Comment by doodlesdev
3 years ago
> The nice part is that, because it's owned by Mozilla, users don't have to worry about a bait and switch at the end of the growth phase
lol. Do you mean this seriously? Could you expand further because I just don't see where you're coming from.
Mozilla doesn't have VC backers that expect double-digit returns. At the top of the Mozilla structure is a non-profit foundation. Mozilla still has an incentive to make money, of course, but it does not require outsized returns and it is by its nature less inclined to place profit above mission or user experience.
You seem to have fallen into a time machine where it's not 2023 but instead... I dunno... 2010? (I'd have said 2013, but even that would still have been too generous; there's no defensible reason for crediting 2013-era Mozcorp as deserving of the warm fuzzies involved here, either. By then, it had managed to do what Netscape failed at—consolidating power within the distributed and independent mozilla.org project and assuming control for itself.)
No warm fuzzies here - just a factual summary of Mozilla's legal status and ownership. The boards of most tech companies today have fiduciary duties to shareholders who expect a significant return on their investment, which is not the case for Mozilla.
2 replies →
I understand, the point about VC is true indeed. I'm generally a bit skeptical about the Mozilla Corporation as it's a taxable entity instead of a non-profit, however while it stays 100% owned by the Mozilla Foundation their objectives should be well-aligned with the interests of us internet-users.