Hacker News Reader

Comment by bioemerl | Hacker News Reader

> What should they be doing?

Take that 30 million.

Split it into chunks of 10k.

Find random unaffiliated contributors to Firefox and give it to them. Promise another 10k for their next substantial contribution.

View on HN

Why should Mozilla subsidise your pet issues when it will not, in any case, make a return of 30 million from Firefox users ?

Do you think AI safety investments are going to make 30M for Mozilla?

Probably not. But then again, Firefox hasn't really been the best at making money, has it ? Usage share keeps shrinking, and despite what many seem to believe, Mozilla isn't fully at fault here. Sure, they remove feature X (because their usage stats say nobody use it, because nerds turn off data collection then complain Mozilla doesn't take them into account), and that gets a few disgruntled people away from Firefox (to fucking where ? No other browser has that feature anyways). But the sheer weight of Google blasting ads for Chrome, mobile browsing becoming more and more prevalent (where Chrome is installed by default, or Safari), intercepting even search queries, purposefully breaking the web for Firefox once they've added a feature that they know Mozilla can't implement), Microsoft blasting ads for Edge, etc. To add to that fact, Mozilla doesn't have any other real revenue sources. Microsoft has about a thousand revenue making products that could each fund Edge development easily, Google is printing money with ads, Apple is printing money with phones, Mozilla is... reselling VPNs ? There's no additional ecosystem or product that Mozilla can sell. And even if they did, it's now too late. Ther users have shown that they are not willing to pay for their services ("nOt uNlEsS iT fUnDs FiReFoX aND nOt TeAChiNg bRowN pEoPlE tO uSe tHE iNtErNet" seems to have become their rallying cry). Mozilla _has_ to look for new avenues, because the current ones (Firefox, Thunderbird) will not ever make money on their own. That boat has sailed a long time ago.

> Mozilla _has_ to look for new avenues, because the current ones (Firefox, Thunderbird) will not ever make money on their own.

The implicit assumption here seems to be that Mozilla needs to exist and if Firefox can’t sustain that existence they need to pivot to something that will. Why? So Google can keep using them as a fig leaf for their browser monopoly? So Mitchell Baker can keep collecting $3 million per year? Because the blind squirrel might find a nut someday?

Maybe there’s a point where the remaining employees should just pack it up.

Well, you're not paying for it, so you can't really complain, now can you ?

$5.6 million: https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2021/mozilla-fdn-990...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com