless you’re willing to say that all charities are therefore fraudulent because you are paying executive personnel, I just don’t see how this argument can really be put forth in earnest.
- owebmaster 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - sothatsit 1y ago
    Mismanagement or waste isn't the same as corruption. Corruption means deliberately lying, cheating, or acting unethically for personal gain, not just spending money poorly. Paying their CEO $7 million is generous, but not particularly unusual for a corporation with $650m in revenue (as of 2023).
    - aspenmayer 1y ago
      Income they make from revenue from doing what? What is the revenue generating activity Mozilla/Firefox is doing?
    - owebmaster 1y ago
      Calling it mismanagement IS corruption. What we are discussing here is known by Mozilla high-ups and board. They know their current and past CEOs are getting a huge prize for destroying Firefox and they couldn't care less. That's clearly corruption.
- ta1243 1y ago
  If donations doubled, would CEO pay double? If donations halved, would CEO pay halve? I suspect the answer is "no" to both of those.
  - sothatsit 1y ago
    Exactly, so the donations are not being funneled to the CEO, and suggesting that they are would be silly. If you split up your donation by how Mozilla actually spends its money, then most goes to operating Mozilla, and a small amount (~1%) goes to paying the CEO.
  - Forgeties79 1y ago
    I agree but your tone suggests you’re disagreeing with me? That’s the point I am driving at. Directly linking every donated dollar to the CEO’s pay simply because they’re close in number does not make sense.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

> whatever we want to call it Fungibility [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungibility https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungibility

Forgeties79 1y ago
Thanks that’s the word I was fishing for

ccppurcell 1y ago

> straight up funneling Money is fungible. There's no such thing as funneling. There is ring fencing though - that's when a certain budget cannot exceed a certain source of revenue, some countries do this with road tax I think. Afaik Mozilla is not doing any ring fencing. It is perfectly appropriate to compare the fraction of their income as donations to the fraction of their costs as CEO salary.