[no_wizard]

I don’t know what is going to save Mozilla, really I don’t. I just wish there was a way to “reach” them and discuss how we the internet community could come to an agreement about what they could do to derive value we would pay for.

It’s not for a lack of trying on their part for sure, but it feels like just using their browser isn’t all there is to it any more

[narag]

what they could do to derive value we would pay for

For someone that found Linux in the 90's and watched the birth of Mozilla from the ashes of Netscape, that's a very strange thing to read.

This site is not Slashdot, I know. It always had another kind of relation to business and money. But still...

I have no idea why Mozilla should need a business model. Much less I understand why should we think of one and agree on it.

How much money does it take to maintain a web browser? If it's a lot, maybe, just maybe, we should agree on a reduced feature set and refuse to use something more complex. Some people here talk about text mode browsers. I'm not so radical. Just keep it simple enough to be maintanable by a dozen of volunteers.

[bn-usd-mistake]

Why? Should we apply the same logic to Linux? Why should we arbitrarily restrict user value because something costs money?

Isn’t the main problem that users are not willing to pay for the browser they use?

Google Chrome is probably maintained by much more than 12 people, so if we restrict Firefox to that, everyone is just going to move to Chrome anyways.

[strictnein]

> I have no idea why Mozilla should need a business model.

Because developers aren't free and "let's get money from Google searches" is great until Google decides not to fund a competitor any more.

[juststeve]

Building B2B services around rust ie. onsite training, consulting, development to me seems better than firing people - what am I missing here?

[ralph84]

Almost all company-sponsored programming languages are run as loss leaders to enable selling some other profitable product of the company. What is the profitable product that Rust enables?

[juststeve]

Well an IDE would’ve been one option, as well as backend services for enterprise who are migrating to Rust. Otherwise as I mentioned the product is services like outsourced development, consultancy and training resources?

[yjftsjthsd-h]

> What is the profitable product that Rust enables?

Surely that's Firefox?

[treis]

Nobody is building anything based on Firefox. It's not like Rails or .NET that gives your application a head start.

[InfiniteRand]

People used to build a lot of software around Gecko, there are still some notable users like Komodo IDE, but Firefox is a lot harder to embed than it once was. Servo from the Rust team was supposed to solve this by providing a new embeddable browser core, not sure if that is still the long term plan

[jacquesm]

Firefox apparently is not longer a focus because it is hard to monetize outside of the search box, see earlier letter. I would definitely not take Firefox' future for granted at this point.

[liability]

Firefox is the only thing Mozilla has ever been able to make any money with; anything else has gotten them a pittance at best.

Giving up on that because it's 'too hard', without first proving they have an alternative? That would be insanely foolish. They may as well close up shop now if that's their plan.

[jacquesm]

Fully agreed. It's a real problem.

[jrochkind1]

Has "the internet community" ever "come to an agreement" on literally anything?

[halfmatthalfcat]

Net neutrality?

[floatingatoll]

What would you personally pay Mozilla for?

[echelon]

Firefox, Rust, and privacy.

It'd be really awesome if they could develop a search engine or phone (I know they tried) that had an open standards / web-compatible development kit.

I want an anti-Google / anti-Apple. Something we own and can extend. Something that doesn't sell our data.

I'd also like to see Mozilla doing lobbying. Partnering with the EFF. We've strayed so far from the bright and open Internet of the 90's and 00's. It's depressing to think about how locked up and proprietary it's all become.

I'll buy Mozilla / Firefox merch. I'll pay a subscription.

edit: Talk to Shuttleworth. Fold Ubuntu in. I'll buy a Mozilla phone and a Mozilla laptop.

[feanaro]

I feel bad for doing a "me too" comment, but you've nailed exactly my thoughts on the subject. I feel like Mozilla hasn't really tried something like this. Every time it gets suggested, it quickly gets shot down (by other internet commenters) as "can't be done" and "wouldn't generate nearly enough money".

Well... maybe not with that CEO salary.

[echelon]

Mozilla can model itself after Microsoft somewhat.

Provide a development stack (they're experts at Web and Rust). Make themselves the go-to shop for developers in that realm.

Sell them on an OS and editor with support. Partner with Ubuntu. Hell, I would even reach out to Nadella and see if they'd be willing to work with Mozilla on hedging against Google. Mac is becoming locked down and kind of unpleasant to develop on/for. Mozilla could win this.

Block all the advertising and tracking. Build a Spotify-like news aggregation service you can access from your Mozilla subscription.

Build an email service like Hey and a file backup service like Dropbox. It's too bad Zoom bought Keybase, but perhaps Chris Coyne wants a new gig?

We should team up to beat FAAMG. Most of the FAAMG actors are actually quite damaging to open source despite benefiting from it greatly.

[no_wizard]

This all sounds to me like capital intensive businesses against entrenched players where even the not so average consumer would likely not do more than pay lip service to it unless there was some secret sauce to this that was more compelling to the options

They neeed a good out of the park product in those markets to make any real headway. Too idealistic.

My only thought on this is that they should pivot to be like algolia , focus on Firefox being a reference implementation browser and seek their expertise to the other vendors, maybe. It’s one of the few verticals I can think of that would work strategically Without them having to pivot into things they have no experience with

[qchris]

Do they? I mean, most of these vendors are already competing, and unlike Firefox, they're not necessarily competing for the average Joe, but technical users who often have different priorities.

Those are also services that groups are used to paying for already, which means if they could eat the start-up costs, even at a reduced scale, they could make a profit at even a slight premium for things that they already do very well, and go from there.

[qchris]

I'm already personally paying Mozilla $8/mo for their VPN and private browser extension.

If they offered something like the services offered by mailbox.org, or Librem One? I'd switch my GMail account tomorrow, including the storage fees I'm paying on it, and would do it at triple the cost for not abusing my data. Hell, they already have the domain experience with their proximity to Thunderbird devs.

[tchaffee]

MDN, Firefox (voice search would be nice), and anything that is a replacement for Google products.