I wholeheartedly agree with most or all of this and it's refreshing to see thoughtful commentary amidst a tidal wave of crazy speculation. I actually think it would be much more fair, in the event that FF raised $100MM from donations, to have to be accountable to user perceptions of where those resources are going. Although my experience from hn commentary is that people are extremely confused about this and vocal minorities create an illusion of consensus, and express their concerns in drive-by fashion that isn't super amenable to a focused conversation that could be tied to a credible strategy.
The best version of the argument I think one can make relates to Firefox OS. There, at long last, in contrast to spurious complaints about the VPN, Pocket, etc. etc., it seems like Mozilla really did invest serious resources in it at the expense of browser development, and it did happen during the critical period of time where they collapsed from 35ish percent to 3 percent. But it was on behalf of a major bet of the kind that I would like to think everyone welcomed, so, a real risk, but for a respectable strategy. And, they did produce Quantum, a rewrite from the ground up with spectacular improvements in speed and stability (which makes the present day arguments feel like they are at least vestigal echoes of an old argument that was, in its time, legitimate). But you never hear critics talk in a measured way like that.
I do agree that the vocal minority would claim the donations are not being used on $INSERT_THING, which is always a different thing every time you ask (I recently heard that it was all the VC fund's fault which was a new one), and they're already talking like that right now. But I suppose it wouldn't hurt to be open to that revenue. I think it's plausible they could pull something on the order of $10MM or multiple tens of millions which I have to imagine is as good as what they're getting from Pocket and the VPN etc.
I suppose the only disagreement, or frustration I have here is with the perception of "baggage" which has, in my opinion, largely been manufactured in hn comment sections, every bit as detached from a strategy to grow market share as Mozilla's actual strategy.
> with the perception of "baggage" which has, in my opinion, largely been manufactured in hn comment sections
To bring this back full circle, the same group are the ones who want to fund Firefox-not-Mozilla. And if every comment in this thread cost $200 to post and went straight to Firefox development, it wouldn’t fund a single developer for a year.
The best version of the argument I think one can make relates to Firefox OS. There, at long last, in contrast to spurious complaints about the VPN, Pocket, etc. etc., it seems like Mozilla really did invest serious resources in it at the expense of browser development, and it did happen during the critical period of time where they collapsed from 35ish percent to 3 percent. But it was on behalf of a major bet of the kind that I would like to think everyone welcomed, so, a real risk, but for a respectable strategy. And, they did produce Quantum, a rewrite from the ground up with spectacular improvements in speed and stability (which makes the present day arguments feel like they are at least vestigal echoes of an old argument that was, in its time, legitimate). But you never hear critics talk in a measured way like that.
I do agree that the vocal minority would claim the donations are not being used on $INSERT_THING, which is always a different thing every time you ask (I recently heard that it was all the VC fund's fault which was a new one), and they're already talking like that right now. But I suppose it wouldn't hurt to be open to that revenue. I think it's plausible they could pull something on the order of $10MM or multiple tens of millions which I have to imagine is as good as what they're getting from Pocket and the VPN etc.
I suppose the only disagreement, or frustration I have here is with the perception of "baggage" which has, in my opinion, largely been manufactured in hn comment sections, every bit as detached from a strategy to grow market share as Mozilla's actual strategy.