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Mozilla has got to find an alternate revenue stream. Maybe it can start charging for Firefox Sync space or something like that. Maybe it can take a cut of donat

Mozilla has got to find an alternate revenue stream. Maybe it can start charging for Firefox Sync space or something like that. Maybe it can take a cut of donations from Mozilla Addons or sell more prominent spots there. The fact of the matter is that it is immensely irresponsible to depend almost entirely on Google for operations. Google could pull an Enron and be gone tomorrow, Google's founders could die or resign and the company could fall to MBAs who don't understand the logic behind paying $100 million/yr to a competing web browser, and so forth. There has to be more money involved here if Mozilla expects to have longevity. Really this is true of open-source software as a whole. There really needs to be a better way to monetize than begging for donations and/or selling T-shirts if these projects are going to live on. As times continue to turn tenuous, this will only become more crucial. I fully believe in OSS and Mozilla specifically, but the reality is that we have to find a way for OSS to be at least somewhat profitable without relying on the goodwill of a handful (or less) of benevolent entities.

gimfoo 15y ago
Even if Google were to cease to exist tomorrow, this would not mean the end of this revenue stream. I think most people when talking about the Mozilla <-> Google relationship fail to recognize that this is a mutually beneficial arrangements. Bing and other search providers would be willing to spend lots of money to have the default search status. Just because Google has always purchased this spot in the past does not mean that google is the only way Mozilla can monetize search.
- cookiecaper 15y ago
  Bing probably wouldn't be averse now, but it should be obvious that Microsoft also has a major conflict of interest in regard to paying Mozilla money for the top spot in search. With Microsoft's history, nobody should be surprised if they drop Mozilla after they use its traffic to establish Bing (and other MS properties, like IE, Windows, and Office) more fully, and nobody should be surprised when Bing plays dirty and intentionally degrades the experience for Firefox users in an attempt to compel a switch to IE or another MS platform. While I don't believe that selling the default search spot is problematic, I do believe it's risky and dangerous to make that the primary source of revenue, especially when the major potential bidders have serious conflicts of interest with supporting Mozilla (that is, they provide competing or incompatible services and products).
  - redthrowaway 15y ago
    >and other MS properties, like Firefox I'm assuming you mean IE. >nobody should be surprised when Bing plays dirty and intentionally degrades the experience for Firefox users in an attempt to compel a switch to IE MS would never degrade performance on their own platform. Tying IE into Windows was different; they made the default work better than the alternative. They're not going to intentionally make Bing shitty for FF users; they'll just go elsewhere. They might integrate Bing and IE more fully, adding features and making it more difficult to use other engines, but they would never intentionally degrade their own product.
  - zobzu 15y ago
    Well nobody would have been surprised if Google dropped the Mozilla deal now. Have you seen the zillion articles thinking they actually would? I dunno what make you think Google is "less evil" than Microsoft in that area. It's just business. Deal profits Google, Google makes deal. When the balance changes, Google will stop making the deal.
potch 15y ago
Goodwill? Do you think Google's shareholders get warm fuzzies when they see the news of this deal? This arrangement sends Google large amounts of traffic, from which they derive significant financial value. Stop calling this charity, it's a mutually beneficial arrangement. Edit: I mentioned this before below, but I'll repeat it up here. I work for Mozilla, but was not involved in the inner workings of this deal. I'm stoked to know where my salary is coming from though :)
- cookiecaper 15y ago
  You think Mozilla really has much leverage in a situation like this? Google is the best search engine and everyone knows that. Mozilla would do their users a disservice by switching to Bing or something, and this could even be seen as a positive thing by Google due to the theory that it would drive more users to Chrome. While I agree you can also look at this from a perspective of mutual benefit, it's certainly not an obvious open-and-shut deal, especially not with Chrome in the mix. It's simply a matter of priorities, and as I noted in the grandparent, it's easy to conceive a situation where this perspective may shift. Also, I think that executives care about the opinions of shareholders about as much as Congresspeople care about the opinions of constituents, i.e., they don't care at all unless it looks like something will cause a major disruption to their continued employment.
  - mbrubeck 15y ago
    There are a lot of possibilities beyond just switching a default from one competitor to another. For example, a differently-designed UI could make it easier to get results from multiple search engines. For one illustration, see http://clarkbw.net/tmp/Firefox-Awesome-Search.html http://clarkbw.net/tmp/Firefox-Awesome-Search.html For more thoughts on this topic, see http://www.squarefree.com/2011/08/12/how-mozilla-could-improve-search-engine-competition/ http://www.squarefree.com/2011/08/12/how-mozilla-could-impro...
  - yuhong 15y ago
    >Also, I think that executives care about the opinions of shareholders about as much as Congresspeople care about the opinions of constituents, i.e., they don't care at all unless it looks like something will cause a major disruption to their continued employment. Yep, Larry, Sergey, and Eric has dual-class stock AFAIK. I think the real problem with this comes from the greedy legacy MBAs who abuses this.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
systemizer 15y ago
Do you really think Google could vanish? Google search has become such a necessity in internet culture today, and culture is very hard to change. Hell... "google" is a verb in the dictionary: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/google http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/google
- cookiecaper 15y ago
  It doesn't have to vanish to get taken over by executives that don't see the value in providing such a huge chunk of money to a company that offers a competing product. In fact, I reckon that most business schools teach this kind of support for your competitor is extremely bad. We know that brilliant and awesome companies end up in the hands of MBAs and it's all downhill from there. Mozilla should certainly plan for this eventuality.
  - jlongster 15y ago
    You're way oversimplifying it. Google gets a huge influx of traffic through this deal, and Mozilla would most likely be able to generate income from their 30% of the browser space if Google didn't sign this (possibly even from Bing, which is even worse for them). That kind of market space itself is a valuable asset, and is why Google is willing to go through this.
- vidarh 15y ago
  The number of "necessities in internet culture" that are now largely irrelevant is pretty high. While dethroning Google would take a major upheaval, people thought Altavista, Excite, Lycos and Yahoo would grow into the sky too.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
Kuiper 15y ago
I was under the impression that Mozilla also got a sizable chunk of revenue from Amazon. Every time I search Amazon, I do it via the browser search box, and there's a referral code appended. Even if Mozilla doesn't have a special agreement with Amazon (this would not surprise me), they would no doubt qualify for Amazon's highest volume-based advertising rate, which is 8.5% on all sales (excluding electronics and gift cards, which have a rate of 4% regardless of your referral-volume tier). I presume that the same is also true of eBay in some fashion.
- mirkules 15y ago
  I always found it easier to type "ctrl/cmd-l amazon.com" and do my search than use the mouse to switch engines (is there a keyboard shortcut??) But, knowing that it can potentially benefit Mozilla, I will start using it more often now. Thanks.
  - mbrubeck 15y ago
    Control-K will highlight the search bar and Control-Up/Down will change the search engine.
    - mirkules 15y ago
      On Mac, up/down goes to the beginning and end of the line but cmd-up/down switches engines. Thanks for the hint!
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - AndyKelley 15y ago
    I recently found out a life-changing tip with Firefox. Right click any search box on any website and hit "Add keyword for this search." You can then assign a prefix which you can use in the address bar to search that site. For example, I have these set up: Search YouTube: tube <query> Search Urban Dictionary: urban <query> Search Amazon: amazon <query> Search Wikipedia: wiki <query>
mbrubeck 15y ago
Chrome may compete with Firefox, but Mozilla isn't a competitor for Google's profits or its core business. As an analogy, consider Apple and Best Buy. Apple owns its own retail stores, and those stores are competition for Best Buy. But Apple isn't really in the business of retail; they have no reason to stop you from buying Macs and iPads at Best Buy. Retail is just a channel for Apple's real business, and its to their advantage to push their product through the channels they own and the channels they don't. The browser is a channel for Google's core business of search advertising. Like Apple, they get some benefits from building and controlling a distribution channel of their own. But they have no motivation to stop pushing their core product to users of other browsers too.
forensic 15y ago
Mozilla could just sell the search bar to Bing or anyone else for that matter. This really isn't that dangerous unless searching the web as a whole "pulls an Enron" and people go back to browsing Yahoo! categories.

gimfoo 15y ago

Even if Google were to cease to exist tomorrow, this would not mean the end of this revenue stream. I think most people when talking about the Mozilla <-> Google relationship fail to recognize that this is a mutually beneficial arrangements. Bing and other search providers would be willing to spend lots of money to have the default search status. Just because Google has always purchased this spot in the past does not mean that google is the only way Mozilla can monetize search.

cookiecaper 15y ago
Bing probably wouldn't be averse now, but it should be obvious that Microsoft also has a major conflict of interest in regard to paying Mozilla money for the top spot in search. With Microsoft's history, nobody should be surprised if they drop Mozilla after they use its traffic to establish Bing (and other MS properties, like IE, Windows, and Office) more fully, and nobody should be surprised when Bing plays dirty and intentionally degrades the experience for Firefox users in an attempt to compel a switch to IE or another MS platform. While I don't believe that selling the default search spot is problematic, I do believe it's risky and dangerous to make that the primary source of revenue, especially when the major potential bidders have serious conflicts of interest with supporting Mozilla (that is, they provide competing or incompatible services and products).
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  >and other MS properties, like Firefox I'm assuming you mean IE. >nobody should be surprised when Bing plays dirty and intentionally degrades the experience for Firefox users in an attempt to compel a switch to IE MS would never degrade performance on their own platform. Tying IE into Windows was different; they made the default work better than the alternative. They're not going to intentionally make Bing shitty for FF users; they'll just go elsewhere. They might integrate Bing and IE more fully, adding features and making it more difficult to use other engines, but they would never intentionally degrade their own product.
- zobzu 15y ago
  Well nobody would have been surprised if Google dropped the Mozilla deal now. Have you seen the zillion articles thinking they actually would? I dunno what make you think Google is "less evil" than Microsoft in that area. It's just business. Deal profits Google, Google makes deal. When the balance changes, Google will stop making the deal.

potch 15y ago

Goodwill? Do you think Google's shareholders get warm fuzzies when they see the news of this deal? This arrangement sends Google large amounts of traffic, from which they derive significant financial value. Stop calling this charity, it's a mutually beneficial arrangement. Edit: I mentioned this before below, but I'll repeat it up here. I work for Mozilla, but was not involved in the inner workings of this deal. I'm stoked to know where my salary is coming from though :)

cookiecaper 15y ago
You think Mozilla really has much leverage in a situation like this? Google is the best search engine and everyone knows that. Mozilla would do their users a disservice by switching to Bing or something, and this could even be seen as a positive thing by Google due to the theory that it would drive more users to Chrome. While I agree you can also look at this from a perspective of mutual benefit, it's certainly not an obvious open-and-shut deal, especially not with Chrome in the mix. It's simply a matter of priorities, and as I noted in the grandparent, it's easy to conceive a situation where this perspective may shift. Also, I think that executives care about the opinions of shareholders about as much as Congresspeople care about the opinions of constituents, i.e., they don't care at all unless it looks like something will cause a major disruption to their continued employment.
- mbrubeck 15y ago
  There are a lot of possibilities beyond just switching a default from one competitor to another. For example, a differently-designed UI could make it easier to get results from multiple search engines. For one illustration, see http://clarkbw.net/tmp/Firefox-Awesome-Search.html http://clarkbw.net/tmp/Firefox-Awesome-Search.html For more thoughts on this topic, see http://www.squarefree.com/2011/08/12/how-mozilla-could-improve-search-engine-competition/ http://www.squarefree.com/2011/08/12/how-mozilla-could-impro...
- yuhong 15y ago
  >Also, I think that executives care about the opinions of shareholders about as much as Congresspeople care about the opinions of constituents, i.e., they don't care at all unless it looks like something will cause a major disruption to their continued employment. Yep, Larry, Sergey, and Eric has dual-class stock AFAIK. I think the real problem with this comes from the greedy legacy MBAs who abuses this.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

systemizer 15y ago

Do you really think Google could vanish? Google search has become such a necessity in internet culture today, and culture is very hard to change. Hell... "google" is a verb in the dictionary: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/google http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/google

cookiecaper 15y ago
It doesn't have to vanish to get taken over by executives that don't see the value in providing such a huge chunk of money to a company that offers a competing product. In fact, I reckon that most business schools teach this kind of support for your competitor is extremely bad. We know that brilliant and awesome companies end up in the hands of MBAs and it's all downhill from there. Mozilla should certainly plan for this eventuality.
- jlongster 15y ago
  You're way oversimplifying it. Google gets a huge influx of traffic through this deal, and Mozilla would most likely be able to generate income from their 30% of the browser space if Google didn't sign this (possibly even from Bing, which is even worse for them). That kind of market space itself is a valuable asset, and is why Google is willing to go through this.
vidarh 15y ago
The number of "necessities in internet culture" that are now largely irrelevant is pretty high. While dethroning Google would take a major upheaval, people thought Altavista, Excite, Lycos and Yahoo would grow into the sky too.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

Kuiper 15y ago

I was under the impression that Mozilla also got a sizable chunk of revenue from Amazon. Every time I search Amazon, I do it via the browser search box, and there's a referral code appended. Even if Mozilla doesn't have a special agreement with Amazon (this would not surprise me), they would no doubt qualify for Amazon's highest volume-based advertising rate, which is 8.5% on all sales (excluding electronics and gift cards, which have a rate of 4% regardless of your referral-volume tier). I presume that the same is also true of eBay in some fashion.

mirkules 15y ago
I always found it easier to type "ctrl/cmd-l amazon.com" and do my search than use the mouse to switch engines (is there a keyboard shortcut??) But, knowing that it can potentially benefit Mozilla, I will start using it more often now. Thanks.
- mbrubeck 15y ago
  Control-K will highlight the search bar and Control-Up/Down will change the search engine.
  - mirkules 15y ago
    On Mac, up/down goes to the beginning and end of the line but cmd-up/down switches engines. Thanks for the hint!
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- AndyKelley 15y ago
  I recently found out a life-changing tip with Firefox. Right click any search box on any website and hit "Add keyword for this search." You can then assign a prefix which you can use in the address bar to search that site. For example, I have these set up: Search YouTube: tube <query> Search Urban Dictionary: urban <query> Search Amazon: amazon <query> Search Wikipedia: wiki <query>

mbrubeck 15y ago

Chrome may compete with Firefox, but Mozilla isn't a competitor for Google's profits or its core business. As an analogy, consider Apple and Best Buy. Apple owns its own retail stores, and those stores are competition for Best Buy. But Apple isn't really in the business of retail; they have no reason to stop you from buying Macs and iPads at Best Buy. Retail is just a channel for Apple's real business, and its to their advantage to push their product through the channels they own and the channels they don't. The browser is a channel for Google's core business of search advertising. Like Apple, they get some benefits from building and controlling a distribution channel of their own. But they have no motivation to stop pushing their core product to users of other browsers too.

forensic 15y ago

Mozilla could just sell the search bar to Bing or anyone else for that matter. This really isn't that dangerous unless searching the web as a whole "pulls an Enron" and people go back to browsing Yahoo! categories.