Okay hear me out. What if we all chipped in 5 bucks to @firefox? How many people would it take to fund it well enough so they don’t have to do layoffs? I get it, the FOSS community wants the “F” part but we all should contribute some for good infrastructure. And the idea that search engine payments from Google is what keeps Firefox afloat should worry us all. We need browser engine diversity if the web is going to stay open and not littered with walled gardens any more than it already is.
For those that look at this and still think the solution might just be more money, first recognize that Google donates only to keep Firefox as a viable competitor to avoid anti-trust legislation.
If we raised half a million dollars, we haven’t saved anyone any money except Google - they’d simply donate only 100k next year so Firefox remains competitive, but not successful.
I don’t disagree with the sentiment of the post, but we also have to realize that we’d only be improving things after the first ~600k.