OP is not arguing people should be using Firefox or other Mozilla products to "fight monoculture". OP is arguing that in order to deliver browsers (and other products) with compelling advantages in a way that advances Mozilla's mission, Mozilla needs to maintain their own rendering engine(s).
What good is having an independent rendering engine if essentially every other aspect of Firefox as of late has been a copy of how Chrome or Safari handles things?
I'm talking about stuff like getting rid of the traditional menu bar and status bar, hiding the protocol in the URL input field, support for SPDY, the new tab page, silent updates, the built-in PDF viewer of the upcoming Firefox 19, and forth.
Meanwhile, we've also seen them spinning their wheels with failed me-too initiatives like Firefox for Mobile and Firefox OS, rather than producing any true innovation.
Ever since Firefox 4, all that Mozilla has managed to deliver is the Chrome experience, but in a less-effective manner. It makes perfect sense why people are leaving Firefox for Chrome; they'll get a nearly identical UI in Chrome, but they'll get new features sooner, and with better performance.
Err... speaking as someone who has two Firefox OS Developer Devices in front of him right now, I can tell you that it is indeed very innovative. And so is Firefox for Android (specially when using the Aurora channel).
What you seem to be completely ignoring is the proposal of a WebAPI standard that allows web applications to access hardware and OS features and how this enables a vendor-neutral app ecosystem that doesn't have to answer to Apple or Google. This is way more important than hiding the protocol in the URL.
Firefox for Desktop, Firefox for Android and Firefox OS are a combination that will soon allow you to have the freedom of the web (aka cross-platform apps that doesn't require permission from your vendor to exist) on all your devices.
This is not only innovation but this is fighting for a web that belongs to the users and not an ecosystem where the user is the product being sold.
Have you ever considered why Firefox for Desktop appears to evolve in a slower pace than Chrome or Safari? Its because of standards. Mozilla works in the open, heck, you can have access to all the steps of production of a Firefox feature and Mozilla strives to make things standard in the W3C or whatever standard organization deals with that feature while Safari and Chrome will often implement things and not care about interoperability. They can do this because they are the spear point of two companies, named Apple and Google that have their own objectives. As companies, they need to differentiate from the competition and thus need to evolve fast. The choice of evolving fast and differentiating alone or working together in cooperation between companies and committees is this gap you see in browser evolution. I'd rather have standard W3C backed WebAPI and Firefox than WebKit features that do not work on Gecko and Trident and whatever engine launches in the future.
Different from you, I see Mozilla as really innovative because fighting for users and a free standard web is an innovation in these days of vendor lock-in and "I have this feature, you don't".
ChromeOS isn't remotely the same thing as Firefox OS. "We’re aiming at mobile/tablet devices rather than a notebook form factor. This is an early-stage project to expose all device capabilities such that infrastructure like phone dialers can be built with Web APIs, and not only “high level” apps like word processors and presentation software. We will of course be happy to work with the Chrome OS team on standards activities, and indeed to share source code where appropriate." https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G/FAQ
I use Firefox Nightly and the latest Chrome stable. You're just plain incorrect. The Firefox user experience is very different to Chrome. Sure there are similarities but it's ridiculous to claim it's just a copy. They've taken a completely different approach to their built-in PDF viewer and as a developer I can tell you there's a huge number of differences in the way that FF and Chrome handle networking and interface standards. And, yes, these are noticeable to my non-developer friends and family.
The reason so many non-techies are using Chrome is that Google has a much stronger brand presence than Mozilla and has, at least in the UK, spent a fortune on advertising.
I love both of these browsers for different reasons. Please don't claim they're the same just for the sake of making a point.
The big difference is that although Firefox is abiding by convention, all of these things are pretty easy to configure. I show my status bar, full protocol in the location bar, and so on. I can refresh with F5 or Command-R, things like that. I don't know how many times I've had to use Chrome and been frustrated with something as simple as F5 not working.
Observing the activity on interesting support tickets, I believe that Firefox designers/developers have generally been far more responsive to user requests than have the Chrome designers/developers.
I think those are the two reasons why Firefox is so important: It is a true community project, and it is a browser suitable for power users.
Yes you're right but what is also striking (at least to me) is that they seem not very confident with their choice to sticking with Gecko and as far as I can remember it dates back to the launch of Chrome and its new threading model. I don't say they have done a bad choice (I'm still using FF as my main browser) but they seem to doubt about themselves, that's not really reassuring.
Believe me, Brendan Eich has zero doubt about the value of sticking with Gecko. With this blog post he's just pre-emptively answering the zillion people saying "Opera switched to Webkit, why doesn't Mozilla as well?"
OP is not arguing people should be using Firefox or other Mozilla products to "fight monoculture". OP is arguing that in order to deliver browsers (and other products) with compelling advantages in a way that advances Mozilla's mission, Mozilla needs to maintain their own rendering engine(s).