I would suggest that Mozilla has enough money already- they just don't spend it on Firefox. Donating only validates their current budget and gives them a mandate to keep building their sprawling portfolio of side projects.
The author suggests getting donations to (partially) finance Firefox. That would never work without changing the culture of Mozilla Corporation in a huge way: Currently, they take every chance to annoy their users, break their workflows, add new unnecessary but costly mistakes. They frivolously spend on side-projects nobody needs. People would be very quick to cease donating if they are being annoyed in such a way. The only reason people currently put up with Mozilla's behaviour is because they didn't pay for the product.
Having people pay, even voluntarily, and having even a small reliance on those payments would just kill Mozilla more quickly without a visible leadership change first.
I think Mozilla should be more proactive about soliciting donations (esp. on a recurring basis). Put a "Donate" button into the new tab screen for example, or just prompt me every now and then like wikipedia does. Right now the "Donate" button is a tiny link in the footer of the Mozilla website.
I wish there was a way to donate directly to Firefox. Unfortunately, the only option is to donate to Mozilla and they will likely use the money to fund their other initiatives and continue to neglect Firefox.
I think it's a good opportunity to everyone that firefox is accepting donations (https://donate.mozilla.org/en-US/) soon enough there would be no easy alternative to a free web if mozilla is dying.
I'd like to point out that it's still not possible to support the Firefox browser with donations directly, in a crowdsourcing fashion. Donations to Mozilla Foundation don't go to Firefox which is supported only by search/sponsorship payouts from large corporations.
No amount of requesting donations will ever support an organization the size of Mozilla. It's annual budget is half a billion dollars.
I also consider reverting to "nagware" a huge step back. Either you sell a product, monetize part of it, or offer it for free - giving it away "for free" while sneaking in a shower of requests for money is the worst possible outcome.
The issue is that donating money to Mozilla does nothing for Firefox; Personally I use Firefox on everything (home, work, phone); Firefox is the browser for my family too - much the same (Firefox on everything, phones included).
If I could/had to pay/donate for it - I'd gladly do, but it's virtually impossible.
I agree with the complaints but I also wonder how else Mozilla is supposed to financially support their work.
It is an unfortunate reality that donations alone don't tend to work on things of this scale. Humans don't work like that....most people are not going to send a significant amount of money to make an insignificant impact on browser quality. (i.e. if I donate $5000, would I even be able to tell the difference between the Firefox without my donation, and the Firefox with my donation?)
This is pretty basic game theory (Tragedy of the Commons, Prisoners' Dilemma, etc). Nobody wants to be the sucker when most people are being freeloaders.
So we have things like this. They are trying whatever they can do to get revenue. Bake shit in that increases their corporate sponsor's bottom line. Ugggh.
I don't have a solution (short of government grants and the like) but I wish more smart people would work on this sort of problem.
It's weird that when I tell my kids that when they want to help, but they won't help in the way that someone needs help, that they aren't actually helping, they understand it.
Mozilla has buckets of money, between the Corporation and the Foundation. They are separate, for good-ish reasons? But they are separate. If they start allowing customers or businesses to pay for Firefox, then they will have to provide an entirely different level of support. They will need a billing and support team that is beholden to those paying customers.
It will shift the focus that Firefox has on attracting and retaining users to attracting and retaining paying users.
It will mean they need to meet various warranty and regulatory requirements around the world, and potentially introduce new business risks and liabilities related to those requirements (e.g. non-compliance with specific regional legislation).
What you are asking for is to pay Mozilla for Firefox, and to get there you need a radical shift in the organization that supports and ships Firefox.
Or, you could do what the rest of folks who want to support Firefox do, and make a donation in the way that Mozilla is signalling is the best way to support Mozilla's mission and Firefox development.
If that isn't good enough for you, track down an OSS contributor to Firefox, and give them money. Direct action for the win!
https://donate.mozilla.org/en-US/
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