They just lost a monopoly case because they paid Mozilla all that money, this theory has always made little sense and sticking to it now makes even less.
In fact, one could argue that Google losing its case is what caused this. Google provided a substantial amount of revenue to Mozilla. With that now gone, new ways(TM) to get money are needed.
>I’m not informed enough to analyze the real cost of developing a web browser.
Then why post strong comments about how much funding Mozilla needs?
The calculus is very different. IE could be developed at a 100% loss for the company if it still otherwise helped Microsoft, which is what happened. Chrome operates similarly.
Firefox needs to generate enough money to sustain itself indefinitely. So when there are signs their main source of funding may vanish, they need to keep a war chest together and have investments to weather any oncoming storm. Otherwise they just collapse.
Because they’ve had twenty years to figure out how to generate sustainable revenue while being propped up by Google. Mozilla got themselves into this situation, why should their users overlook the removal of the only real advantage of Firefox?
They _should_ collapse if the only way for them to continue is to abandon their mission.
That much revenue from a single source was always a significant vulnerability, a vulnerability that leadership failed to address. Poor leadership and wasteful spending is the problem, not revenue.