drwankingstein

Appologies, I am not a tax auditor, I don't have enough spare time to go comb through mozilla's finances to list out every single expense mozilla has. If mozilla can't make do on that funding, they maybe they deserve to shut it's doors for good afterall.

Yes. Mozilla has let firefox rot. Firefox can't even do tasks like render gradients properly (examples of such issue https://play.tailwindcss.com/9hekptcy9b https://codepen.io/art-solopov/pen/VYwwdBK. and refuse to implement stuff like webusb despite the fact that it can be done in privacy friendly ways.

I don't think firefox is a lost cause, but I do think mozilla is a lost cause. I have little hope that mozilla will right the ship, but sometimes things happen that do give me hope.

I do think gecko is quite frankly a bad platform, there is indeed a reason why so many things use blink/chromium as a base and not gecko, is it possible to make gecko into a suitable alternative? sure, but mozilla hasn't gotten even remotely close.

I don't believe things like AI fund are things that should be in mozilla's scope, at least back when I was religiously donating to mozilla, their manifesto didn't even exist when I was, but even their old one is something more in line with what I agree with. Mozilla has changed a LOT over the years, and the return to old mozilla is what I, and many others want.

Google pays mozilla iirc around 400m a year, loosing 85% of that yeah, that sucks, sure. but yeah, there is enough to sustain firefox and thunderbird and some other things. If not, something is dreadfully wrong.

servo is an absolute gem, easy to contribute to, easy to work on, devs are super helpful, compiling doesn't take ages nor does it kill my SSD. an absolute gem.

Last I checked pocket and VPN didn't make that much, I was... somewhat? mistaken however, page 6 is relevant https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-2023-fs-final-short-1209.pdf and indeed pocket + VPN are might actually be a significant amount of funding here, it's hard to tell from just this since it's lumped in with advertising.

Im just wondering what benefit is it to people that they get mozilla VPN and not one of the other ones?

One's that are actually directly related to mozilla's mission statement, polution and studies on nuclear reactors in africa, not related.

Some of them are, copy and pasted from another comment,

300’000 for european AI fund, 100’000 on an interactive tool for exploring broadband inequalities, 50’000 for Carbon footprint, 50’000 for another pollution related project, 50’000 for studing the impact of nuclear reactors in africa

and much more here https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/b200-mozilla-foundation-form-990-public-disclosure-ty23.pdf

well for one, disclosed in their 2021 they spent 300'000 on an advocacy group called MCKENSIE MACK GROUP and 375'000 to new venture fund. Neither of which have anything to do with free internet technologies. And much more has been left rather hard to find.

In their annual report for 2024 they also show weird spending https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-2023-fs-final-short-1209.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/b200-mozilla-foundation-form-990-public-disclosure-ty23.pdf

Page 7 (PDF page 8) lists the funding that executives have gotten, quite a lot for a "non profit" Page 10 (PDF page 11) is also relevant.

Where it gets really interesting is after PDF page 35

300'000 for european AI fund, 100'000 on an interactive tool for exploring broadband inequalities, 50'000 for Carbon footprint, 50'000 for another pollution related project, 50'000 for studing the impact of nuclear reactors in africa and a bunch more of these, while in some cases meaningful, completely unrelated projects from mozilla which used to be about internet and other digital rights stuff (which has changed in recent years)

I don't think it would recoup the money that is spent, I don't even think it needs to. Yes, a majority of their income comes from google, but they still make a lot of money, mozilla's search income is 85 percent according to https://www.theverge.com/news/660548/firefox-google-search-revenue-share-doj-antitrust-remedies

If firefox were to focus on just firefox and thunderbird, and sure other things that do directly make them money, then they would still have plenty of funding left over for developers to work on mentioned projects

They spend so much superflous money on crap like AI and random advocacy groups. Mozilla makes a lot more money then people tend to think they do.

Last I checked, mozilla VPN is just mullvad.