It's no longer the fault of long-term CEO Mitchell Baker, she of the six-million-bucks salary. She took the cash and left in February 2024. After the February 2024 layoffs that went with the "open source AI" announcement, in November, new boss Laura Chambers laid off another third of the staff, but somehow found the money to hire new executives.

Money is the problem. Not too little, but too much. Where there's wealth, there's a natural human desire to make more wealth. Ever since Firefox 1.0 in 2004, Firefox has never had to compete. It's been attached like a mosquito to an artery to the Google cash firehose. The Reg noted it in 2007, and it made more the next year. We were dubious when Firefox turned five.

...

Mozilla's leadership is directionless and flailing because it's never had to do, or be, anything else. It's never needed to know how to make a profit, because it never had to make a profit. It's no wonder it has no real direction or vision or clue: it never needed them. It's role-playing being a business.

mozilla and firefox need to learn more away from ai and more towards ethical not for profit governance. be the opposite of big tech and stand for the internet as a public utility and force or good and decency. instead of going ai bro, y'all need to stand up against racism and discrimination while pushing internet for everybody, free of profits.

y'all need to stand up against racism and discrimination

Felt kind of out of nowhere. How does a web browser stand up to racism?

i was talking about both mozilla and firefox... and the internet has plenty to do with that as a communication device for good.

instead of using the internet for war and hate, use it for unity and openness.

Can we use it for godot and openness instead?

How would a web browser achieve that? The only thing I can think of is for the browser to choose what sort of web content should be filtered out and what should actually be displayed to the user, which I think we all agree is not what you would want your browser to choose.

the web browser isn't a sentient entity; the web browser is developed by people who are part of an organisation with an ethos.

I think the question was:

List the steps to be taken by the people at Mozilla to achieve this. Then think if those can reasonably be accomplished.

y’all need to stand up against racism and discrimination

I concur, I think they should push towards a more positive internet. Though I think they are a bit wary of doing it ever since the toxic backlash to this blog post

We need more than deplatforming – The Mozilla Blog (Archived)

There is no question that social media played a role in the siege and take-over of the US Capitol on January 6. Since then there has been significant focus on ...

The Mozilla Blog (Archived) (blog.mozilla.org)

Both currently sucks.

The fact that they are now selling our data seems like both a browser problem and a leadership problem. If the browser were fine, we wouldn't be seeing a moderate exodus to choices like Librewolf and Zen.

For those holding out for a hero: https://ladybird.org/

Ladybird is a brand-new browser & web engine. Driven by a web standards first approach, Ladybird aims to render the modern web with good performance, stability and security.

I dunno, Firefox of 3.0 times was the shit. It itself was the browser that should be, more welcoming to customization than Windows of the time was to porn winlockers. They also had XULRunner for alternative ideas. Gecko was the FOSS browser engine that various alternative "nice" MacOS and Linux browsers used.

Though between 2004 and 2008 only four years passed. Less than between Windows 2000 and Vista (let's ignore XP as a more glossy consumer version of 2000).

which is exactly why they need a strong positive leadership that doesn't bend the knee to bigots.

the ladybird devs have a history of major transphobia though

I'm not looking for a hero, I'm looking for stability.

All firefox really needed to be once google took over everything, was to be a viable alternative and find a way to metabolize all this cash in a way that doesn't damage google's own cash machine or threaten it's actual dominance.

For google the pitance they give firefox is a very cheap insurance policy against against anti-trust legislation.
Just like Intel with AMD, this shows how toothless the liberal anti-trust legislation are, even if they were really being enforced, they cannot handle a token 2nd player. It cannot handle controlled opposition if it's credible and believable. So an actual thriving ecosystem doesn't need to exist, we just get duopolies instead of monopolies but in practices we get ducked up the cloaca just the same.

some context and/or link would help for everyone who just learned about this project and knows nothing about the devs

I think this may be the issue to which you are referring:

Ladybird and the Controversy over Inclusivity - Review

What people were upset about, why it blew up, and why some people are still leery of the project to this day.

Kelson Reviews Stuff (hyperborea.org)

While this is troubling to read about, this narrative’s lack of evidence or references keep me from accepting it at face value. Old mastodon chatter (and perhaps deleted posts or scuttled instances) may be difficult to retrieve, but GitHub discussions shouldn’t be hard to find.

So I’m withholding judgement for the moment.

UPDATE: Commenter lime!@feddit.nu wrote this terrific comment that provides confirmation of the above narrative, corrective action that the LadyBird engineering team has taken taken, plus some vitally important context of the entire kerfuffle. A+ work.