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Mozilla Foundation lays off 30% staff, drops advocacy division | TechCrunch (techcrunch.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by floofloof@lemmy.ca to c/technology@lemmy.world

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cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/46655413

The Mozilla Foundation, the non-profit arm of the Firefox browser maker Mozilla, has laid off 30% of its employees as the organization says it faces a “relentless onslaught of change.”

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[–] Nytixus@kbin.melroy.org 43 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Getting rid of the advocacy part. That's...not good.

So what does that mean in layman's terms? They're not going to have as much of a voice to sway heads about things like open internet, the flaws of copyright, the problems with privacy and surveillance.

[–] PlasticExistence@lemmy.world 56 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It’s looking increasingly likely that the US Department of Justice is going to succeed in their antitrust efforts against Google. Currently, Mozilla gets something like 85% of their funding from Google for being the default search engine in Firefox. That may be deemed anticompetitive behavior by a judge, at which point Mozilla will be left with very little funding compared to their current situation.

I’d bet these actions are in anticipation of that happening.

[–] blind3rdeye@lemm.ee 25 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah, and although it will be painful for Mozilla in the short term - it would be a good outcome. It was always bad that Mozilla's main source of funding was from their most powerful competitor. It's an obvious conflict of interest. And obvious way to skew decision making. ... But that money is just so addictive.

There will be some pretty severe withdrawal symptoms if the money gets taken away, but everyone will be healthier in the long run... unless the overpaid CEO continues to suck in all the remaining money and leaves nothing for the people actually doing the work. That would be bad. In that case, if the corporate structure chokes the company to death, I suppose we'd be hoping for Ladybird, or something like it to take Firefox's place.