this post was submitted on 02 May 2025
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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Firefox makes up about 90 percent of Mozilla’s revenue, according to Muhlheim, the finance chief for the organization’s for-profit arm — which in turn helps fund the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation. About 85 percent of that revenue comes from its deal with Google, he added.

I fail to understand how they haven't figured out a way out of this seems to me they're using all the money they from Google as if there is no tomorrow... Why on earth also if Firefox is so clearly their main product does it seem to not always be at the centre of their attention? I get doing other products but they seem to not be going anywhere. Honestly, to a layman like me it seems they've been doing the same stuff as Google without having the massive ad revenue but with the search revenue. Where did the Firefox OS go ? They never followed through like Google did with their Pixels for example. Why?

On cross-examination by the DOJ, Muhlheim conceded that it would be preferable not to rely on one customer for the vast majority of its revenue, regardless of the court’s ruling in this case. And, he agreed, another browser company, Opera, has already managed to make more money from browser ads than it does from search deals. But while that may be a potential pathway to diversifying Firefox’s revenue, he added, scaling up such a business at Firefox may look different, in part because of the privacy-preserving approach it takes to products.

I don't love that response. What are Opera's ads like? There are two reasons I use Firefox : opensource and ad blocking... I honestly think Firefox should offer more branded services like their Pocket, VPN or email with thunderbird, why not even a cloud in a continuation of their Firefox Send service? Or just try to ask for donations from time to time with some transparency about the budget... I'd personally love to better understand why there is a corporation and a foundation.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

I fail to understand how they haven't figured out a way out of this seems to me they're using all the money they from Google as if there is no tomorrow... Why on earth also if Firefox is so clearly their main product does it seem to not always be at the centre of their attention?

The answer to the second question is the answer to the first - there have been a ton of attempts at alternative sources of funding, but it's hard to come close to the ~half a billion USD the default search deal provides. So far the branded services you're calling for don't seem to have been able to pull it off, and I haven't seen any signs that donations would be able to either.

(Although as for email with Thunderbird...)