7 ms·

It’s sucky and I particularly hate ads percolating to every part if my life, BUT how are they meant to support Firefox and other software without a revenue stre

It’s sucky and I particularly hate ads percolating to every part if my life, BUT how are they meant to support Firefox and other software without a revenue stream? Mozilla seems to attract criticism for how they run the whole operation, I can’t tell how correct it is, but even if they run it perfectly they still need revenue.

chaostheory 5y ago
There should be a paid ad free membership for anyone who doesn’t like ads. Even if not many people take them up on this offer, it would be more fair since there would be a choice.
- axelthegerman 5y ago
  This! How hard can it be to put a FF subscription payment somewhere inside the browser or on their website? Of course people can always fork it and remove it blabla. But we're talking about people who otherwise would donate and just want to do it more directly (as opposed to the whole Mozilla foundation)
  - cinquemb 5y ago
    Those people should form a DAO, pool their funds in a governable smart contract for disbursing them, and reach out to people thru hn search who have their own forks of FF now and who make comments cough like me cough on hn about it over the years every time FF adds some more garbage in their browser. ;) At this point, threads like this help me add to my list of what garbage i need to compile out every year or so when i feel like syncing up hahaha.
- Semaphor 5y ago
  Alternatively, you could just choose to opt out when it asks you?
  - axelthegerman 5y ago
    Yes, but how can you then support FF financially to make sure it doesn't go away or development grinds to a halt?
    - foobar33333 5y ago
      Subscribe to their other things like the VPN thats coming out.
      - Tom4hawk 5y ago
        To incentivize work on side products that I'm actually not interested in any way or form? This doesn't make any sense.
    - fleddr 5y ago
      Mozilla still has plenty of cash and revenue to fund Firefox development. But they did the opposite, they fired large parts of the development team. No donation will change that, it would require a strategic rollback from leadership.
Eikon 5y ago
Well, start to make paying for the main product possible. I don't donate as I don't want to support for other mozilla's initiatives. I'd however gladly pay around 10-20 euros / month for firefox.
dmitrij 5y ago
Let me pay for Firefox, please!
- sersi 5y ago
  Exactly, I would not mind paying 50 usd a year (it's what I already have paid in donation for mozilla).
  - melomal 5y ago
    1 user at $4.16 per month is not going to help, support and develop a competitive browser or search engine. 1mn users paying $4/m is going to be just over $40mn per year. There's no way any company can compete with MS or Google on that revenue stream. Get investors and they will enforce whatever it takes to build revenue = ads.
    - rightbyte 5y ago
      The main software design problem Mozilla is facing is their urge to add user hostile anti-feutures. MS and especially Google are way better at those, so why compete on that? It is a losing game ...
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - DoingIsLearning 5y ago
      Get your facts right, FF has 870 million YAUs. You're off by several orders of magnitude. This whole argument that only ads can save FF is weak and unfounded. Also I don't want a "competitive browser", I want a simple browser that is customizable and that if needed, developers can run more complex addons on top of it. That is it. I am sure I am not alone in this. And I most certainly don't want FF to spend money/time on "search engine" features. Let the search engines companies do that.
      - melomal 5y ago
        Wait a minute. Are you saying that FF users are all going to pay? How many free Versus paid users are on Youtube Premium? There are billions of Youtube users I would imagine, certain they are not paying. >> Also I don't want a "competitive browser", I want a simple browser that is customizable and that if needed, developers can run more complex addons on top of it. That is it. I am sure I am not alone in this. Get your wallet out, hire some developers, build it, share it. You want a lot and make demands but I don't see how what you said is economically viable.
toyg 5y ago
They could start by slashing the out-of-control executive salaries maybe? Ahaha, who am I kidding, capitalism be capitalism... Edit: before you knee-jerk downvote, please read up on the evolution of exec compensation at Mozilla. It's pretty eye-opening, and really exemplifies what's going wrong with the project.
- rhn_mk1 5y ago
  I was expecting some reply that has actual thought, not a knee-jerk reaction.
  - toyg 5y ago
    Exec salaries at Mozilla are a real problem. The search-engine deals bring a lot of money, which would be more than enough to run an engineering-focused group that develops a browser and associated technologies. However, it's not enough to run yet another megacorp-style organization with overinflated management compensation, which is what it has slowly turned into.
fguerraz 5y ago
I used to give money to Mozilla Foundation, I stopped when I realised it actually wasn't going to Firefox development, which is done by Mozilla Corporation. I even reached out to their support, and no, there is no way to support FF but with your eyeballs. With that feature, that I will of course disable for my personal use, I will not be able to recommend Firefox to other people any more. Please let us pay!
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  Seems to work for Wikipedia (possibly another dysfunctional example). I'd happily pay for Firefox too. If nothing else, there's not that many rendering engines out there. Chrome, Brave and Edge are all Chromium. Safari is separate I guess, but that's tied to Apple platforms. I really don't want yet another Google monoculture.
Barrin92 5y ago
maybe go the other direction and try to cut expenses rather than trying to make more money? Firefox gets hundreds of millions from Google alone in royalties, that is not enough to build a web browser? Firefox has lost almost half of its users since 2010, yet it keeps burning more money every year. Run the company in a lean way, cut the fat, do one thing well. It's like Wikipedia, every year they seemingly find new ingenious ways to burn more cash.
- callahad 5y ago
  > Firefox gets hundreds of millions from Google alone in royalties, that is not enough to build a web browser? Empirically, it is not. Even Microsoft gave up that chase. Browsers are staggeringly complex and expensive to build. Which may be an indictment of the Web itself, but in the absence of a simpler alternative (Gemini?), the Web we have is the Web we've got, and browsers have to meet it where it is.
  - creshal 5y ago
    Microsoft gave up developing their own engine, because that aspect doesn't make them money, and their engines were too far behind to bother investing into catching up. They're still making a browser, because it's useful even if it doesn't make them money. Mozilla's engine is modern and they have a clear revenue stream to subsidize its development with their browser revenue. But instead the browser revenue goes to dumb shit like mobile OSes (that definitely is too expensive), VPNs, executive bonuses, and basically anything but their browser or engine.
    - roca 5y ago
      FirefoxOS has been dead for at least seven years. That horse is quite dead. The VPN product probably pays for itself. I'm not an insider anymore but aside from FirefoxOS the vast majority of the money has always gone into browser development and I have no reason to believe that has changed.
      - roca 5y ago
RedComet 5y ago
Strange to see so many people here seemingly operating under the mistaken belief that Firefox is developed by volunteers. They've been receiving hundreds of millions of dollars each year just for what they set as the default search engine. https://www.ghacks.net/2021/09/17/firefox-experiment-is-testing-bing-as-the-default-search-engine/ https://www.ghacks.net/2021/09/17/firefox-experiment-is-test...
modzu 5y ago
brave have some ideas...
albertopv 5y ago
This was my first thought, then I remembered Google gives Mozilla hundreds of millions every year, Mitchell Baker is paid 3 millions/year (after 250 people were laid off) when Firefox is basically dying.
yosito 5y ago
Have they tried setting up a Patreon?
toto444 5y ago
Somewhat suggested one day that they could become a Rust consultancy.

chaostheory 5y ago

There should be a paid ad free membership for anyone who doesn’t like ads. Even if not many people take them up on this offer, it would be more fair since there would be a choice.

axelthegerman 5y ago
This! How hard can it be to put a FF subscription payment somewhere inside the browser or on their website? Of course people can always fork it and remove it blabla. But we're talking about people who otherwise would donate and just want to do it more directly (as opposed to the whole Mozilla foundation)
- cinquemb 5y ago
  Those people should form a DAO, pool their funds in a governable smart contract for disbursing them, and reach out to people thru hn search who have their own forks of FF now and who make comments cough like me cough on hn about it over the years every time FF adds some more garbage in their browser. ;) At this point, threads like this help me add to my list of what garbage i need to compile out every year or so when i feel like syncing up hahaha.
Semaphor 5y ago
Alternatively, you could just choose to opt out when it asks you?
- axelthegerman 5y ago
  Yes, but how can you then support FF financially to make sure it doesn't go away or development grinds to a halt?
  - foobar33333 5y ago
    Subscribe to their other things like the VPN thats coming out.
    - Tom4hawk 5y ago
      To incentivize work on side products that I'm actually not interested in any way or form? This doesn't make any sense.
  - fleddr 5y ago
    Mozilla still has plenty of cash and revenue to fund Firefox development. But they did the opposite, they fired large parts of the development team. No donation will change that, it would require a strategic rollback from leadership.

Eikon 5y ago

Well, start to make paying for the main product possible. I don't donate as I don't want to support for other mozilla's initiatives. I'd however gladly pay around 10-20 euros / month for firefox.

dmitrij 5y ago

Let me pay for Firefox, please!

sersi 5y ago
Exactly, I would not mind paying 50 usd a year (it's what I already have paid in donation for mozilla).
- melomal 5y ago
  1 user at $4.16 per month is not going to help, support and develop a competitive browser or search engine. 1mn users paying $4/m is going to be just over $40mn per year. There's no way any company can compete with MS or Google on that revenue stream. Get investors and they will enforce whatever it takes to build revenue = ads.
  - rightbyte 5y ago
    The main software design problem Mozilla is facing is their urge to add user hostile anti-feutures. MS and especially Google are way better at those, so why compete on that? It is a losing game ...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - DoingIsLearning 5y ago
    Get your facts right, FF has 870 million YAUs. You're off by several orders of magnitude. This whole argument that only ads can save FF is weak and unfounded. Also I don't want a "competitive browser", I want a simple browser that is customizable and that if needed, developers can run more complex addons on top of it. That is it. I am sure I am not alone in this. And I most certainly don't want FF to spend money/time on "search engine" features. Let the search engines companies do that.
    - melomal 5y ago
      Wait a minute. Are you saying that FF users are all going to pay? How many free Versus paid users are on Youtube Premium? There are billions of Youtube users I would imagine, certain they are not paying. >> Also I don't want a "competitive browser", I want a simple browser that is customizable and that if needed, developers can run more complex addons on top of it. That is it. I am sure I am not alone in this. Get your wallet out, hire some developers, build it, share it. You want a lot and make demands but I don't see how what you said is economically viable.

toyg 5y ago

They could start by slashing the out-of-control executive salaries maybe? Ahaha, who am I kidding, capitalism be capitalism... Edit: before you knee-jerk downvote, please read up on the evolution of exec compensation at Mozilla. It's pretty eye-opening, and really exemplifies what's going wrong with the project.

rhn_mk1 5y ago
I was expecting some reply that has actual thought, not a knee-jerk reaction.
- toyg 5y ago
  Exec salaries at Mozilla are a real problem. The search-engine deals bring a lot of money, which would be more than enough to run an engineering-focused group that develops a browser and associated technologies. However, it's not enough to run yet another megacorp-style organization with overinflated management compensation, which is what it has slowly turned into.

fguerraz 5y ago

I used to give money to Mozilla Foundation, I stopped when I realised it actually wasn't going to Firefox development, which is done by Mozilla Corporation. I even reached out to their support, and no, there is no way to support FF but with your eyeballs. With that feature, that I will of course disable for my personal use, I will not be able to recommend Firefox to other people any more. Please let us pay!

rich_sasha 5y ago
Seems to work for Wikipedia (possibly another dysfunctional example). I'd happily pay for Firefox too. If nothing else, there's not that many rendering engines out there. Chrome, Brave and Edge are all Chromium. Safari is separate I guess, but that's tied to Apple platforms. I really don't want yet another Google monoculture.

Barrin92 5y ago

maybe go the other direction and try to cut expenses rather than trying to make more money? Firefox gets hundreds of millions from Google alone in royalties, that is not enough to build a web browser? Firefox has lost almost half of its users since 2010, yet it keeps burning more money every year. Run the company in a lean way, cut the fat, do one thing well. It's like Wikipedia, every year they seemingly find new ingenious ways to burn more cash.

callahad 5y ago
> Firefox gets hundreds of millions from Google alone in royalties, that is not enough to build a web browser? Empirically, it is not. Even Microsoft gave up that chase. Browsers are staggeringly complex and expensive to build. Which may be an indictment of the Web itself, but in the absence of a simpler alternative (Gemini?), the Web we have is the Web we've got, and browsers have to meet it where it is.
- creshal 5y ago
  Microsoft gave up developing their own engine, because that aspect doesn't make them money, and their engines were too far behind to bother investing into catching up. They're still making a browser, because it's useful even if it doesn't make them money. Mozilla's engine is modern and they have a clear revenue stream to subsidize its development with their browser revenue. But instead the browser revenue goes to dumb shit like mobile OSes (that definitely is too expensive), VPNs, executive bonuses, and basically anything but their browser or engine.
  - roca 5y ago
    FirefoxOS has been dead for at least seven years. That horse is quite dead. The VPN product probably pays for itself. I'm not an insider anymore but aside from FirefoxOS the vast majority of the money has always gone into browser development and I have no reason to believe that has changed.
    - roca 5y ago

RedComet 5y ago

Strange to see so many people here seemingly operating under the mistaken belief that Firefox is developed by volunteers. They've been receiving hundreds of millions of dollars each year just for what they set as the default search engine. https://www.ghacks.net/2021/09/17/firefox-experiment-is-testing-bing-as-the-default-search-engine/ https://www.ghacks.net/2021/09/17/firefox-experiment-is-test...

modzu 5y ago

brave have some ideas...

albertopv 5y ago

This was my first thought, then I remembered Google gives Mozilla hundreds of millions every year, Mitchell Baker is paid 3 millions/year (after 250 people were laid off) when Firefox is basically dying.

yosito 5y ago

Have they tried setting up a Patreon?

toto444 5y ago

Somewhat suggested one day that they could become a Rust consultancy.