| And in case anyone from Mozilla is listening, this could well be existential for you. Right now, your pro-privacy stance is a principal factor in users choosing Firefox over Chrome. Follow Google - and all its shady practices - and you will lose a large chunk of those users. Many of them, to use current terminology, are "key influencers": technically savvy people who advise family and friends what to do. Lose them and the outlook is, I suspect, pretty grim. You're clever people. You'll know this. Google has a good few smart folk too (even if their motivation is questionable). It's easy to see this is difficult for you: Google is your primary funding source. Fail to comply with their wishes, and that funding might well disappear. As has been noted in other threads, the tension between privacy principles and funding is a huge threat. For the good of the open web, I desperately want a successful Mozilla, and a technically excellent Firefox at the forefront of a pro-privacy, anti-surveillance re-balancing of the internet. I don't doubt the difficulty in filling a $300M funding hole. I'd gladly pay $30 per year for a pro-privacy Firefox. Another 9,999,999 is a tall order. On the other hand, you have c250M users... |
Particularly on account of funding, I know I would also gladly pay $30 per year for a privacy, freedom and power use oriented Firefox instead of this new direction they keep taking it in. And so would many of my acquintances.
Perhaps there is merit to organizing a website for people to be able to pledge this.