Hacker News Reader

They also don't understand how to make money. They think eating in the hand of Google is a viable financial strategy.

Google is giving them so much money, for such a long time, that it is hard to replace. Golden handcuffs. Donations and $10/mo "Firefox subscriptions" aren't going to make up for it.

There are ways they could make money and leverage their browser, such as becoming a certificate authority (they're literally outsourcing profit) or making their own search engine (which would probably be a bad idea for other reasons). Nothing else is going to replace $400m/year.

Their real problem is not "making money." It's too much easy money making them go soft, and then wasting it.

Google has already given them such a huge amount of money that if Mozilla managed it well and ran a lean organization they could coast decades without further payments. Instead they seem to spend it as fast as they get it.

They've burned up billions with little to show for it (their declining market share is the proof of this) and now wonder how they will survive.

Half the things people criticize them for are attempts to find revenue. The criticisms are often reasonable but you can't say they're content to rely on Google.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com