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Empowering Choice: Firefox Partners with Qwant for a Better Web (blog.mozilla.org)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yeah... Things like this partnership, plus publishing posts against things Google is doing (https://blog.mozilla.org/en/privacy-security/googles-protected-audience-protects-advertisers/), might spook Google a bit. Mozilla rely on receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from Google every year. Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (2 children)

The fact that Mozilla is so dependent on Google is the actual problem here, diversifying where they get funding from is precisely what they should be doing going forward.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Mozilla has diversified... By jumping into AI.

Spent $65-265 million on AI that we know of
Bought an AI company for an undisclosed sum and funded more AI research for unknown amounts
Brought AI to Kenya (in a move strangely reminiscent of cryptocurrency companies trying to fix the "unranked" problem

And shuttering previous diversification products and laying off staff.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Saw that, totally can't imagine how any of that is going to backfire.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I definitely agree with you, but finding another partner to get hundreds of millions of dollars per year isn't trivial.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Sure, but finding more partners is crucial for long term survival, so if Mozilla never reaches out to anybody for fear of offending Google then they're always gonna be stuck in this sort of abusive relationship. Becoming so reliant on Google in the first place shouldn't have happened, but it's better to start fixing that sooner than later. It's also worth noting that the main reason Google funds FF is to protect themselves from antitrust litigation. As long as FF is around and gets a bit of usage, then Google can point to it to say that Chrome isn't a browser monopoly.