Is that true though? I mean sure, more people use email - but I would guess there are more Blender users than Thunderbird users in the world.

There's plenty of competition for an excellent free email experience. Very little for 3D modeling software.

Update: Looks like I guessed wrong. I found some approximate user numbers:

Thunderbird has analytics that show around 10 million active daily installations: https://stats.thunderbird.net/

Blender stats are harder to find. They reported 23 million total downloads in 2024, which suggests daily actives significantly lower than 10 million: https://download.blender.org/foundation/Blender-Foundation-A...

Quite potentially some really great stuff, but I’m skeptical that this is actually a great way to kill a good thing. Ideally money isn’t an issue and everyone is paid well, and somehow the organization managers know how to feel out and draw a line on scale/ambitions.