Andreas Kling is pouring his attention into this. He's a grit elemental. I believe he will accomplish this no matter how many people tell him it's a doomed effort, impossible, whatever. What happens in the longer term depends on if enough people value what he and his team does.

Looking at what FF has recently decided about selling out its users, I think demand will catalyze.

I love that term “grit elemental”! Hopefully Chris will continue to support the project. Fun rabbit hole learning about all this.

It says on the website they aim to always maintain 18 months of runway.. so basically scaling up and down as needed.

They get sponsors through enthusiasm, which is the way it should be for a project like this.

After reading their website, I know that I am going to request my company to donate, so there’s at least one more contribution.

Not just enthusiasm.

Companies like Shopify will invest because a healthy ecosystem is good for their bottom line in the long term. Monopolies are not good for them in the long term.

Why does it need to be accomplished without monetization?

I'd gladly pay for a good browser, that respects my privacy. Quite frankly we all need to start opening our pockets for this; the idea that big companies will benevolently supply stuff like this to us for free without trying to spy on us is naive.

I think it's more that without monetization, how will the project continue to exist?

I think the term monetisation is being used in a broad, VC/corporate investment/selling services etc sense. Donations or paying for the browser also takes care of money.

Perhaps, instead they can get 5 good developers from elsewhere for a decade /s

Why the /s. The idea that you can only get qualified developers for silicon valley salaries is absurd. It's not like tech companies in europe generally pay that much and they do just fine.