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Firefox Money: Investigating the bizarre finances of Mozilla
(lunduke.locals.com)
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this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
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Technology
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With FF being one of the last bastions of actual web-freedom on the internet, it wouldn't surprise me for people to start digging for things in an effort to get rid of them once and for all. Especially with Google's new attempt at web-DRM.
Not many browsers left that aren't chromium/webkit based. Feels like it's only a matter of time before Google succeeds where Microsoft failed back in the early 00's...
In a way I agree with you, but it's kind of well known that Mozilla depends a lot on Google from earning money. So I'm not sure that if Google pushes the DRM project, Mozilla will bite the hand that feeds it.
But the good thing is that we will probably see that very soon :)
Uhm, aren't all questions raised in that text completely on point?
I'm as far left as it gets but none of these expenses make any sense to me. The CEO pay is bonkers. Wtf are they doing? Why does the CEO deserve to basically collect the entirety of donations for... basically just extending a cash cow deal with Google?
I don't give a damn if the author is on the right but so far this looks sus as fuck.
Firefox being as good and fast as it is probably more an accomplishment of individual teams inspite of company leadership and that should be called out.
Can't sell yourself as the underdog if you're got almost half a billion in assets.
The CEO didn't get that money from the Mozilla Foundation though, but rather Reportable compensation from related organizations (W-2/1099-MISC/1099-NEC) which can be anything like parent companies or subsidiaries, etc. https://www.mlrpc.com/articles/decipher-form-990-sections-compensation-reporting/
Not sure if that makes it better, but the other compensation looks fairly alright to me.
This 'related organization' is Mozilla Corp, for-profit owned by the Mozilla Foundation that has Baker as its CEO as well.
I'm a lifelong Mozilla user, but these things stink a bit. I find even more concerning the dependency from google
I am not a fan of high compensation overall on the C-Level. What I'm worried about most with these types of companies is being destroyed from within. That's generally heralded by bringing in high cost outside consultancy firms.
I don't see that yet on their balance sheet. No idea what Mozilla Corp. does, but the Mozilla Foundation is still doing things I am aligned with.
But as with all things, constant vigilence is key. More and more it feels like there's barely anywhere left to invest time or money in. Fediverse is truly a ray of sunshine at the moment. But I wonder how long that'll last until it's been subverted by commercial interests.
A CEO that brings lots of money and consistently gets to lower the share of your flagship browser seems like a good candidate to destroyed from within. How can Mozilla stay independent when most of their money comes from these 'royalties' and most of it is from Google? We're talking hundreds of millions agains 7 mil in donations that barely pay for the CEO. How are they gonna push back against this webDRM shit google is trying to pull (or any other thing)?
I feel the same as you, I've been using Mozilla/Firefox since forever, because I felt they were doing things I'm aligned with. But I don't know anymore. I don't know if they are doing it or they have started to become just muppet opposition.
Enshittification spreads fast, once it takes roots its to late. But it sure seems like, lately, it's an all out attack on any freedom left on the internet
If Google is successful with their garbage webDRM, I feel we might actually get a sort of reset back to the early 2000s internet for those that care to get out of that corporate hell hole the "internet" has become.
And thanks to the Fediverse we might not even need something like Google ever again. But then they'll start attacking the infrastructure itself. Make it prohibitively expensive to run such instances, etc. Attack them with content that gets instances banned, etc.
No matter where one looks, it feels it's an all out war on any minor comfort or freedom left to the non-ultra-rich-ultra-connected.
So. As for Firefox. What's a good alternative? I'm very fond of the container thing they got going, but everything else can be replaced, I believe.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge and providing new data points instead of just coming up with reasons to assume my questions had malintent. Appreciated!
All good. I have no idea about these taxforms, but since the compensation didn't show up on the pro-republica form analysis but is visible in the 990 form from mozilla itself, I went and tried to find out what's going on. No idea if I am right though. Don't know US taxlaws at all.
Agreed. The only official Mozilla response to Google’s WebDRM that I’ve seen was on the git page where the Firefox engineer raised the concern. Mozilla’s Google liaison shot down the statement opposing WebDRM as “premature” since it is currently “only a proposal” (by a working group of Google engineers).