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> The revenue-sharing deals that Google offers to browsers are essential to companies like Mozilla Corp., he said, because they offer their products to users f

by bogwog 4y ago

> The revenue-sharing deals that Google offers to browsers are essential to companies like Mozilla Corp., he said, because they offer their products to users for free. > “The reason they partner with Google isn’t because they had to; it’s because they want to,” Schmidtlein said. Mozilla would disappear overnight if Google stopped paying them. Good riddance IMO (even though I love FF and it's the only browser I use). They haven't been able to build a sustainable business despite receiving hundreds of millions of dollars per year from Google. A flower shop on a street corner can get a better ROI. Mozilla's management is incompetent and shady.

polote 4y ago
The current Mozilla might disappear but if it brings back the old Mozilla it can only be a good news
- prox 4y ago
  Yeah it seems like the right kind of attrition. I would definitely pay patreon-wise for Firefox.
  - klysm 4y ago
    Unfortunately you would be in the vast minority. I’m not sure there’d be enough individuals willing to do it to keep up with chrome
    - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      A big part of the reason browsers are so expensive to build and maintain is because Google keeps expanding the set of features browsers are expected to implement (and Mozilla offers no meaningful resistance to this.) Google creates a problem so large that only Google has the funds to solve it.
  - speed_spread 4y ago
    Right kind of attrition? Execs would fire every dev rather than themselves take a pay cut. The fact that this would actually kill the project is beyond them because they'd stay in office a little longer.
- summerlight 4y ago
  Sadly, old Mozilla won't come back even if we get rid of the current one. Building web infrastructures is now a completely different story than 20 years ago. You're not going to build a new functional web browser from scratch without hundreds of millions of bucks every year.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    > You're not going to build a new functional web browser Then thank god that Firefox is FOSS, so whoever picks it up won't have to. The abolition of Mozilla would mean that more thoughtful forks won't have to compete with upstream for either cash or attention. Although I'd bet $1000 that if Mozilla died, they'd give Firefox and its trademarks to the Apache Foundation Openoffice-style to protect Chrome even after the company's last breath.
evr1isnxprt 4y ago
Isn’t receiving hundreds of millions a year a sustainable business? I did not realize currency trade was constrained to your sensibilities; my bad. Private property, free markets! Until two parties enter into an arrangement then you demand they open themselves to business with others?
- acoard 4y ago
  > Isn’t receiving hundreds of millions a year a sustainable business? Right, but the argument goes that the only reason Google pays Mozilla so much is to prop up the competition. Google may have calculated that it would be preferable to pay the hundreds of millions, rather than have Firefox die just leaving Chrome/Safari. Thus, it's not really a sustainable business, but rather being the lucky benefactor of some scheme. Their value is only in being 'the other guy', not in actually creating a valuable product for consumers. I wouldn't call that a sustainable business.
  - eminence32 4y ago
    > Their value is only in being 'the other guy', not in actually creating a valuable product for consumers Mozilla's value to Google might be only being "the other guy", but Mozilla is valuable to me (a consumer) because they are producing a Firefox, which is a product I consider valuable. Obviously I would prefer that Mozilla can find a self-sustainable business model to support Firefox development. But if I had to choose between "Mozilla doesn't exist" and "Mozilla exists only because it gets money from Google", then I choose the latter.
    - _aavaa_ 4y ago
      But the fact that Mozilla continue to require Google's money to survive means that not enough people would make the same choice.
      - bink 4y ago
        Perhaps, but also consider that they are only in this position because Google uses their search monopoly to fund development of a free alternative... much like Microsoft used their desktop OS monopoly to do the same in the 90s.
zach_garwood 4y ago
Wouldn't most businesses disappear if their partnerships dried up? This is just a weird criticism.
- pupppet 4y ago
  Eh if a car company could only stay in business because they had giant Coke ads emblazoned on the sides of their cars I wouldn’t chalk it up as a win for the company.
  - umeshunni 4y ago
    What if a car company could only stay in business because of the interest it collects on financing?
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      Then I'd hardly call it a car company.
  - minhazm 4y ago
    That's a perfect analogy for Google. They only stay in business because they're able to plaster Coke (and other companies ads) all over their websites.
- sysop073 4y ago
  No? Most businesses sell products or services, their primary source of revenue isn't bribes from a single company. That's pretty rare actually.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    You've been downvoted because simply selling a product to make money is considered absurd in this industry. What a horrible state of affairs.
masterof0 4y ago
I remember a comment from their CEO complaining that a 3 million USD comp was a "sacrifice" she was making because she believes on the mission. Totally insane.
- googlryas 4y ago
  Well, if she can be getting paid $10M somewhere else, then it is a sacrifice.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    If that's a real opportunity she has, I wish she'd leave Mozilla and take it. But given the abysmal performance of Mozilla, is she actually worth as much as she claims? Why should we believe her?
    - foobarian 4y ago
      That's what happens when you cheap out on a CEO and pay them $3M instead of $10M :-)
  - tmpz22 4y ago
    This is a "let them eat cake" style of statement. Yeah the poor could sustain themselves on cake, but read the room. Especially as Firefox has made lots of layoffs recently.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      I can't parse this comment. Who's the princess, what's the bread, and what's the cake? And what are they supposed to read in the room? As far as I can tell, "read the room" is something that people have been saying a lot on twitter over the past few months in order to silence people when they are correct, therefore difficult to argue with. > Yeah the poor could sustain themselves on cake, This is the opposite of what the anecdote is meant to say, right? The joke is that the poor can't sustain themselves on cake because lacking bread also means lacking cake. Is $3 million the bread? Is the CEO the poor? Am I having a stroke?
bpodgursky 4y ago
> despite receiving hundreds of millions of dollars per year from Google > despite "In spite of paying my 30 year old live-at-home son a $100,000 per year allowance, he has been unable to find and hold a full-time job"
patcon 4y ago
Yeah, the Red Cross can screw right off. And libraries. Things should not exist in this world if they can't pay their own way... Sorry, my words above feel gross. I don't normally write sarcastic comments, and I don't like to, but I was a little put off by the "good riddance" comment. I just mean... aren't some entities cost centres that pay dividends later, sometimes non-monetarily. Kinda like children. Not everything needs to compete is the market and be judged a failure if it doesn't succeed through the single metric markets care about, right? Anyhow, respect (despite my sarcastic start :) )
- bitwize 4y ago
  If the Red Cross were run by a lawyer, who gutted the budget for doctors and nurses and focused the organization on PR initiatives, yeah, fuck the Red Cross. That's where Mozilla is.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
    Here's the regular reminder for people to carefully pay attention to the distinction between the Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation. The Corporation makes the browser (and presumably gets the Google money), the Foundation collects the donations and does PR/social justice/bettering-the-world initiatives.
    - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      The Foundation also gets paid by the Corporation for the right to use the Firefox brand. You can't donate to the Corporation to fund Firefox development, and even if you could, any 'excess' profits the Corporation made would get siphoned out to the Foundation anyway.
    - ksherlock 4y ago
      Cool story but Mozilla Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mozilla Foundation. Mitchell Baker is Chair of both. For-profit Mozilla Corporation exists to wash revenue that can't go directly to the non-profit Foundation. c.f. Hollywood accounting.
moralestapia 4y ago
>Mozilla's management is incompetent and shady. Yes, and plenty of guys have been saying that since day 0 of the new management taking over, only to get ignored and hushed away. Yet, here we are 8(!) years later :). New unpopular opinion: Mozilla needs to disappear. The faster it does the better, as it is already dead.
seydor 4y ago
Maybe the billions are the reason why they are not innovating

by bogwog 4y ago

polote 4y ago

The current Mozilla might disappear but if it brings back the old Mozilla it can only be a good news

prox 4y ago
Yeah it seems like the right kind of attrition. I would definitely pay patreon-wise for Firefox.
- klysm 4y ago
  Unfortunately you would be in the vast minority. I’m not sure there’d be enough individuals willing to do it to keep up with chrome
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    A big part of the reason browsers are so expensive to build and maintain is because Google keeps expanding the set of features browsers are expected to implement (and Mozilla offers no meaningful resistance to this.) Google creates a problem so large that only Google has the funds to solve it.
- speed_spread 4y ago
  Right kind of attrition? Execs would fire every dev rather than themselves take a pay cut. The fact that this would actually kill the project is beyond them because they'd stay in office a little longer.
summerlight 4y ago
Sadly, old Mozilla won't come back even if we get rid of the current one. Building web infrastructures is now a completely different story than 20 years ago. You're not going to build a new functional web browser from scratch without hundreds of millions of bucks every year.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > You're not going to build a new functional web browser Then thank god that Firefox is FOSS, so whoever picks it up won't have to. The abolition of Mozilla would mean that more thoughtful forks won't have to compete with upstream for either cash or attention. Although I'd bet $1000 that if Mozilla died, they'd give Firefox and its trademarks to the Apache Foundation Openoffice-style to protect Chrome even after the company's last breath.

evr1isnxprt 4y ago

Isn’t receiving hundreds of millions a year a sustainable business? I did not realize currency trade was constrained to your sensibilities; my bad. Private property, free markets! Until two parties enter into an arrangement then you demand they open themselves to business with others?

acoard 4y ago
> Isn’t receiving hundreds of millions a year a sustainable business? Right, but the argument goes that the only reason Google pays Mozilla so much is to prop up the competition. Google may have calculated that it would be preferable to pay the hundreds of millions, rather than have Firefox die just leaving Chrome/Safari. Thus, it's not really a sustainable business, but rather being the lucky benefactor of some scheme. Their value is only in being 'the other guy', not in actually creating a valuable product for consumers. I wouldn't call that a sustainable business.
- eminence32 4y ago
  > Their value is only in being 'the other guy', not in actually creating a valuable product for consumers Mozilla's value to Google might be only being "the other guy", but Mozilla is valuable to me (a consumer) because they are producing a Firefox, which is a product I consider valuable. Obviously I would prefer that Mozilla can find a self-sustainable business model to support Firefox development. But if I had to choose between "Mozilla doesn't exist" and "Mozilla exists only because it gets money from Google", then I choose the latter.
  - _aavaa_ 4y ago
    But the fact that Mozilla continue to require Google's money to survive means that not enough people would make the same choice.
    - bink 4y ago
      Perhaps, but also consider that they are only in this position because Google uses their search monopoly to fund development of a free alternative... much like Microsoft used their desktop OS monopoly to do the same in the 90s.

zach_garwood 4y ago

Wouldn't most businesses disappear if their partnerships dried up? This is just a weird criticism.

pupppet 4y ago
Eh if a car company could only stay in business because they had giant Coke ads emblazoned on the sides of their cars I wouldn’t chalk it up as a win for the company.
- umeshunni 4y ago
  What if a car company could only stay in business because of the interest it collects on financing?
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    Then I'd hardly call it a car company.
- minhazm 4y ago
  That's a perfect analogy for Google. They only stay in business because they're able to plaster Coke (and other companies ads) all over their websites.
sysop073 4y ago
No? Most businesses sell products or services, their primary source of revenue isn't bribes from a single company. That's pretty rare actually.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  You've been downvoted because simply selling a product to make money is considered absurd in this industry. What a horrible state of affairs.

masterof0 4y ago

I remember a comment from their CEO complaining that a 3 million USD comp was a "sacrifice" she was making because she believes on the mission. Totally insane.

googlryas 4y ago
Well, if she can be getting paid $10M somewhere else, then it is a sacrifice.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  If that's a real opportunity she has, I wish she'd leave Mozilla and take it. But given the abysmal performance of Mozilla, is she actually worth as much as she claims? Why should we believe her?
  - foobarian 4y ago
    That's what happens when you cheap out on a CEO and pay them $3M instead of $10M :-)
- tmpz22 4y ago
  This is a "let them eat cake" style of statement. Yeah the poor could sustain themselves on cake, but read the room. Especially as Firefox has made lots of layoffs recently.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    I can't parse this comment. Who's the princess, what's the bread, and what's the cake? And what are they supposed to read in the room? As far as I can tell, "read the room" is something that people have been saying a lot on twitter over the past few months in order to silence people when they are correct, therefore difficult to argue with. > Yeah the poor could sustain themselves on cake, This is the opposite of what the anecdote is meant to say, right? The joke is that the poor can't sustain themselves on cake because lacking bread also means lacking cake. Is $3 million the bread? Is the CEO the poor? Am I having a stroke?

bpodgursky 4y ago

> despite receiving hundreds of millions of dollars per year from Google > despite "In spite of paying my 30 year old live-at-home son a $100,000 per year allowance, he has been unable to find and hold a full-time job"

patcon 4y ago

Yeah, the Red Cross can screw right off. And libraries. Things should not exist in this world if they can't pay their own way... Sorry, my words above feel gross. I don't normally write sarcastic comments, and I don't like to, but I was a little put off by the "good riddance" comment. I just mean... aren't some entities cost centres that pay dividends later, sometimes non-monetarily. Kinda like children. Not everything needs to compete is the market and be judged a failure if it doesn't succeed through the single metric markets care about, right? Anyhow, respect (despite my sarcastic start :) )

bitwize 4y ago
If the Red Cross were run by a lawyer, who gutted the budget for doctors and nurses and focused the organization on PR initiatives, yeah, fuck the Red Cross. That's where Mozilla is.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
  Here's the regular reminder for people to carefully pay attention to the distinction between the Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation. The Corporation makes the browser (and presumably gets the Google money), the Foundation collects the donations and does PR/social justice/bettering-the-world initiatives.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    The Foundation also gets paid by the Corporation for the right to use the Firefox brand. You can't donate to the Corporation to fund Firefox development, and even if you could, any 'excess' profits the Corporation made would get siphoned out to the Foundation anyway.
  - ksherlock 4y ago
    Cool story but Mozilla Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mozilla Foundation. Mitchell Baker is Chair of both. For-profit Mozilla Corporation exists to wash revenue that can't go directly to the non-profit Foundation. c.f. Hollywood accounting.

moralestapia 4y ago

>Mozilla's management is incompetent and shady. Yes, and plenty of guys have been saying that since day 0 of the new management taking over, only to get ignored and hushed away. Yet, here we are 8(!) years later :). New unpopular opinion: Mozilla needs to disappear. The faster it does the better, as it is already dead.

seydor 4y ago

Maybe the billions are the reason why they are not innovating