I don't see how making additions optional for a free browser would increase costs, telemetry does not increase visibility, but it is a serious privacy concern and the mobile market is owned by Google and Apple, two companies that are not going to be won over unless there is some serious firepower available, something FireFox does not currently have.

This is all wishful thinking on your part.

If you don't see how getting the second largest block of internet users strongly behind the one free browser might help to increase market share then that's puzzling but for me the GDPR + FireFox make good sense from an EU perspective. Consolidation + buildout is stop-the-bleeding 101.

That's a lot of users and a government that has made serious moves to show that they too care about user privacy.

Anyway, I did in fact answer your question, and quite exhaustively. But you did not answer mine: how much would it cost to run a lean-and-mean FireFox Inc?