Laura Chambers, Mozilla CEO:
Because Mozilla’s mission is to build a better internet. And, for the foreseeable future at least, advertising is a key commercial engine of the internet, and the most efficient way to ensure the majority of content remains free and accessible to as many people as possible.
This feels like them throwing in the towel and declaring there is no viable way to make money online without embracing advertising.
We know that not everyone in our community will embrace our entrance into this market. But taking on controversial topics because we believe they make the internet better for all of us is a key feature of Mozilla’s history. And that willingness to take on the hard things, even when not universally accepted, is exactly what the internet needs today.
I can’t see how more ads makes the internet better, even if those ads are less creepy than those from the likes of Google and Meta. For some reason Mozilla continues to refuse to just let us pay for Firefox.