Seems like a good idea except for how often these states already force their own spyware and backdoors onto projects. Ideally, the state would fund it, but given their history, I’d prefer costs were covered by user donations as the interests of the users are the only interests I trust. We are the only group that is truly independent of competing interests.
Crowd funding and donations obviously have their own drawbacks. Maybe we can find a work around to avoid the privacy violations of states in the future, but I don’t have a simple answer for how to accomplish this. The way the FOSS community operates is currently the best alternative I’ve seen, but I’m sure it’s not always lucrative for developers. People need to be compensated for their labor and our current systems tend to put development interests at odds with user interests.
My issue was with that type of sarcasm, which is why I responded with a similarly dismissive sarcastic remark.
Dismissing people’s complaints by saying “you can go use something else/move someplace else” is unhelpful and used to negate their complaints without ever having to address their source.
I doubt many people see an anonymous counter as a huge problem itself, I don’t. The point is that this is a first step in a direction we don’t want to see the software go. If you don’t push back against these things from the moment they show up, they will continue to slowly inch in that direction until you end up in a nightmare like Chrome or Edge.