If google decides that they don’t want to fund Mozilla anymore, then these Firefox derivatives fall as well. I don’t really see the zen team (or other ff forks) hiring the FF devs that are making 6 figures at Mozilla.
If Firefox decides to deeply ingrain some DRM standard, there’s a high likelihood that it’ll be included in downstream browsers like this one, unless they are privacy nuts like librewolf.
We need entirely new browsers that are more than window dressing on top of existing ones.
Remember what happened to Thunderbird, though. Mozilla dropped it, and it got better. There are good reasons to think that Mozilla - the corporate entity - is cancer.
T'bird is owned and run by a for-profit company called MZLA.
That company is owned by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation but Mozilla does not own, run, operate, or control Thunderbird.
Comparison: Pret a Manger, the fancy sandwich chain, is part-owned by Mcdonald's. But you can't buy a Big Mac in Pret, and you can't buy a Pret fancy noodle salad in McDonald's.
Right now FF shares are so low devs are ignoring it.
If more browsers use this engine, more devs will test with it.
Also, if it reaches success, it make FF future more robust, which also helps with future diversity.