3 ms·

How do I pay for Firefox directly? Donating to the foundation seems noble, but like other commentators have mentioned it all gets absorbed into the foundation o

How do I pay for Firefox directly? Donating to the foundation seems noble, but like other commentators have mentioned it all gets absorbed into the foundation or is part of a 'bonus product' bundle that (in my mind) overvalues a service I don't want (VPN, Pocket, whatever.) I don't think Mozilla/Firefox is failing because no one will pay for it, but, because it won't take money for Firefox directly.

dblohm7 6y ago
It would also help MoCo funding simply if more people used Firefox.
- DivisionSol 6y ago
  I’m just curious as to why. Bigger market share == bigger marketing/advertising share, specifically? Or something else?
  - dblohm7 6y ago
    Two reasons, one primary and one secondary: 1. Mozilla's revenue from the Google search deal depends on users searching for things using Firefox. More searches through the Firefox search bar, more revenue for MoCo. 2. Marketshare == developer mindshare. Declining marketshare has created a positive feedback loop where devs (or their managers) become less concerned about supporting Firefox. This induces more web compat issues, which causes more people to switch away, cycle repeats.
    - DivisionSol 6y ago
      Sounds reasonable, thanks! Didn’t know of the Google search deal.
    - Silhouette 6y ago
      It's a tough spot to be in, for sure. Firefox used to have two major advantages, at least for me as a user rather than a developer: customisability and the respect for privacy. The former went under a bus with Quantum and has never recovered. The latter is still there, but the single biggest hole in it is the use of Google for search, so that's probably the first thing that many privacy-sensitive users are going to change. I do still use Firefox as my primary browser, despite having reconsidered several times in recent years. However, as a dev I have all the others readily to hand, and I do find myself forced to use others because pages simply don't work in Firefox with noticeable frequency now. From the opposite angle, I also can't remember the last time a client specified Firefox compatibility for a new project. It's usually Chrome, iOS Safari if mobile is relevant, and maybe Edge in corporate settings now. Unfortunately the vicious cycle of market share and compatibility has been established, and while I think we'll all end up worse off for it, I'm not sure there's much anyone can do about it at this point, at least not as long as most of the actual functionality in Firefox is (unsurprisingly) so similar to other browsers.
  - sp332 6y ago
    Big-money donors are more interested if they see that the project is making a big difference.
leeoniya 6y ago
1000% this. i was literally writing the same comment. just have an easy way for me to selectively donate $15/month to Rust, Servo, Firefox, Thunderbird, whatever. instead you get some generic bucket with no possibility to really vote with your money. e.g. i would have never paid for the A/R stuff they distracted their Servo engineers with (plus the Magic Leap entanglement). i would have also withheld funding for the non-removable Pocket integration fiasco. and the jack-in-the-box Mr. Robot promotion - once my tools start to become Mozilla's agents rather then user's agents, they cease to be my tools. i should add that people who choose to use firefox rather than the default are those who are most likely to pay. not listening to them is absolute nonsense.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- leshow 6y ago
  Apparently they fired the servo devs so you may not be able to support them at mozilla anymore anyway.
yarrel 6y ago
This. Mozilla is misaligned incentives all the way down.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

dblohm7 6y ago

It would also help MoCo funding simply if more people used Firefox.

DivisionSol 6y ago
I’m just curious as to why. Bigger market share == bigger marketing/advertising share, specifically? Or something else?
- dblohm7 6y ago
  Two reasons, one primary and one secondary: 1. Mozilla's revenue from the Google search deal depends on users searching for things using Firefox. More searches through the Firefox search bar, more revenue for MoCo. 2. Marketshare == developer mindshare. Declining marketshare has created a positive feedback loop where devs (or their managers) become less concerned about supporting Firefox. This induces more web compat issues, which causes more people to switch away, cycle repeats.
  - DivisionSol 6y ago
    Sounds reasonable, thanks! Didn’t know of the Google search deal.
  - Silhouette 6y ago
    It's a tough spot to be in, for sure. Firefox used to have two major advantages, at least for me as a user rather than a developer: customisability and the respect for privacy. The former went under a bus with Quantum and has never recovered. The latter is still there, but the single biggest hole in it is the use of Google for search, so that's probably the first thing that many privacy-sensitive users are going to change. I do still use Firefox as my primary browser, despite having reconsidered several times in recent years. However, as a dev I have all the others readily to hand, and I do find myself forced to use others because pages simply don't work in Firefox with noticeable frequency now. From the opposite angle, I also can't remember the last time a client specified Firefox compatibility for a new project. It's usually Chrome, iOS Safari if mobile is relevant, and maybe Edge in corporate settings now. Unfortunately the vicious cycle of market share and compatibility has been established, and while I think we'll all end up worse off for it, I'm not sure there's much anyone can do about it at this point, at least not as long as most of the actual functionality in Firefox is (unsurprisingly) so similar to other browsers.
- sp332 6y ago
  Big-money donors are more interested if they see that the project is making a big difference.

leeoniya 6y ago

1000% this. i was literally writing the same comment. just have an easy way for me to selectively donate $15/month to Rust, Servo, Firefox, Thunderbird, whatever. instead you get some generic bucket with no possibility to really vote with your money. e.g. i would have never paid for the A/R stuff they distracted their Servo engineers with (plus the Magic Leap entanglement). i would have also withheld funding for the non-removable Pocket integration fiasco. and the jack-in-the-box Mr. Robot promotion - once my tools start to become Mozilla's agents rather then user's agents, they cease to be my tools. i should add that people who choose to use firefox rather than the default are those who are most likely to pay. not listening to them is absolute nonsense.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
leshow 6y ago
Apparently they fired the servo devs so you may not be able to support them at mozilla anymore anyway.

yarrel 6y ago

This. Mozilla is misaligned incentives all the way down.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]