How it’s been going.
I kept giving Mozilla the benefit of the doubt and telling myself things weren’t so bad.
I was wrong.
I’ll continue using Firefox because it’s the least bad option, but I can’t advocate for it in good faith anymore, and I don’t expect it to last long with this orientation.
So it goes.
Ok sure, what do you want them to do instead then? 80% of their income is reliant on a tech giant’s grace and is seemingly more and more likely to be cutoff soon. They need to survive somehow, and every monetised service they tried flopped thusfar.
What makes you think that developing a free web browser needs to grant anyone any income?
Do you think developers don’t have to eat? or pay rent? And donations alone do not cut it.
Being a developer myself (with no ads in his software), I don’t think you understand my point. The software I write in my free time does not pay my bills. That’s why I also have an actual job.
You are aware that there are full-time developers working at Mozilla, yes? Developing a browser is not a hobby-project that you can pull off with some volunteers in their free time. You need professionals that work on such a giant project with their full attention.
Developing Firefox is their job. And of course they want to get paid for that (and deserve it). Just like you get paid for your actual job.
(and deserve it)
Please enlighten me: how do they deserve to be paid for a non-profit product?
Non-profit doesn’t mean that there’s no employees. They’re still organizations that have a cash flow, seek to raise funds, and employ people to serve their mission. Most non-profits have paid employees.
How does someone deserve to be paid for work done? Is that your question?
Is this some kind of pathetic troll attempt?
I will not reward that with further attention.
Non profit does not mean what you think it means
Non profit means their earnings must match their expenses or be used to actually improve the product/service, not that they earn nothing at all
People who work at non-profits aren’t volunteering.
How about not have a multi-million-dollar-costing CEO? Seems a bit rich (pun intended) for a supposed non-profit org.
Yeah I’m not defending that but CEO pay only rounds to like 1% of their total expenditures. Developing a browser is expensive.
only 1%? That’s about on par with a fortune 500 company, which supposedly Mozilla is not.
Maybe im a dumbass, but im currently using an entire operating system that is community funded, and made. How is it that its possible to do it with linux, and all the things that go with linux, but a web browser can’t do it without getting into ads? Why are web browsers so special that they just need oogles and oogles of money to function?
sadly, the web has become so complex and it changes so fast that it’s now almost impossible to keep up with the standard, so only google and mozilla are able to do it
thanks google!
Ideas:
- directly ask for donations, and actually use those donations to fund browser development
- build an add-on to pay sites instead of seeing ads - Mozilla could take a cut here
- push harder on existing, optional add-ons that generate revenue, like their VPN
But the article here reads like, “we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas. Have ads…”
I could see them trying to take themselves away from Google which wouldn’t be a bad thing as that’s where most of the money comes from for them … Unless that’s changed recently…
I’m afraid it won’t last long without it. That’s the key problem.
People hate ads, as do I, but what’s the alternative?
Pay executives less. Focus on grants and PBS-style ‘underwriting’. Subscription services like email and VPN.
Getting into advertising is just jumping into an intractable conflict of interest.
No ads?
People need money mate. Not everyone can afford to run a website.
Ideas:
- donations - these need to actually go toward Firefox development, they don’t, so I don’t donate
- paid services (e.g. their white-labeled VPN, they could also white-label Tuta or Proton services)
- and add-on that pays sites to not see ads (my preference)
- funding of privacy-oriented startups - they have something like this, so do more of it
Because of propaganda, people find it easier to imagine the end of the world before the end of capitalism. Just the same, theres lots of commenters here that could imagine the end of the internet before they imagine the end of advertising on the internet.
Not everyone?
Does anyone?
Good thing we can fork, I guess, but it’s kinda sad to watch a previously good org die
Fork, blah, blah, blah.
When one of these forks doesn’t depend on Mozilla to do all the heavy lifting of security updates and compatibility fixes, then maybe we can talk seriously about forks. But no fork does fuck-all towards the hard part of maintaining a web browser engine. So forks mean nothing.
So just stick with firefox?
Well, if users don’t the source of the actual work, then none of the forks survive. I don’t know what people think are going to happen.
Shitting on Mozilla seems to be a competitor sport around here sometimes, and it’s fucking self-defeating. In 5 years, there will only be the Chromium engine, and then Google will shut down the opensource side like they pretty much did with Android. And then we’re truly fucked.
Does anyone?
I don’t want to see Mozilla shutdown because Google no longer pays them, or due to the loss of another funding source.
Diversifying their income sources is a good thing.
I’ve been using librewolf over the last week. Honestly… It’s a drop in replacement for me
Does it support containers and sync settings between installs on multiple systems? If so I’m in without hesitation.
It’s basically hardened Firefox, you can do all the same things here too. Alas using it with an account kind of defeats the purpose. However you can use your account once to sync everything.
Yeah
Thanks. Just set it up on one of my computers. I’ll be doing the rest as time allows. There’s a lot I love about it already, familiar but with better defaults, and including search engines like SearXNG. I hope enough of us can switch and send a message to Mozilla, though that feels very unlikely to stop the enshittification.
oh they’re full on corpo now it sounds like, which is too bad. They should have gone the proton route and go full non-profit org controlled, but here we are.
The problem with those sorts of forks is they still require moz to do most of the heavy lifting.
If Firefox stopped being developed they’d all pretty much freeze in place.
I agree to a point, I think some people would pick up the development. Idk if it’d be librewolf or if someone would fork off that, but if Firefox completely shit the bed I think someone would pick up the mantle a bit. We wouldn’t have nearly the release cadence of firefox though.
Time to switch to other fork
Literally no one but advertisers like ads. Anything that leads to more ads being shown is a negative to your community. Some might understand the need to make money, but that doesn’t make anyone like ads.
Now imagine if they had something to advertise which people actually want!
Technically correct: literally no one does fit the criteria for not everyone.
Hey, Laura. Fuck you. Fuck your profits and your corporate greed. Enshit yourself till you close down.
Firefox closing down would be pretty big loss since we’d lose all our serious non-Chrome/Chromium-based alternatives
hey maybe firefox just wants to show that ladybird is worth the wait
The original developer has a great blog, and has commented on this
They’ve decided who their customers are, and it’s not you
Since FF is free - isn’t that a given?
He seems to only have been involved during roughly the first year of Mozilla’s existence.
Right, an original at Mosaic [Netscape] before it got into that fight with Internet Explorer, went open-source, and became Mozilla.
Yeah exactly.
This is just a huge fuck you to their community.
Wow, utterly shocked that a company with a shit CEO that takes most of its money from Google would have these viewpoints.
I’m sure it is completely coincidental that ublock is about to die as well.
I’m sure it is completely coincidental that ublock is about to die as well.
wtf are you talking about?
Not in Firefox specifically, but many chromium based browsers are about to lose access to the original ublock. I’ve been planning on switching to Firefox when this goes through for a while now.
I thought they have lost that a few months ago. Firefox though claimed that
- they will keep Mv2 support for some time
- their version of Mv3 will keep the superior network filtering API
I’m using Vivaldi, it is supporting v2 until next June or something I believe
the original ublock.
You mean the original uBlock Origin. The original uBlock has been gone for a long time.
Sorry, you are correct - I meant uBlock Origin
I think the bigger issue is them potentially losing their Google income.
They’ve failed to diversify their income with a bunch of failed subscription services, Google is in hot waters because of anti-competitive behaviour; they’re going to need something.
Which isn’t to say I like it. But “this is happening because they take Google money” is parroted beneath every slightly negative thing Mozilla does.
At this point, I don’t see many other options to keep everything going for Firefox. If they somehow lose the go*gle money they use to keep themselves going, they need another revenue source and I severely doubt there are enough Firefox users willing to pay enough to keep it going as it currently does. Don’t like it, but I’m gonna at least play devil’s advocate.
It would be nice if they at least allowed for even being able to donate to the browser itself. All the options that I am aware of are either the paid extra stuff they have, or to the overall company. Which is annoying since I imagine that the current “donation” option means that the money is being used mostly for the upper execs and routed to the extra shit that already has options for paying subs.
They could try not having an overinflated budget?
I don’t know a thing about their budget, so I’m not qualified to make any comments about how good or bad they are doing at managing it or make any comments.
Where would you cut?
Are you kidding?
I mean I don’t love it, but I’m also not sure what the argument is supposed to be about how this ties to browser market share. Mozilla made $593 million from their most recently released financials. The CEO made $6.9 million. My calculator tells me that’s 1.16%.
So is the argument that Mozilla that if they set the CEO salary to $0, used it all on more developers, that would spin up a browser experience that’s so improved it would lead to more market share? A 1% change in Mozilla’s spending will bring them to 50% market share? 40%? 20%?
What’s the cause and effect here? Do we even actually know that that’s true, that it even has anything whatsoever to do with development choices at all? I get that the CEO is an easy target but I think assuming that is explaining market share ignores things like Google’s dominance of search and ads, and how those piles of cash drive initiatives like Android and Chromebooks, which helps propel Chrome to dominant market share. Those are the drivers of market share. I don’t even think people have even tried to begin to think through this argument in real terms, it’s just a lot of knee-jerk reaction to news stories disconnected from any specific idea of cause and effect.
The CEO is for a good reason an easy target: Show me another company where this level of incompetence is rewarded with steady salary increases?!? (I am afraid you’ll be able to. ;-))
Given your calculation is correct, you are correct that paying the CEO nothing would not make a big difference for Mozillas income. Although it would hopefully open the road for a better CEO.
Your argument that hitting at the CEO ignores the whole context of market dominance of Google could IMHO also used against your argument: If the CEO is so powerless that she cannot take the responsibility for the decline of Mozilla, than why does she get payed at all. If all is a function of the environment and the tides of the market, we can easily replace her with ChatGPT and have the same results w/o wasting money.
At the end of the day, we are exactly where we have been literally a decade ago: Finding a sustainable business model for Mozilla/Firefox. Once more: This core problem of Mozilla/Firefox has been well known for over a decade by now, and again the CEOs only answer is advertisement. Why do we pay money for the bullshit every first semester MBA student would come up with a brainstorming within the first 3 minutes.
Mozilla survives thanks to Google and their (rightful) fears of being outed as a monopoly.
The discussion is always if Mozilla could survive on donations. I do not now if they could. I still think there are a lot of actors with an interest of an independent browser, even whole governments. What I know for sure is, I won’t donate to Mozilla as long as incompetent CEOs are payed.
Your argument that hitting at the CEO ignores the whole context of market dominance of Google could IMHO also used against your argument: If the CEO is so powerless that she cannot take the responsibility for the decline of Mozilla, than why does she get payed at all.
That’s my argument? I don’t recall supporting the CEO pay. Pretty sure I said I don’t like it. And just to be clear, I am finding it hard to justify that much for a CEO. So that’s not turning my argument against me, because that was never my argument.
What it would really look like to, as you say, “turn my argument against me” would be something that speaks to Google’s search monopoly, ads monopoly, and hundredfold advantage in revenue, and why, in light of those facts, they would imply that Mozilla should have more market share. Like if I forgot to carry a two somewhere in my math, or why they are actually proof of a synergy that Mozilla is benefiting from that I’m not accounting for. Those would be examples of turning the arg against me, and I’m happy to hear it if there is one.
Not sure if it s a language issue (non native speaker), but seems we have the same goals.
So sorry, if I misunderstood your position/point!
My point is mostly, that it seems every browser is mostly US controlled directly or transitively, and it should be in the interest of every other country/nation to have a free, open source, not US controlled browser on the market… but given the sad reality in my country, I’ll probably be long dead before corruption/lobby-ism and sheer stupidity of the the government will come to this conclusion. :-(
Any where more substantial to address the shortfall expected without Google default money?
So it looks like the CEO of mozilla is bleeding firefox to pad his salary. Thats disappointing. Are we sure firefox wasn’t simply taken over by a private-equity firm?
It’s 1.16%. I don’t love it but claiming it’s bleeding them to death is, I think, not what we’re looking at. I think they just recognize their exposure because any given year 80 to 90% of the revenue is coming from their agreement with Google, and they’re screwed if they can’t diversify their income a bit more.
The enshitification of Firefox continues 😢
Cory Doctorow: “Disenshittify or die!” (YouTube)
Thanks but
We are targeting a first Alpha release for early adopters in 2026.
We need an alternative before that
Talk is cheap, get contributing! Donate, translate or code. That way we’ll have a proper way out of Mozilla sooner
Done! I contributed $10 a few days ago. Hope to give some more after my next payment.
Great to know! I donated 6 $ and I’m waiting for them to open the browser to translations
Maybe this pushes the development a little bit. Would be a good opportunity to ask for funding and other means of help.
