Just use a fork. I don't know why I would use vanilla Firefox when there are so many great forks out there that have cool extra features.

People won't pay for that. Or, at least, not enough people.

We literally saw this play out with media. Everyone hated cable tv. Suddenly we had netflix (2.0) where we can "pay for what I want". Except... then everyone got in on that because apparently we want things beyond Netflix Original Pictures and whatever they could get cheap out of Korea.

And now? "Ugh, there are juts so many services. I need like twelve. I wish there was one big bundle of everything".

Not exactly the same but a premium browser (that, again, isn't going to make anywhere near enough money to fund development) would be dropped even faster than the guy whose patreon is still "pay one dollar per episode"

then why the fuck is this newsworthy? ugh. Why is there such a huge hateboner for firefox lately?

It's not as simple as just deciding to hire people at lower rates of pay.

Cost cutting is a tricky game. When an organisation is not on a positive trajectory, cost cutting has a very high risk of re-enforcing the underlying problems.

That's not to say cost cutting isn't a worthy objective, but it needs to be carefully considered.

If you want a CEO with the right skills and connections you need to pay.

Why would an organisation choose to over spend on executive salaries?

Obviously, it's because thats what it costs to get people with the right skills.

What about Wikipeida? Internet Archive? All of the products/services that live on kickstarter/patreon/gofundme/etc?

People are more than willing to pay for the things that they love, but Mozilla knows that people wouldn't be willing to pay enough to continue floating the Executive salaries. That's why they don't transition.

The orgs that are heavily dependent on federal funding as well as major corporate investors? That run the websites that the vast majority of people just think is free?

Again, we've seen how this plays out with Patreon et al. Everyone says it is totally viable because the ridiculously popular people make bank. And as more and more celebrities flock to it, there is less and less money for the "small creators" and so forth.

Also, Firefox and Thunderbird are backed by the Mozilla Foundation which is already doing exactly that.

I feel like I'm mis-understanding your argument. Are you saying that Mozilla can't do things that other groups are already successfully doing, because "The popular people make too much money" doing it, and "They are already getting that via the Mozilla Foundation"?

That doesn't make sense to me.

But they have a strong history of paying a lot for CEOs that don't have the right skills and connections. It's not just this one, it's a systemic issue for them.

The point is that they are already doing what those orgs are doing. They are dealing with a userbase that doesn't want to give them money by getting large amounts from special interest groups and corporations.

Which is why the Wikimedia (?) Foundation pushed REAL hard for AI until basically the entire editorbase told them to fuck off.

But hey? There is obviously infinite money so yeah, I am sure if Mozilla drops all those corporate interests and just switches to an optional patreon they would have even MORE money than they already do and would have no need to placate said special interests.

On one hand you're correct in that their CEOs haven't been able to turn the situation around.

On the other hand it's hubris to suggest that you know better than whoever is doing the hiring.