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Comment by arkitaip | Hacker News Reader

Anyone else who worries about Firefox's market share? At which point does it become too difficult for Mozilla to fund the research and development of Firefox?

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Mozilla did recently lay off 250 people. At the same time their exec pay is up 400%.

https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html

They've also had plenty of spare energy to participate in trying to cancel rms in recent weeks.

Even as Firefox continues losing market share, which put's Google's default search engine contract (which is like 90% of Firefox's funding) into jeopardy. Excellent management at Mozilla there.

They love cancelling people. [1]

1) https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/01/08/we-need-more-than-d...

> They've also had plenty of spare energy to participate in trying to cancel rms in recent weeks.

How hard is writing a letter? I won't restart this argument again, but surely you have to be being deliberately obtuse if you can't at very least appreciate why people want rms gone?

Same concern. I switched last year from Chrome back to Firefox after a few too many anti-consumer moves by Google and really hoping Firefox remains a viable alternative.

They're already lagging in a few places and that gap will only grow.

They laid off most of the engineering team at Firefox already. With that move, and the fact that they are losing market share to their Chromium-based competitors (Edge, Vivaldi, etc.), that put's Google's default search engine deal in question, which is like 90% of Mozilla's funding. Should they lose enough market share that Google decides they don't need them anymore, Firefox is dead overnight.

Agreed, it would also meant the establishment of WebKit (and its variants) as the de-facto rendering engine of the web.

The really frustrating thing is that the gap hasn't only been growing. Firefox was far slower than Chrome for a long time, and over the past couple of years pulled off a pretty impressive catch-up, which is why I and others finally went back. Now Mozilla's laid off most of the team that executed that very catch-up with Servo. Either my anecdotal experience of the speed bringing people back is an overestimation, or Mozilla's management really are as inept as everyone seems to think.

Yes. It's my 1st browser on my Macbook and iPhone. The only time I visited Warsaw was August 2013 and I remember being so excited to see a giant Firefox billboard. A decade before that I was already wrestling with infuriating IE quirks since Microsoft had literally abandoned all development on IE, and then Firefox rescued us from all that long before Chrome was a twinkle in Google's eye.

Yes I'm also worried, on two fronts.

The first being the 'top browsers' are just Chrome based anyway, creating a "works in Chrome only" scenario from decades ago. Which further fuels FF's decline.

The second being the case of defaults, by which I mean the default browser that comes with phones and desktops (Chrome and Safari and Edge), which in turn promote the lack of openness of the web by being tied to the OS and again recreating/forcing the same scenarios from decades ago. The only difference this time is that there's nobody keeping these companies in check.

I wonder if it would be worth for Google to finance Mozilla regardless of its user base. Just to keep it around as a competitor to Chrome to avoid monopoly issues with regulators.

My naive guess is that this is why they continue to fund it.

Google funds Mozilla because of this (keeping them around as puppet competition) and also because of their market share.

However, with browsers like Brave, Edge, and Vivaldi rising and Firefox's market share falling, Google doesn't need Firefox as its puppet much longer to avoid antitrust scrutiny, and Firefox's dwindling share reduces the value of it's userbase and thus the default search engine contract, so I would not be surprised if Google eventually cuts the funding.

But all those competitors are based on Chromium and therefore not really independent. Not sure if this matters in a potential antitrust suit?

The only thing keeping the lights on at Mozilla right now is their default search engine deal with Google. Which is quite ironic considering their constant anti-Google rhetoric - that Google is the one actually funding them.

If Google were to decide they didn't need them anymore though or that deal due to their small market share, Mozilla is toast.

You call it ironic. Others might call it principled.

Principled? Maybe, but at the same time, consider that if you anger Google, that's literally 90% of your funding gone overnight and the platform by which you publish your principles won't exist anymore because it went bankrupt. It doesn't make sense to promote principles that bite the hand that feeds you, if that hand is the difference between you even existing or not.

In which case, if you make your "principled" stance and bite Google's hand enough that Google drops the funding... great, you made headlines for a day, but it didn't really accomplish anything and have made the situation worse for everyone by making WebKit the only rendering engine left standing. Great job for principles.

Your logic is not lost on the people at Firefox, I'm sure. The fact that they are willing to risk pissing off Google when it contradicts Mozilla's stance about the open web is precisely why it is principled.

Imagine working for a boss and you find out that he is cheating customers for millions of dollars. Say you objected to your boss, or reported him/her to the police. Would that be ironic because you might lose your job?

@tasty_freeze But in that situation, I'm just one guy who lost a job. The stakes are not like that for this. We have two browser engines left standing, WebKit and Quantum, and the organization building Quantum has been angering their sole source of income. If they fail, they make headlines for a day, and then the web is a WebKit monoculture.

In this case, I get it that they have Principles. It's just that those Principles will kill them and what they hope to accomplish by those Principles in the first place. In this situation, I would still have principles, but I wouldn't be so vocal about it until I could stand on my own two feet and withstand the loss of funding.

    The only thing keeping the lights on at Mozilla 
    right now is their default search engine deal 
    with Google.

I'm perhaps splitting hairs and I apologize accordingly, but you're saying "right now" as if it was a new situation. While decidedly non-ideal, their default search engine deals are the only things that have ever kept the lights on there, right?

That's a smart and rational decision of google to support a competing browser so that they don't have a monopoly (that may be natural) and don't get suit for abusing this monopoly.

    At which point does it becomes difficult for
    Mozilla to fund the research and development of Firefox?

Their ability to fund themselves is probably more a function of their user base size, not market share.

I worry about their falling market share in the sense that it:

1. Affects their ability to influence web standards in a positive and pro-user way.

2. Affects the willingness of developers and corporations to ensure that their sites work and work well on Firefox. Already, this is often an afterthought and has been for some time.

>Anyone else who worries about Firefox's market share? At which point does it becomes difficult for Mozilla to fund the research and development of Firefox?

I am curious about this as well. I feel like Firefox/Mozilla died years ago. At least 5 years ago.

The only things I've really heard out of Mozilla is how they are battling 'systemic racism' and how the internet needs more deplatforming and how Trump is reprehensible and a white supremacist.

Oh wait why is Mozilla going into US politics? Isn't that in direct violation of their 501c3 status?

Why are they so concerned with US politics and not their products?

Exactly. They were dead to me around 2016.

It's really self-defeating. They think that talking politics makes a difference (even though how many people listen to Mozilla on politics? Anyone?), while neglecting the core product which allows them to have a platform in the first place.

one could reasonably fairly argue that Microsoft and Google are also involved in US politics and that Mozilla is no different in this regard. (obviously both of those corporations are much, much larger than Mozilla.) but still, I liked Mozilla much better when they were the independent browser company with no views on social justice outside of their own walls.

whenever corporations or previously non-political non-profits start becoming overtly political, I don't want anything to do with them if at all possible. which is increasingly difficult these days as everyone seems 100% willing to pretend like corporations are people and as such can have views on opinions about politics and social justice and such. there is no shortage of outspoken activism on the Internet, attaching your company's (and product's) cart to any sort of political horse is just stupid, and makes me respect said company and product much, much less.

when was the last time someone said to themselves, "man, I just can't bring myself to give a single shit about #BlackLivesMatter (or whatever other current political issue)... oh wait! what's this? my favorite browser/code editor/etc. is posting tweets about it? well, now, that changes everything! sure, all these other major corporations are talking about these things, absolutely inundating my social feeds with it, but... my favorite browser/code editor/etc.? jeez! I guess I'd better pay attention!"

really getting sick of this—entirely independent of what I think about any of these social/political issues. I can form my own opinions based upon my consumption of the vast amounts of political takes that I see every day on the Internet, without the input of your company/product, thank you very much. also, all of these other takes I consume are from people, individuals instead of corporations-pretending-to-be-individuals-for-political-purposes. it's not like you're not trying to increase your market share or bottom line or anything by grifting off of these causes.

man, it sucks though... I was that weird kid who frequently wore a Firefox t-shirt to high school in the mid 00s. I used to be such a fan.

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