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> But not the only, nor a direct funding. Being paid directly for a service by a company (Google paying for the privilege of being the default) is to be direct
by eganist 3y ago
> But not the only, nor a direct funding.
Being paid directly for a service by a company (Google paying for the privilege of being the default) is to be directly funded by that company. You're right that it's not the only source of revenue, but it's absolutely a direct source of funding.
- malfist 3y agoIf I go buy a box of crackers at Walmart, am I funding Walmart? Is Walmart now beholden to me?
- 1over137 3y agoDoes your cracker purchase represent the majority of Walmart's revenue? Not the same thing.
- smashed 3y agoNo but if Walmart distributes 81% of the production of that particular cracker brand, it could suddenly find itself in a huge crisis if Walmart decided to cease distributing it and fill the shelves with great value crackers.
- eganist 3y ago> Is Walmart now beholden to me? They owe you a box of crackers. Once you've departed with it, they're no longer beholden to you.
- mozempthrowaway 3y agoIt would be if you were willing to pay an ungodly amount for that box of crackers that not only made Walmart a viable business but was also an amount no one else was willing to pay. Mitchell got Google to pay nearly double what Yahoo was willing to pay and has gotten Google to pay more each year for a dwindling user base. If someone was going to Walmart and paying millions for a box of crackers, you’d be right in assuming the transaction wasn’t about the crackers.
- IshKebab 3y agoI approximately is their only source of revenue actually. It's over 80%.
- eganist 3y agoYou're entirely right. I was mostly just picking nits at op saying the funding wasn't direct. But it's functionally both direct and exclusive in that if Google pulls out, even if e.g Bing comes in with a bid it'll likely be drastically less, and Mozilla would be stuck restructuring pretty substantially in order to survive.
- berkes 3y agoI've worked at many startups and companies where 80% of the revenue comes from 1 or 2 companies. That's still "just" a B2B relation and not "that one company is funding is". Now, I'm not arguing about how good this situation is (it's bad, for a startup it's actually worse) just that it's not "funding".