I think he might be talking about other kinds of activism
They also do things like give a quarter million to black artists to make art about the effects of AI on systems of oppression.
Half a million to broadband towers in the american south.
Money for wetland restoration.
This may all seem neat and fine to do if they have that kind of money to hand out but these things come around the same time of having had a large swat of firings of people working on their projects like the Servo team, people working on firefox, etc. (The board also expanded and mitchell baker notably had her compensation increased by quite a lot)
These 2 points are quite unrelated. The developers were laid off by Mozilla Corporation, while the projects you find questionable were funded by Mozilla Foundation, and for tax reasons it's very difficult for Mozilla Foundation to give money to Mozilla Corporation.
>and for tax reasons it's very difficult for Mozilla Foundation to give money to Mozilla Corporation.
I'm aware but as far as I know it's the other way around.
The foundation extracts revenue from it's subsidiary the Mozilla Corporation. When in a state of decline and faced with the option of axing development that might hamper or reverse this decline i'd expect there to be an option for the foundation to reduce the amount of revenue it extracts.
Especially since what it actually gives away seems so little when compared (which makes me look weird at the mentioned compensation again)
Fair, but there's a difference between creating tools that one may choose to opt into on an individual basis, and attempting to arbitrate truth on a societal level.
Without this activism, they could not compete with the big players in tech. At its essence, this activism is advocating for an alternative to the privacy unfriendly or in this case disinformation that is largely driven by "rage-clicks". It creates a conversation about the future of the information age outside of the business centric motive actions shown by say google.
They also do things like give a quarter million to black artists to make art about the effects of AI on systems of oppression. Half a million to broadband towers in the american south. Money for wetland restoration.
This may all seem neat and fine to do if they have that kind of money to hand out but these things come around the same time of having had a large swat of firings of people working on their projects like the Servo team, people working on firefox, etc. (The board also expanded and mitchell baker notably had her compensation increased by quite a lot)