> That anyone dumber than such a reviewer cannot sneak malicious extensions in.
Although people smarter than such a reviewer are free to? What kind of standard is that?
> Which, sadly, is probably a non-trivial number of submissions.
Then they're not, as an organization, actually capable of doing what they're promising here. There are more ways to get this wrong than to get it right, and borrowing the Google strategy of just not caring about your end users seems completely inappropriate for a non-profit like Mozilla.
We can argue about whether Mozilla's reviewer skillset is too low, but there's always going to be someone smarter than a reviewer, when reviewing is a cost center that companies want to spend the minimum amount of money on.
This seems to ignore how boutique stores and high end retail operates. This is the standard of rent seeking middlemen stores. You still haven't answered why this model is appropriate for Firefox.
> We can argue about whether Mozilla's reviewer skillset is too low
We're not. I'm pointing out how simply taking the opposing view reveals that your reasoning could not possibly be correct.
> reviewing is a cost center that companies want to spend the minimum amount of money on.
Which is weird because I assumed the cost of re-creating the plugin yourself would be much higher than that. It's almost like continual failure of these simplistic analyses reveal that a broader examination is required.
You think the best analogy for the Firefox extension store is boutique brick and mortar retail?
A minimal cost reviewer model isn't appropriate to Firefox.
But, example counterargument as to why it might be: Firefox needs to ensure they don't open themselves up liability but doesn't want to fully fund/staff a review team.
That anyone dumber than such a reviewer cannot sneak malicious extensions in.
Which, sadly, is probably a non-trivial number of submissions.