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Q: How many people are using a web browser on a daily basis worldwide as their main window to the collective infosphere? A: Billions. Q: What fraction of the c

Q: How many people are using a web browser on a daily basis worldwide as their main window to the collective infosphere? A: Billions. Q: What fraction of the corresponding GDP would it take to fund a serious browser-as-public-good initiative that would develop this technology to its full potential without the perverse constraints of adtech business models? A: 0.0001%? Too small to compute? The idea that critical communication infrastructure must be (directly or indirectly) supported by advertising interests is certainly not obvious. Advertising businesses, like all businesses or individuals should be guests on that global platform, playing by the rules, not setting the rules. The status-quo is a unique and singular failure that has been normalized for reasons that historians will surely describe with gory detail in due course. There are more ways to fund things than either adtech or dazed and confused individuals paying/donating directly for software. Especially when the stakes are extremely high. Mozilla's attempt to provide a more palatable alternative while accepting the premise that the web is an ad-funded technology was, alas, always doomed. Its market share is trending to zero and it is just a matter of time before complete disaster...

mulmen 2y ago
> There are more ways to fund things than either adtech or dazed and confused individuals paying/donating directly for software. Like what?
- chaps 2y ago
  Grants!
moepstar 2y ago
> fund a serious browser-as-public-good initiative > A: 0.0001%? Too small to compute? Interesting thought experiment. I think, the question can pretty much be answered with "whatever is necessary to fund a company, their personnel and keep them afloat and honest". Not sure when and why Mozilla has deviated from that path/mantra. Did they get greedy? Corporate bloat?
woopsn 2y ago
Mozilla is up in a bunch of shit at this point. They have a half a BILLION dollar nut to raise annually, and money from Google covers the whole thing. It's ridiculous. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation#Finances https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation#Finances
- IshKebab 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - CrimsonCape 2y ago
    In Wikipedia Mozilla expenses are listed at 420 million total and 220 million of that is software development expenses. The unspoken reality is that a large number of people have figured out a way to be paid by software companies to not deliver the core product. Logically that must be due to a combination of public relations, legal bloat, or sociopathy. In some sense, legal bloat in the current world is a necessity, so table that one temporarily. Public relations are any sort of venture to improve the public image of the company. Why does a company need any sort of public relations that's not associated with performance or design of the core product? I would argue any dollar spent here is sociopathic; someone has created a perception that the core product would suffer due to factors other than the core product performance. "Mozilla will suffer because we don't have cute red and blue balloons on our homepage. Competitor X has cute balloons. We are f**ed!" Direct sociopathy is "Mozilla needs good leadership, like me. I should be part of Mozilla because of my ideas." So in reality, at least two of the three cases presented originate in sociopathy. And the kinda point is, the company would do just fine without either.
doe_eyes 2y ago
The problem isn't building a publicly-funded browser, it's building a publicly-funded browser that's good and that can keep up with the demands of the platform - which means taking risks, also when it comes to security and privacy. A publicly-funded equivalent of MSIE 6, heroically made 100% secure and private, would be a disaster for the web. And that's a pretty likely outcome if it's designed by a government committee and prioritizes safety above all.
- throwaway81523 2y ago
  The "demands of the platform" drive expanding capabilities of the browser, which in turn drive increasing commands of the platform. A vicious spiral. Magically getting everyone to switch to a less powerful browser would necessarily beat back the demands of the platform. That would be a wonderful thing, not a disaster.
  - mulmen 2y ago
    [flagged]
- ndriscoll 2y ago
  On the other hand, a publicly funded equivalent of Firefox 3.5 or maybe SeaMonkey with incremental improvements over time (e.g. adding things like form validation and pie charts and bar charts and line charts to html, and not adding USB or GPU or ad tracking or attestation support) would be amazing for the web.
- account42 2y ago
  > A publicly-funded equivalent of MSIE 6, heroically made 100% secure and private, would be a disaster for the web Hard disagree. The web was a much better place when IE6 was still relevant enough to reign in web developers.
1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
There is an "argument" that people online put forward, perhaps to try to preserve the status quo. It goes something like this: Every browser must implement every "web standard".^1 Meanwhile the incumbent browser vendors profiting from online ads are on the committees that decide what will be the standards. Have also seen Mozilla supporters on HN claim Firefox must "compete" with Chrome and that this means matching nearly all of its features.^2 For a recent example, see https://web.archive.org/web/20240713084435/https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/06/mozilla-is-an-advertising-company-now/#comment-249977 https://web.archive.org/web/20240713084435/https://www.jwz.o... (An HN commenter suggested sending Referer: news.ycombinator.com to www.jwz.org may have adverse consequences hence the use of IA) The tunnel-vision ignorance and stupidity of this comment is over the top, IMHO. Have seen similar comments on HN. 1. I am submitting this comment with a text-only browser that is maintained by a single person and implements only a small fraction of web standards. It does not support ads. There are no "cookie pop-ups". Clearly, such browsers have value. In many cases I find I can access more information more easily and more rapidly than people using larger browsers like Firefox who are constantly battling against the influence of advertising and "web development" just to read some text. 2. The definition of "compete" as used by these folks does not account for the possibility that some www users (cf. web developers) may want less features, not more.
- account42 2y ago
  > (An HN commenter suggested sending Referer: news.ycombinator.com to www.jwz.org may have adverse consequences hence the use of IA) May I suggest to said reader that anyone technically inclined who still keeps that misfeature enabled in their browser deserves the targetted response they get.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
  in 2024, Mozilla still enables sending the Referer: header by default. May I suggest that any criticism Mozilla receives about supporting website operator and advertiser interests before www user interests is deserved.
Beldin 2y ago
> The idea that critical communication infrastructure must be (directly or indirectly) supported by advertising interests is certainly not obvious I think the problem is more that the trend over the last 5-7 decades has been to privatise things. The EU (for instance) has rules forcing (e.g.,) privatisation of train companies and postal services. This has caused previously government-owned services to be privatised. In this day and age, I'd be surprised to hear of any successful case where a non-public good was made public in a Western country. (I'll restrict my surprise to there because of insufficient familiarity with other countries to make such sweeping statements.) Whether it'd be web browsers, water treatment facilities, energy-related, healthcare-related, infrastructure-related, etc.: if it's currently privatised, it will emphatically not revert to public; if it's currently public, it might be forced to be privatised. You might think about "privatised-but-with-strings-attached" variants, like in California with "carrier-of-last-resort", or in EU with public transport concessions requiring also services that operate at a loss to service small population centers / unpopular hours. Typically, these impose restrictions on the market parties on what they must deliver in order to be granted the concession. That seems like a way to guarantee the kind of service a government would deliver, but by market parties. And it is! But once you encode rules, you can start eroding them. Every new concession tender going out, you can try to dilute such conditions. A bit is enough - every step gained can be relied upon in future negotiations ("you're asking for more than last term"). And, of course, every small step can be argued by increasing costs - because cost will always increase anyway. The TL;DRR (didn't read the rant): the public commons has a tendency to erode in favour of privatisation. There is pressure to do so, and no real counterpressure to reverse, only to not go too fast.
- openrisk 2y ago
  > I think the problem is more that the trend over the last 5-7 decades has been to privatise things. The private/public border is volatile and heavily contested and by all accounts will forever be a topic of political debate. But notice how unusual the context of web technologies: Its not that a private monopoly is controlling and selling some piece of web infrastructure (that might, instead, be opened to more competition, turned into a public good etc). No, what is happening is that a very specific business sector (advertising) is controlling universal communications infrastructure. A loose analogy would be if a single private oil company would manufacture and distribute all automobiles in circulation - for free, but securing that they can run on nobody else's energy. The conjectured "public-good" browser is not crowding out any private interests as there is no market for selling browsers. There is a market for advertising but its not competing for surfaces, it owns all surfaces. Guess what, in this terminally conflicted arrangement you would never see an electric vehicle. The highjacking of central infrastructure to serve narrow private interests will inevitably reduce innovation and welfare and any techie that is worth their title knows thats already the case.

mulmen 2y ago

> There are more ways to fund things than either adtech or dazed and confused individuals paying/donating directly for software. Like what?

chaps 2y ago
Grants!

moepstar 2y ago

> fund a serious browser-as-public-good initiative > A: 0.0001%? Too small to compute? Interesting thought experiment. I think, the question can pretty much be answered with "whatever is necessary to fund a company, their personnel and keep them afloat and honest". Not sure when and why Mozilla has deviated from that path/mantra. Did they get greedy? Corporate bloat?

woopsn 2y ago

Mozilla is up in a bunch of shit at this point. They have a half a BILLION dollar nut to raise annually, and money from Google covers the whole thing. It's ridiculous. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation#Finances https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation#Finances

IshKebab 2y ago
[flagged]
- CrimsonCape 2y ago
  In Wikipedia Mozilla expenses are listed at 420 million total and 220 million of that is software development expenses. The unspoken reality is that a large number of people have figured out a way to be paid by software companies to not deliver the core product. Logically that must be due to a combination of public relations, legal bloat, or sociopathy. In some sense, legal bloat in the current world is a necessity, so table that one temporarily. Public relations are any sort of venture to improve the public image of the company. Why does a company need any sort of public relations that's not associated with performance or design of the core product? I would argue any dollar spent here is sociopathic; someone has created a perception that the core product would suffer due to factors other than the core product performance. "Mozilla will suffer because we don't have cute red and blue balloons on our homepage. Competitor X has cute balloons. We are f**ed!" Direct sociopathy is "Mozilla needs good leadership, like me. I should be part of Mozilla because of my ideas." So in reality, at least two of the three cases presented originate in sociopathy. And the kinda point is, the company would do just fine without either.

doe_eyes 2y ago

The problem isn't building a publicly-funded browser, it's building a publicly-funded browser that's good and that can keep up with the demands of the platform - which means taking risks, also when it comes to security and privacy. A publicly-funded equivalent of MSIE 6, heroically made 100% secure and private, would be a disaster for the web. And that's a pretty likely outcome if it's designed by a government committee and prioritizes safety above all.

throwaway81523 2y ago
The "demands of the platform" drive expanding capabilities of the browser, which in turn drive increasing commands of the platform. A vicious spiral. Magically getting everyone to switch to a less powerful browser would necessarily beat back the demands of the platform. That would be a wonderful thing, not a disaster.
- mulmen 2y ago
  [flagged]
ndriscoll 2y ago
On the other hand, a publicly funded equivalent of Firefox 3.5 or maybe SeaMonkey with incremental improvements over time (e.g. adding things like form validation and pie charts and bar charts and line charts to html, and not adding USB or GPU or ad tracking or attestation support) would be amazing for the web.
account42 2y ago
> A publicly-funded equivalent of MSIE 6, heroically made 100% secure and private, would be a disaster for the web Hard disagree. The web was a much better place when IE6 was still relevant enough to reign in web developers.

1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago

There is an "argument" that people online put forward, perhaps to try to preserve the status quo. It goes something like this: Every browser must implement every "web standard".^1 Meanwhile the incumbent browser vendors profiting from online ads are on the committees that decide what will be the standards. Have also seen Mozilla supporters on HN claim Firefox must "compete" with Chrome and that this means matching nearly all of its features.^2 For a recent example, see https://web.archive.org/web/20240713084435/https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/06/mozilla-is-an-advertising-company-now/#comment-249977 https://web.archive.org/web/20240713084435/https://www.jwz.o... (An HN commenter suggested sending Referer: news.ycombinator.com to www.jwz.org may have adverse consequences hence the use of IA) The tunnel-vision ignorance and stupidity of this comment is over the top, IMHO. Have seen similar comments on HN. 1. I am submitting this comment with a text-only browser that is maintained by a single person and implements only a small fraction of web standards. It does not support ads. There are no "cookie pop-ups". Clearly, such browsers have value. In many cases I find I can access more information more easily and more rapidly than people using larger browsers like Firefox who are constantly battling against the influence of advertising and "web development" just to read some text. 2. The definition of "compete" as used by these folks does not account for the possibility that some www users (cf. web developers) may want less features, not more.

account42 2y ago
> (An HN commenter suggested sending Referer: news.ycombinator.com to www.jwz.org may have adverse consequences hence the use of IA) May I suggest to said reader that anyone technically inclined who still keeps that misfeature enabled in their browser deserves the targetted response they get.
1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
in 2024, Mozilla still enables sending the Referer: header by default. May I suggest that any criticism Mozilla receives about supporting website operator and advertiser interests before www user interests is deserved.

Beldin 2y ago

> The idea that critical communication infrastructure must be (directly or indirectly) supported by advertising interests is certainly not obvious I think the problem is more that the trend over the last 5-7 decades has been to privatise things. The EU (for instance) has rules forcing (e.g.,) privatisation of train companies and postal services. This has caused previously government-owned services to be privatised. In this day and age, I'd be surprised to hear of any successful case where a non-public good was made public in a Western country. (I'll restrict my surprise to there because of insufficient familiarity with other countries to make such sweeping statements.) Whether it'd be web browsers, water treatment facilities, energy-related, healthcare-related, infrastructure-related, etc.: if it's currently privatised, it will emphatically not revert to public; if it's currently public, it might be forced to be privatised. You might think about "privatised-but-with-strings-attached" variants, like in California with "carrier-of-last-resort", or in EU with public transport concessions requiring also services that operate at a loss to service small population centers / unpopular hours. Typically, these impose restrictions on the market parties on what they must deliver in order to be granted the concession. That seems like a way to guarantee the kind of service a government would deliver, but by market parties. And it is! But once you encode rules, you can start eroding them. Every new concession tender going out, you can try to dilute such conditions. A bit is enough - every step gained can be relied upon in future negotiations ("you're asking for more than last term"). And, of course, every small step can be argued by increasing costs - because cost will always increase anyway. The TL;DRR (didn't read the rant): the public commons has a tendency to erode in favour of privatisation. There is pressure to do so, and no real counterpressure to reverse, only to not go too fast.

openrisk 2y ago
> I think the problem is more that the trend over the last 5-7 decades has been to privatise things. The private/public border is volatile and heavily contested and by all accounts will forever be a topic of political debate. But notice how unusual the context of web technologies: Its not that a private monopoly is controlling and selling some piece of web infrastructure (that might, instead, be opened to more competition, turned into a public good etc). No, what is happening is that a very specific business sector (advertising) is controlling universal communications infrastructure. A loose analogy would be if a single private oil company would manufacture and distribute all automobiles in circulation - for free, but securing that they can run on nobody else's energy. The conjectured "public-good" browser is not crowding out any private interests as there is no market for selling browsers. There is a market for advertising but its not competing for surfaces, it owns all surfaces. Guess what, in this terminally conflicted arrangement you would never see an electric vehicle. The highjacking of central infrastructure to serve narrow private interests will inevitably reduce innovation and welfare and any techie that is worth their title knows thats already the case.