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Comment by kmlx | Hacker News Reader

> Mozilla would have zero issues getting 10 million users who would pay $100/year for it.

why would anyone pay for a browser when all the rest of them are free?

If there were a way to directly fund Firefox (and only Firefox, not any other Mozilla stuff), I'd do it in a heartbeat. But I imagine I'm in the minority.

The fact that it’s not even an option really makes me scratch my head. There’s a decent amount of people who would like to throw some money their way to support Firefox specifically. Maybe not a ton, but certainly enough to warrant the option for people to do so.

> why would anyone pay for a browser when all the rest of them are free?

The browser that does not track you, does not report to Google or facebook, etc? That's why.

I definitely would if it meant I wouldn't have to see a single ad ever again. I'm at the point in my life where trading money for not seeing ads is very appealing to me. Between Hulu, Youtube Premium, Spotify, etc. I pay an absurd amount of money every year to not see ads. I'd definitely do the same if a browser could hide any and all ads from me, and the sum I'd pay is a lot more than $100 year.

Sure, but you may as well save that money up as a down payment on a unicorn.

If it were possible to suppress all ads, then many people would happily sell you that solution. And the sites pushing those ads will see the money flowing to those people and not them, and so will grudgingly refuse to serve you any content.

As ad blockers get more popular and more effective, it's already happening more and more.

You can have a magical "don't show me ads" button only as long as it doesn't work very well. (And I have mine: Firefox + µBlock Origin.)

If they added an optional "support Firefox by paying $100 per year" button, some people would do it because they want to support the browser.

Because it would be so much better than the alternatives?

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