Their north star should be taking market share back from Google, not getting sidetracked with these piddling income schemes or anything else. It is worth so much more to them in the long run to break Chrome’s monopoly than anything in my short term. So if privacy is what people want, give it to them now and figure out monetization after you’ve beaten Chrome.

Well they have been a bit more restricted in terms of privacy exploitation though their usual telemetry is there of course. MS just love telemetry :( So much they won't allow us a choice in the matter.

But they have been pushing it a bit as a more privacy centric version of Chrome right?

Tbh I never really saw the point in it especially after they moved to chromium. It's not much better at privacy than Chrome. It doesn't work any better because it's really just Chrome. It doesn't add any features Chrome doesn't have except for O365 users that get some integration there. So why are we supposed to love it? I thought it was more interesting when they made their own engine.

I still find it a weird value proposition as a user. I use it for work but privately Firefox does me just fine.