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by lapcat 224 days ago
The criticism of this in the other comments is so strange. If Mozilla can raise some money independently of Google by selling merchandise, all the better!

And it's not like software engineers are spending time on this instead of working on Firefox. That's not a real tradeoff. It's an effort that pays for itself and doesn't take away from Firefox development.
2 comments
latexr 224 days ago
> If Mozilla can raise some money independently of Google by selling merchandise, all the better!

Agreed, but did they need a new mascot to sell merchandise? It’s not like the old logo wasn’t already cool.

> And it's not like software engineers are spending time on this instead of working on Firefox.

But Mozilla is still spending money and resources on it. The issue isn’t this rebranding specifically, but that this is yet another distraction which won’t produce any real result.

> It's an effort that pays for itself

Is it? That’s not a given, and we definitely can’t say either way yet. Considering all of Mozilla’s past efforts, pretty much all of which they abandoned, I’d be very wary of calling this one a success so early on.

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lapcat 224 days ago
> Is it? That’s not a given, and we definitely can’t say either way yet. Considering all of Mozilla’s past efforts, pretty much all of which they abandoned, I’d be very wary of calling this one a success so early on.

The economics of selling branded clothing has been very well understood for 50 years. The markup for slapping a logo on a T-shirt is massive. Plus, it's a form of crowdsourced, word-of-chest advertising.

And Mozilla already has designers on staff. It's unlikely they had to do any extra hiring for this.

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latexr 224 days ago
> The economics of selling branded clothing has been very well understood for 50 years. The markup for slapping a logo on a T-shirt is massive. Plus, it's a form of crowdsourced, word-of-chest advertising.

None of that addresses the point that the old logo was already very merchandisable.

Furthermore, whatever markup they’re making is not something you can just generalise. It is very possible, likely even, that the bulk of the cost goes to whatever company is making the t-shirts (I haven’t looked but I doubt Mozilla is doing it in-house).

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zetanor 224 days ago
The problem is that every single public money drive using the "Firefox" brand since at least 2018 has been for the exclusive benefit of the Mozilla Foundation NGO, not the Mozilla Corporation entity which develops Firefox. Donations in the About screen of Firefox go to the Mozilla Foundation. The Mozilla Foundation does not appear to fund or even support anything related to Firefox:

> How will my donation be used?

> At Mozilla, our mission is to keep the Internet healthy, open, and accessible for all. The Mozilla Foundation programs are supported by grassroots donations and grants. Our grassroots donations, from supporters like you, are our most flexible source of funding. These funds directly support advocacy campaigns (i.e. asking big tech companies to protect your privacy), research and publications like the Privacy Not Included buyer's guide and Internet Health Report, and covers a portion of our annual MozFest gathering.

(from https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/donate/help/#frequently...)

Do Spreadshirt sales benefit the Foundation (not Firefox), or are they revenue for the Corporation (Firefox)? I've looked around for a minute and can't tell.

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