[gkoberger]

They do work on it. A lot.

But the issue is browsers don't make money. You can't charge for it, you can't add ads to it, etc. You're competing with the biggest companies in the world (Google, Apple), all of whom are happy to subsidize a browser for other reasons.

[viraptor]

> You can't charge for it

They could try. I just keep hearing people who would pay for no extra features as long as it paid for actual Firefox development and not the random unrelated Mozilla projects. I would pay a subscription. But they don't let me.

[freehorse]

The problem I (and others that I see here) have is the lack of trust in mozilla's model, esp long term. Their economic reliance in google, their repeatedly stated goals of trying to engineer ad-delivery systems that "respect privacy", their very high CEO salaries, and their random ventures do not inspire much trust, confidence and alignment in their goals. And also the unclear relationships with their for and non-profit parts.

If they can convince me that some subscription for firefox will strictly go for firefox development, that firefox will not pivot to ads (privacy respecting or not), and all the other stuff they have, including executives' salaries and whatnot, are completely separated, I would be more than happy to subscribe.

[qudat]

They honestly should charge for it.

[cjpearson]

You can't effectively paywall it because not only is it open source, but there are many nearly equivalent competitors all of which are free. Any subscribers would essentially be donors.

There are people like yourself who would be happy to donate, but not nearly enough. Replacing MoCo's current revenue with donors would require donations at the level of Doctors without Borders, American Cancer Society, or the Make-a-Wish Foundation.

Turning into one of the largest charities in America overnight simply isn't realistic. A drastic downsizing to subsist on donor revenue also isn't wise when Mozilla already has to compete with a smaller team. And "Ladybird does it" isn't a real argument until and unless it graduates from cool project to usable and competitive browser.

[viraptor]

Oh no, it would be a donation and it's not going to completely replace all the funding of the parent entity of the project mentioned, therefore it's not realistic or worth trying. Right... That's a lot of arguments unrelated to what I wrote.

[palata]

> That's a lot of arguments unrelated to what I wrote.

What I understand they are saying is that donations wouldn't be nearly enough. Which is related to what you wrote, which is that you would gladly donate to Firefox (not Mozilla, but Firefox).

They compared it to the largest non-profits in America, presumably because if we look at the money spent by Mozilla every year, that's similar. Right now Google pays for Mozilla, and if you wanted to replace that with donations, it would have to become one of the biggest charities in America. Which does not sound plausible.

If I understood correctly, I'm not the OP :)

[rtpg]

Thunderbird has succeeded at doing this and is in a somewhat similar spot (though huge asterisk there given the existence of Chrome)

[dabockster]

> You can't effectively paywall it because not only is it open source, but there are many nearly equivalent competitors all of which are free.

You're forgetting that people will buy a product on brand identity alone. If the Firefox brand is solid enough, those forks won't matter.

[palata]

I think the point is that if it was open source but free, it would require donations. And given the money that Mozilla spends every year, it would mean that the amount of donations they would need to receive would make them one of the biggest charities in America. Which sounds implausible.

I think the argument makes sense, to be honest.

[enlyth]

Doesn't Firefox make them the lion's share of their profits just from the Google payments?

If they let Firefox atrophy to the point it will have no market share, let's see how that works out for them

[Wowfunhappy]

> But the issue is browsers don't make money.

What?! Browsers might as well be money printers! Have you heard how much money Google pays Apple to be the default search engine in Safari?

The higher Firefox’s user numbers, the more money Mozilla can make from search engine deals. Conversely, if Mozilla keeps trying to push a bunch of other initiatives while Firefox languishes and bleeds users, Mozilla will make less money.

If you don’t like this form of revenue… well, I don’t know what to tell you, because this is how web browsers make money. And trying other stuff doesn’t seem to be working.

[palata]

On the other hand, we typically find it unfair that Google can buy their search supremacy by being the default search engine.

We can't complain about Mozilla taking the money from Google and at the same time complain because they take the money from Google :-).

[tigroferoce]

You can and you should. There are people that are happy to pay for email, for search, for videos, for news, for music. I don't see why there wouldn't be people happy to pay for a browser.

The idea that software is free is completely wrong and should be something that an organization like Mozilla should combat. If software is free, there can be no privacy, it's as simple as that.

[dabockster]

> The idea that software is free is completely wrong

> If software is free, there can be no privacy, it's as simple as that.

Strongly agreed. Free software, either $0 or through stronger licenses like the GPL, have their economics completely shifted as an unintended side effect. Those new economics tend to favor clandestine funding sources (eg ads or malicious supply chain code).

But sustainable funding honestly isn't Mozilla's strong suite (or tech's in general, for that matter).

[palata]

> I don't see why there wouldn't be people happy to pay for a browser.

I admittedly didn't check the numbers, but a comment in a sibling thread says that if Mozilla was to replace their revenue with donations, they would have to become one of the biggest charities in America.

Is that even realistic? Like would they make that kind of money just from donations?

[beej71]

They could make it so we could subsidize development like with Thunderbird.

[account42]

That should not be a problem for a nonprofit which the Mozilla foundation supposedly is.

[gwd]

Non-profit doesn't mean non-revenue. They don't have to pay their investors, but they certainly need to pay their developers.

[account42]

Most nonprofits don't generate "revenue" from their "product". They provide a valuable service and get paid by people who agree with the mission.

[Rastonbury]

Based on comments in here and people willing to pay I wonder why they haven't got the Wikipedia route of getting donations, would that piss off a lot of users? I do think most people would understand a non-profit needs donations.