Mozilla is in an absolute state: high overheads, falling usage of Firefox, questionable sources of revenue and now making big cuts to engineering as their income falls.

Cal Paterson

Mozilla has laid off 250 employees (25% of staff) citing falling income, while Firefox market share has collapsed from 30% to 4% over a decade. Despite receiving up to half a billion dollars annually in Google search royalties for years, Mozilla failed to build financial independence. The analysis applies NGO evaluation criteria to Mozilla: 30% of spending goes to administration (which would score zero on Charity Navigator), top executive pay reached $2.4m/year (up 400%), and the organization diversified into numerous side projects (many now abandoned) instead of focusing on Firefox. The author argues Mozilla should cut administrative costs, focus on Firefox, and consider direct user funding rather than continuing to launch new products like VPN services that don't address users' actual privacy needs.

Firefox usage is down 85% despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up 400%