Mozilla and the cult of the free

A couple of days ago, right after the news of massive layoffs at Mozilla hit, ppk wrote a post describing “the cult of the free” and how it may or may not relate to the current financial struggles at Mozilla.

I’ve been trying to donate a bit every year and also am a subscriber to Pocket mostly in order to show my appreciation of the service but let’s be honest: Compared to Wikimedia Mozilla is really bad at asking for donations. If you look at their current website there is no prominent donate-button anywhere. It’s hidden inside the “about” menu:

Screenshot of Mozilla.com

Firefox also only has a tiny link inside the about-view:

About screen of Firefox

MDN doesn’t even have that! I’d definitely not complain if Firefox featured a more prominent (but strictly optional) donation feature/subscription in order to support Mozilla. I’d also welcome a very visible donation button on MDN pages! Sure, this probably won’t solve the immediate financial struggles there but it might pave they way!