I’m not convinced it requires 1/2 a billion dollars to keep Mozilla running. I think Mozilla is mismanaged, wasteful, easily distracted by unrelated projects, & bogged down with ‘bullshit jobs.’
I’ve yet to see convincing evidence to the contrary short of folks simply telling me ‘developing browsers is insanely expensive!’
I always see the same developing browsers is hard sentiment. But if it’s not true, why hasn’t a completely free open source volunteer team created a popular usable browser yet?
There are other open source browsers/engines.
Aside from that, Imo, it’s not cheap to do what Mozilla is doing, but 1/2 billion annually is probably more than enough.
I believe thar be grifting in them waters.
That’s happening right now: https://ladybird.org/
Like implementing fucking ai
I believe the bandaid needs ripping off.
Just like how community effort into making windows more tolerable never solves the fundamental problem of it being closed-source and out of your control, Firefox being largely dependant on Google, while fighting against privacy invasion and ads creates a conflict of interests.
This is solved by removing the influence
I think the bigger question is, how did shaving off 1% of Google’s market share guarantee the absolute destruction of its single competitor? It’s a devilishly sneaky position Google got itself into, creating mutually assured destruction between one of its many tendrils and one of its competitors.
Not like Mozilla did much better, systematically painting itself into a corner while it promised tens of millions of dollars towards AI projects over the past few years…
It didn’t. Mozilla existed long before chrome ever did. It will continue to exist after chrome is gone. Anyone saying otherwise is trying to convince you to keep chrome around because it’s beneficial to them, not because it’s beneficial to Mozilla or humanity.
Mozilla long ago made a deal with the devil, and there was never really a good long-term outcome. They have consistently failed to develop alternate revenue streams, even ones that they were well-positioned to capitalize on. Their VPN could have been built into the browser and powered by their own network. Instead it was (is?) a repackaged Mullvad. Which begs the question, why not just get mullvad directly at a lower price? Or choose a more capable option for a similar cost?
I love Firefox (its my browser) but It’s insane to say it requires 400 millions per year.
That’s 4000 people at 100k salary. Browsers are complicated, but you do not need an actual town of developers to maintain one.
If chrome variants were my only method of navigating the web, I’d cut ties with the internet out of spite.
Interesting read. I didn’t know Firefox was so completely dependent on search revenue, though it makes sense. Hope the courts and FTC work out something that preserves it.
