Mozilla once again confirms it’s all about ads and “AI” now

We’ve recognized that Mozilla faces major headwinds in terms of both financial growth and mission impact. While Firefox remains the core of what we do, we also need to take steps to diversify: investing in privacy-respecting advertising to grow new revenue in the near term; developing trustworthy, open source AI to ensure technical and product relevance in the mid term; and creating online fundraising campaigns that will draw a bigger circle of supporters over the long run. Mozilla’s impact and survival depend on us simultaneously strengthening Firefox AND finding new sources of revenue AND manifesting our mission in fresh ways. That is why we’re working hard on all of these fronts.
↫ Mark Surman on the Mozilla blog

None of this is new to anyone reading OSNews. I’ve been quite vocal about Mozilla’s troubles and how it intends to address those troubles, and I’m incredibly worried and concerned about the increasing efforts by Mozilla to push advertising and “AI” to somehow find more revenue streams. I think this is the wrong direction to take, and will not make up for the seemingly inevitable loss of the Google search deal – and my biggest fear is that Firefox will get a lot worse before Mozilla realises advertising and “AI” just aren’t compatible with their mission and the morals and values of the last few remaining Firefox users.

I don’t have any answers either, of course. Making a competitive browser is hard, and clearly requires a lot of people and a lot of time. Donations are fickle, nobody will pay for a browser, and relying on corporate sponsoring in other forms than the Google search deal will just mean Firefox will become like Chrome even faster, with more and more exceptions for “allowed” ads and additional roadblocks for adblockers to try and work around. In essence, I strongly believe that it is impossible to both earn money from online ads and make a good browser. It’s one or the other – not both.

There’s basically no competition in the browser space, and if we lose Firefox, the only other option is Chrome and its various skins. Not a future I’m looking forward to.