Because what the globe needs is yet another company pandering to tech elites and ignoring the huge numbers of people out there of modest means? I mean seriously, Apple does all this stuff you're saying, pulling in devs with the shiny stuff, and targeting the SF yuppie... and this helps the people in Spain and India how? Not to mention that you're talking about the market segment already occupied by Android. Mozilla was trying to cater to those left behind.
Mozilla's raison d'etre isn't to push libre software per se. It's to enable the masses; libre software is merely an asset in that mission.
Read again what I wrote: the point was to get the phones into the hands of hackers, so they would write apps and create that ecosystem to ultimately benefit people elsewhere. (If there's a place with a more active hacker culture than the Bay Area, let's bring the phones there.)
I agree with amyjess' point made elsewhere. A quality phone is the means by which you get people interested in a platform, particularly developers. I think that's what's happening with Android and iPhone, in that the first phones are expensive, but the cost is spiraling ever downward. I just would rather see a freer alternative succeed, and hoped FirefoxOS would be it.
The hackers in the bay area are more interested in shiny iphones than up'n'coming tools for the masses. You'd be better off doing it in Europe, where there is a stronger hacker culture towards doing stuff 'for everybody', plus much more familiarisation with i18n issues. In this bay area/startup bubble we live in, the default refrain is "I don't want to fiddle with the underlying machine", and that's not the kind of mindset you want for an underdog that is never going to be as polished as the market leader.
> iPhone ... but the cost is spiraling ever downward
The iPhone 1, the one that got people excited, was US$400. The iPhone 7 is US$650 (for the bottom model). Inflation in the US has not been 50%+ for the intervening decade.
Because what the globe needs is yet another company pandering to tech elites and ignoring the huge numbers of people out there of modest means? I mean seriously, Apple does all this stuff you're saying, pulling in devs with the shiny stuff, and targeting the SF yuppie... and this helps the people in Spain and India how? Not to mention that you're talking about the market segment already occupied by Android. Mozilla was trying to cater to those left behind.
Mozilla's raison d'etre isn't to push libre software per se. It's to enable the masses; libre software is merely an asset in that mission.