[dosinga]

> Mozilla exists because one company tried to own the front door to the web, and an open community rose up to make sure it never could.

I'd say that the front door to the web is pretty much owned by Google and Apple at this point given Firefox current marketshare. And maybe that's enough, maybe a future where a low percentage of open models keep the rest of the system honest but that doesn't seem the argument of this article

[wongarsu]

It's also just a very cherry-picked framing

Mozilla exists because one company owned the front door to the web, and another company abused their market position to push their free (as in beer) browser. Mozilla is the phoenix rising from the ashes of that first company.

Then another company came along, abused their market position to push their free browser, demolished Firefox's market share but keep handing them cash to avoid the appearance of a monopoly

[bel8]

Mozilla exists because Google gives them billions to keep Google as default search engine.

[ifdefdebug]

And to keep around a concurrent browser with full adblock abilities so they can cripple their own without too much of an outcry.

[jjordan]

Do you think Firefox development is unsustainable without this substantial stipend?

[mossTechnician]

At their current trajectory, absolutely. But if they focused their development efforts, cut down on careless spending especially to third parties, and looked for alternative sources of funding (it is presently not possible for users to donate to Firefox development, for example), I feel like they could survive without Google for at least a little while. Frankly, I think these things should be started on now, while they still have Google's backing.