Looking at it in terms of leverage and market-share is a huge mistake that Mozilla keeps making. Mozilla doesn't have a platform like Google does. What exactly is Mozilla even competing for? Popularity?
They should hunker down and make the best browser they can, implementing their best web. It worked 20 years ago, and in many ways the circumstances are the same. We have tech monopolies proposing ludicrous "content security" mechanisms. Where would Mozilla have been if they tried making some sort of half baked "less evil" form of Microsoft Janus DRM[1]?
People are going to get sick of how intrusive DRM is becoming, and there should be an alternative waiting for them.
Every person who has content they thought they purchased "expire" and be erased from their device, or who can no longer use their expensive projector after the latest mandatory update.
I evangelized heavily for Firefox in the 1.x days. People were sick of IE6, and were glad to have Firefox. I worked at a computer store and probably converted 100+ people.
Mozilla and Wikimedia both have a reputation for wasting money by trying to branch out beyond their main product. Wikimedia is totally overfunded so wasting money doesn't threaten their survival but they've also been criticized for begging for donations that they don't need. Personally I don't see a reason to combine them.
Wikimedia is much much less shady than Mozilla in a bunch of ways. Some people might take issue with the way they spend their money, or the tactics they use to raise money, but I don't think I would consider them shady.
Full disclosure: I was employed as a software release engineer at the Wikimedia Foundation from 2015 through 2022.
They should hunker down and make the best browser they can, implementing their best web. It worked 20 years ago, and in many ways the circumstances are the same. We have tech monopolies proposing ludicrous "content security" mechanisms. Where would Mozilla have been if they tried making some sort of half baked "less evil" form of Microsoft Janus DRM[1]?
People are going to get sick of how intrusive DRM is becoming, and there should be an alternative waiting for them.
Every person who has content they thought they purchased "expire" and be erased from their device, or who can no longer use their expensive projector after the latest mandatory update.
I evangelized heavily for Firefox in the 1.x days. People were sick of IE6, and were glad to have Firefox. I worked at a computer store and probably converted 100+ people.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus_(DRM)