> By having the most engaged users leave and splinter the community furtehr

Power users going to a fork like Mullvad or Waterfox still helps Mozilla. Just in the same way that people switching to Brave helps Google.

  > We really will do anything except message your policy makers, huh?

I actually do this. And I'm actually decently satisfied with one of them. I bet you're grateful for that person too even if you don't know it.

  > I migrated several times before and am browsing around now.

Cool? Switching browsers is literally one of the easiest platform migrations you can do. All your bookmarks and everything transfers. I'd bet something like Mullvad (works with the Tor foundation and their fork of Firefox) is better your speed. Yes, you can uninstall their built-in mullvad VPN extension and it'll just go away.

  > But I don't think "no one cares about you, just leave" is the healthiest option for your stated goals.

Yet that's not what's going on

  > I don't want my tools to be bloated.

So don't install them?

Seriously, I don't get the problem. As far as I'm aware the only things that are opt-out are the smart tabs. Which is a 22.6MB and 57MB vector embedding models that can be easily removed.

So what bloat?

They said everything will be opt-in and that's cool with me. If they go back on that then yeah, grab the fucking pitchforks and I'll be right there with you because fuck those lying bastards. But so far they haven't done that so put the pitchfork down. All you're doing is being over zealous and attacking the greater enemy's (Chrome) enemy. You don't have to call Firefox your ally but it's pretty clear that Chrome is significantly more misaligned with your wants than Firefox is. So stop attacking the best thing we got right now.

  > this industry bewildered on how this apocalypse came upon them

I'm pretty confident this is happening because all the privacy maximalists are not actually privacy maximalists and would rather lick the fucking boot than take a knight who's armor isn't pure. Doesn't matter if that boot is orange and shaped like a lion, it's still the boot.

I'm sorry the choices are slim. I really do wish it was better. But we're never going to get there if we kill the last thing standing against the monopoly. So yeah, pick the right fucking battle.