At least it was a small scale experiment and not something that rolled out to the whole install base, I use Firefox on a couple of computers and didn't see it myself. But should you really need user feedback to know that inserting an overlay that looks like in-page ad content is a bad idea?
Two reasons: clueless management who chases short term returns, and a rabid fanbase that will constantly make excuses for them no matter how much they decline, because "at least they're not Google/Microsoft"
To their defense, that ought to be more about the rate of decline that Google/MS goes compared to Mozilla. It is usually supported out of necessity, not ideology. But I'm not sure for how long this will actually work.
For me it's been downhill since they removed "Compact" UI density, and I'd just as soon not jump through a bunch of custom CSS hoops to have sidebar tabs when nearly all the other browsers (outside of Chrome/Safari) are building them in natively. The main thing going for Firefox is being the independent rendering engine, for customization and power user features it's nothing special anymore.
They are completely out of their depth and not fit for their job.
Trust me, they're politically aware of what they are doing, and are only gauging outrage now. Give it some time and they'll figure out how to leverage the outrage, as they did before.
Never let a good crisis go to waste, and all that.
But Firefox is an ad supported browser and has been for nearly 2 decades.
That they want to take ownership of the advertising is no surprise. Who knows when google will turn off the faucet.
But this is definitely not the right way
Mozilla got rid of their founder, Brendan Eich, for donating to a California initiative against gay marriage. Now we see what that costs us.
An apology needs three parts: admission that you did wrong, expressing regret for your wrongdoing, and a change in your behavior so that you don't do it again.
Mozilla's tendency to just do the first two and skip the third means that, in my view, those weren't real apologies.
Having the best pool of workers in the world aren't going to make a difference[1] if they are working for power-mongers who use outrage to achieve a coup.
The reverse is not true - having fewer skilled workers to choose from can be irrelevant when they are working for someone who is focused on goals that are aligned to the user.
IOW, there's no point in having the absolute best and the brightest people employed by self-serving schemers who wanted to use firefox as a vehicle for their political/virtuous ambitions.
There might be, however, a point in having "only" the 90% best people employed towards making firefox better.
[1] And, it looks like it didn't make a difference.
Introduced by a bunch of gaslighting that it isn't actually happening or isn't anything different that what was always happened, then interleaved with accusations of bullying and entitlement directed at its userbase.
Short answer: Well, compared to FF and the fine article that we are commenting on ... yes, it's certainly a model that FF could adopt!
Long answer: I don't see ads in Brave. I don't recall even installing any third parties to block ads. As far as the adtech space goes, Brave is indeed more ethical than FF (or Chrome, or Edge).
Now if you are of the view that, ethically, blocking ads is a bad thing, then I'm afraid we cannot actually discuss this any further, because there are very few arguments that will get me to change my mind about blocking advertisements, not least of which is the ad under discussion, i.e. "FULL-SCREEN-IN-YOUR-FACE-COVER-EVERYTHING-AND-STOP-THE-USER-FROM-DOING-ANYTHING-UNTIL-THE-AD-IS-DISMISSED" type of ad.
Also, I know this is the internet, but disapproving of one person doesn't mean that you're promoting another random person that wasn't even part of the conversation. If you want to bring Bezos in, at a minimum you're required to find a single person, living or dead, who thinks that Bezos's donations were fine but Eich's were terrible.
I know no one is promoting Bezos. I'm just saying it's ridiculous how Bezos gets to white-wash incidents like this while causing untold harm to society, while Eich legitimately was furthering good causes in good ways and a single personal superficial detail prevented him from continuing to do that.