[close04]

> the ad money kept rolling in

Why "ad money"? That's a very uncharitable interpretation and for anyone not aware of the situation it's misleading. They're not paid for ads or by ads, they're paid by Google to continue being a viable alternative to Chrome. Is every Google employee getting "ad money" every month, or a salary?

The payment is more accurately described as a protection tax.

[yakcyll]

In this particular context there really isn't any difference. Technically Mozilla isn't in the business of delivering ads, but their revenue is mostly supported by ad money from Google, and Google, being an ad giant, can simply cut that stream off. The common sentiment seems to be that this would spell a life and death situation for the company and for the browser as a whole, which essentially makes Firefox a hostage to the whims of an ideologically hostile corporate entity.

[account42]

> Technically Mozilla isn't in the business of delivering ads

They weren't back then but are now: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/advertising/mozilla-anonym-raisi...

[close04]

> Google, being an ad giant

Isn't Google also a cloud giant?

[doublerabbit]

I wouldn't say so. They're not offering their cloud at the same scale other competitors. Not sure when the last was I saw advertising for unlike AWS, Azure.

Felt more like their cloud services were more of a side product for when "the cloud" was the trendy buzzword and a way to justify their infrastructure costs. That and keeping a leg in the egg & spoon race.

[mrhottakes]

So your conclusion is based on advertising that you personally have noticed / haven't noticed?

[esseph]

GCP is growing faster than either AWS or Azure, roughly 60% a year. AWS seems to have stagnated in growth. Azure is a clown car.

[ivanmontillam]

Still wouldn't touch GCP with a 10-foot pole.

Too much dependency in Google[0].

--

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48396596

[sshine]

While the nuance is important, money from Google is ad money:

  - Directing people to Google Search means Firefox users get exposed to ads
  - The money given to Firefox was made selling ads
  - Google is an ad company

So yes, Google gives Firefox money for political reasons. Made from ads, so they can sell ads, including to Firefox users.

[close04]

I'm with you on the first one and that's the closest reason why you could call Firefox payment "ad money". But the rest are not too strong. Google makes a lot of non-ad money too, even if it's a smaller portion than ads. You don't call airlines "banks" just because they make all of their money from currency-like "miles", and even fly at a loss [0].

What I want to say is that calling it "ad money" makes Firefox look bad when it shouldn't.

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/airlines-b...

[rntksi]

You're mis-representing things here.

As in my reply further below, Q1 2026 you can see Google makes 70% of revenue from Ads, the non-ad money you refer to is only 1/3. But if you look at net income, 85% of the net income from Google comes from Services (including Ads).

The Airlines story is taken out of context and different from Google, Delta for example in the Q1 2026 filing you can see they have a revenue of $15.8bn, of which ticket sales is $10.7bn ! Loyalty program income is just $1bn. However the net income supports the story The Atlantic ran, which just means that out of the $1bn, they are getting more net income from their mileage programs, than income from out of $10.7bn ticket sales, because the operating expense of flying airplane is quite high from fuel, etc.

So on one side, Google has 70% revenue from Ads, and even more % if you count net income. On the other side, Airlines - like Delta - have 70% of their revenue from passenger, but relatively speaking less net income from ticket sales if you consider net income.

You are not comparing the same thing. If you just compare revenue, Airlines cannot be called Banks because they still make 70% of their revenue from passenger ticket sales, just as how Google is an Ad company because their main revenue is 70% ads!

If you compare net income, the airlines story can have an angle, but the Google story doesn't, because their net income from Ads is way higher!

[close04]

When someone says that all money a company pays is "money from their main segment", that's intentionally misrepresenting. In this case what's important is what the money is for, not from. Calling it "Firefox had ad-money coming in" can only be bad faith, the usual social media rage bait.

Now everyone comes out of the woodwork with "well akshully" because there's an interpretation where they can plausibly claim "technically I'm right" despite knowing they are sending the wrong message.

Basketball player LeBron James made more money from endorsements than sports, gas stations make more money from selling coffee and food than gas, and fast-food giant McDonald's makes more money from rent than from fast-food. If you called a gas station "a grocery store" you'd be technically right but also practically and pointlessly wrong.

[sshine]

It's a completely fair point.

You could say Google has two purposes of funding Firefox:

One is to inject search engine and ad distribution dominance into every known browser.

The other is to prop up Firefox as an alternative browser to avoid monopoly lawsuits.

They're not sponsoring Firefox out of goodness.

Which is why I don't like to be charitable with the interpretation.

[tomnipotent]

Without the ads, there would be no payments to Mozilla. It's absolutely 100% unequivocably ad money.

[CjHuber]

Technically yes

[close04]

Well thought out commentary... Let's dig deeper and at least we make it more interesting conversation, not a blurb.

Wouldn't it be technically no because Google's revenue isn't 100% from ads? They're making almost $120bn from cloud, subscriptions and devices for example. It could be cloud money. And if Google gets ad money so whatever it pays becomes ad money, then it's ad money all the way down.

[rntksi]

Where did you get the $120bn figure?

FYI last fiscal results from Q1 of Alphabet, Google Cloud made $20bn revenue Q1 2026, up from Q4 2025 of $17bn. It's a bit misleading to include "subscriptions, platforms, and devices" in cloud.

Q1 2026 Google's revenue totalled $109bn, of which $77bn is Ads, so 70% of its revenue is Ads. It's common knowledge that Google is an Ads company.

[close04]

> FYI last fiscal results from Q1

I googled the money they made from cloud, subscriptions, platforms, and devices, then approximated almost $120bn in a year. The precise number mattered less than the fact that it's a ton of it already, enough to cover a lot of payoffs.

> It's a bit misleading to include

I didn't "include in" anything, it was an enumeration of things that aren't ads. "Google makes $Q from X and Y", not from "X included in Y".

You found something that's technically correct (a clear enumeration and addition) to be misleading. I think you now accidentally understand what was my initial objection. A lot of other people in the thread don't because that's how social media works, they go with the prevailing opinion for the sweet sweet likes, or go against it and get squeezed out.

[tomnipotent]

It doesn't matter what Google makes money from, it matters what they pay Mozilla for. And they pay Mozilla exclusively rev share on ads, nothing else.

[account42]

> Is every Google employee getting "ad money" every month

Yes. You can think of it like "blood money".