Of course it matters! It means Google doesn't actually get to say how Mozilla runs Firefox. They have a contract for a service ("make us the default search for

Of course it matters! It means Google doesn't actually get to say how Mozilla runs Firefox. They have a contract for a service ("make us the default search for the next N years, and we'll pay you X% revenue share on those searches"), Mozilla fulfills their part of that contract, and that's it. Google can't, for example, demand that Firefox must support some web standard proposal as a condition of being paid. If they tried making such demands, Mozilla would just sell their service to somebody not making such unreasonable demands. And the reason people keep parrotting this idea on HN is to imply that there is some kind of wrongdoing and malicious use of funding as leverage going on. But that idea only works if this isn't a normal commerical arrangement with multiple potential bidders. Another way it matters is that the utterly moronic ideas people throw around for this being an antitrust figleaf. Paying for default search engine placement is just how that business works, and worked before Chrome even existed.