Mozilla’s open internet advocacy efforts falter as it lays off 30% of its staff – News

The Mozilla Foundation, the nonprofit group that develops the popular Firefox web browser, is laying off around 30% of its staff, completely shutting down its advocacy programs in the process.

In a statement sent to News and The Verge, Mozilla’s communications chief Brandon Borrman said the decision was taken “amid a relentless onslaught of change.”

Although the foundation is best known as the developer of Firefox, it has traditionally had a much broader mission, seeing itself as a defender of the open internet. In its Mozilla Manifesto, it calls for the internet to remain a public, global resource that’s open and accessible to all, and to support those efforts it puts a lot of resources into things like policy advocacy, privacy research and other initiatives.

However, with today’s layoffs, it appears that Mozilla is now scaling back those efforts.

“Fighting for a free and open internet will always be core to our mission, and advocacy continues to be a critical tool in that work,” Borrman insisted. “We’re revisiting how we pursue that work, not stopping it.”

Clearly, though, the foundation is going to be hard-pressed to keep up the good fight, for the layoffs are fairly significant. Although it declined to say exactly how many people will lose their jobs, The Register claims the foundation currently has a headcount of about 120 staff. If that number is correct, it means 36 people are being let go.

The layoffs were revealed to Mozilla’s staffers in an Oct. 30 email that was sent to all employees. Nabhia Syed, the foundation’s executive director, said the cuts would result in the closure of its advocacy and global programs divisions.

“Navigating this topsy-turvy, distracting time requires laser focus — and sometimes saying goodbye to the excellent work that has gotten us this far because it won’t get us to the next peak,” Syed wrote. “Lofty goals demand hard choices.”

Mozilla might be refusing to give up the ghost for now, but there are serious concerns over the organization’s long-term future, said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group. He told News that Mozilla’s main problem is its reliance on Google for revenue. Though Google pays Mozilla to be the default search engine in the Firefox browser, it’s also its main competitor, and its Chrome browser commands a much bigger market share.

“Mozilla’s dependency on Google has always been problematic, and it has long been on the clock to create a better revenue stream that it can protect, but it has failed to do so,” Enderle said. “It’s basically just living on Google’s generosity, but that isn’t enough because generosity often runs out. Today’s move will help Mozilla survive for longer, but it’s looking likely that it will have to shut down, unless it can figure out a way to secure and grow new revenue sources.”

The foundation has been under a lot of pressure lately, having already announced one round of layoffs this year. In February, it cut about 60 jobs. Those cuts were announced by the Mozilla Corp., which is a subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation tasked with developing Firefox and other consumer products. Other subsidiaries include the Mozilla Ventures investment fund; Mozilla.ai, which is an artificial intelligence research lab; and MZLA, a small unit that maintains the Thunderbird email client.

At the time of those layoffs, Mozilla Corp. said it was making a “strategic correction” and revealed that it would be shutting down its Mastodon instance, which was an experimental open social media platform. It also scrapped its virtual reality project, and said it would focus solely on Firefox and AI research going forward.

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