[freediver]

> it seems most of the customers of privacy focused products want all the other features of competitors; most of the times without paying any money

This is a business model question, right? Nothing prevents someone from making a great privacy focused browser and actually charging for it vs being directly (Brave?) or indirectly (Chrome, Firefox?) ad-monetized.

Also in this context, referring to "customers of privacy focus products" is technically incorrect, they are actually users. Definition of a customer is "someone who pays for goods or services" thus Mozilla's main customer is Google (accounting for close to 90% of its revenue). Maybe looking through this lens, relation of Firefox product direction and what its "customers" want becomes more clear.

edit: simplified for clarity

[dralley]

> This is a business model question, right? Mozilla has chosen to be indirectly ad-supported vs making a premium (as in paid-for) or a freemium browser as a business model. Nothing prevents someone from making a great privacy focused browser and actually charging for it?

Except the fact that nobody (relative to even their current userbase) would use it, and maintaining a browser is incredibly difficult and expensive.

It would be the death blow to their market share, which would destroy Gecko as a viable browser engine (not enough users to get websites to care about the bugs, or even necessarily get the bugs reported).

The only way that would work out is if they gave up on Gecko and switched to WebKit or Blink.

Their choice of business model isn't really much of a choice, it's the only viable option that gives them any influence whatsoever.

[freediver]

But then we are in conflict as we want Mozilla to create a superior product but we are not ready pay for it? One of these expectations has to give in then.

[GekkePrutser]

I'm very happy to pay money for it tbh. But don't forget Mozilla doesn't even take donations for Firefox. Only for their Foundation.

[dralley]

Yes, I completely agree that HN has a massive cognitive dissonance about this. They're so used to venture capitalists and FAANG companies lighting billions of dollars on fire to subsidize money-losing but moat-building projects that they have completely unrealistic expectations about what is reasonable for the other 99.99% of the universe (without magic money fountains propping them up) to do sustainably.

But the reality is that because of this, browsers are commoditized, and the average user will never pay for a browser if they can get Chrome or Safari for free. That's probably true of the average HN user, too, for that matter.

[thayne]

A big part of the problem, is that for Mozilla, Firefox is a tool for their other initiatives. They use money they make from Firefox to fund their other projects. And they use the influence they get from controlling a browser to push their agenda on web standards. Not that I disagree with their agenda in most cases. But I don't think Mozilla's primary objective is to make a great browser, unfortunately.

[freediver]

> maintaining a browser is incredibly difficult and expensive. It would be the death blow to their market share, which would destroy Gecko as a viable browser engine

Assuming 100 people needed for Gecko, and $150k/year annual, world-wide, average developer expense, we come to $15M/year. Mozilla already has about ~$50M/year non-Google revenue from its products (coming from "true" users/customers).

[dralley]

150k / person doesn't account for benefits or office expenses. And they have closer to 750 employees.

[freediver]

It does if your team is world-wide.

Does Gecko really need more than 100 people?

[kaba0]

We are talking about a fking browser! Even microsoft dropped the ball on that one, it’s that complex of a problem!

[dralley]

Firefox is 20 million lines of code. What do you think?

[thayne]

How many of those 750 are actually developers?

[freediver]

Firefox != Gecko and I maintain a 200,000 lines of code product alone no problem, so I think possible.

[kaba0]

Google needs firefox just as much as firefox needing google. Don’t see conteo in everything. Firefox is the only thing stopping google from some insane monopoly/anti-comp lawsuits. It is in their best interest for firefox to continue to exist.