this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2024
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A lot of people in this thread seem to downplay the article with "yeah, that might be your opinion..." but two facts that are facts and not opinions are:
This means that if Google decides to stop bank rolling Mozilla it's game over. Firstly because other revenue streams are currently near insignificant when you look at the total expenses.
Secondly because since Firefox hold no significant market share, no one else would be interested in investing in Mozilla and the future of Firefox. After all, whatever Mozilla will throw up on the wall as the "grand masterplan for world dominance" would just end up in the question "Why didn't you do this before?".
I've been using Firefox for almost 20 years. I started using it because I saw what happens when one company controls the browser market. That web browser did so much damage and we only really got rid of it some year ago.
Chrome is a perfect example that the history repeats itself and that people are fucking stupid. People are actually acting surprised and complain about Google putting effort into making adblocking impossible in Chrome.
So all in all, if Mozilla doesn't find other revenue streams, Firefox is dead... It just doesn't know it yet.
Now, everyone yapping about that Linux was an insignificant player and still made it to the top just sound like enthusiasts who really doesn't know history and the harsh reality of doing business.
Linux was just a little more than hobby project (business wise) that essentially only Red Hat and Suse made real money from in the 90's.
Arguably you could say that the turning point was when the CEO of IBM, Lou Gerstner, shocked the world by saying that IBM was going to pump in 1 billion dollars in Linux during 2001. Now, that doesn't look like much today when just Red Hat has a yearly revenue of 3-4 billion, but that's how insignificant Linux was at that time.
After that milestone Linux went for the jugular on Windows Server. For ordinary people it would still take almost 10 years before they would hold something Linux in their hands.
The rocket engine that accelerated Linux and pieces that it was ready for end users was Google and Android in 2007. Linux's growth the last 20 years wasn't mainly driven by enthusiasts, it was business pumping in money in future opportunities.
What future opportunities can Mozilla sell to investors with the market share Firefox has today?
Yup. Mozilla really needs to diversify and find new revenue sources.
They've been trying, but it's proving difficult to do while still refraining from hoovering up and selling everybody's data. Nobody wants to pay.
To make matters worse, anytime Mozilla tries to make any money, people accuse them of selling out or say they should just focus on Firefox. Some of these people even say that Firefox needs to get rid of Google funding immediately to get rid of Google's influence.
But that means the death of Firefox. I don't really get what these people want.
These people want to be rid of Google's influence, which is why they chose Firefox over Chrome to begin with. But they don't understand the position Mozilla is in..
Well yeah, I want that too, but it can't happen until Mozilla is making a decent amount themselves