Of course, we all want to see Mozilla bootstrap their own Matrix instance, but maybe the cost/benefit equation worked out differently for them than we would have expected. I can imagine this lets them replace IRC with a better solution faster while still supporting the development of an open standard by becoming a client of the company that's developing it.
Does this forebode something more sinister? I hope not...
Working with a third party lets them start standing up rooms immediately, and get their people using the new standard without being blocked on a long process of setting up their own infra. It’s federated. They can easily migrate onto their own hardware at a later date.
It also injects money into the community they are trying to support. Even if they did start running all of their own instances, I would hope they keep a support contract with Modular for that reason.
Paying Modular + using Matrix widely immediately + beginning work on their own infrastructure is a strictly bigger shot in the arm for Matrix than just putting a couple devs on pre-planning and prototyping infra would be.
Moving synapse databases around isn't too difficult, and certainly Modular.im would be able to provide the data on request.
But I don't think Mozilla has such a large userbase that it would make any difference.
I like the publicity angle but maybe that's for the future. If Mozilla validates the transition and wants to get more involved with Matrix.org then it'd make sense to own and manage their own stuff.
I like that they are being cautious and not jumping with both feet in.
At a legal level, it's true that the server will be admined by New Vector via Modular.im - but this is basically Mozilla just outsourcing their sysadmin to Modular, while also helping fund Matrix development (given that Modular subscriptions are used to fund development on Synapse and Matrix in general).
Also, IRC has federation too by having multiple servers in a network. IIRC Mozilla hadn't allowed you to do this for moznet did they? So how is this different?
I hope Mozilla gets onboard with everyone else running their own Synapse, hacks on it, and pay their dues with patches, rather than with their cash.