> We don't have multiple different type of gasoline, or home heating oil

We do?

Actually, this is a great analogy. We have grades of gasoline because there is a trade-off between anti-knocking and cost. Monoculturing the grade approximates the diversity of requirements worse than honing in on a few points on the curve. As with browser engines, there is a limit to this diversity since each additional grade imposes novel fixed costs in production, distribution and combustion. But I’d be surprised if something as varied as browser engines optimally solves for a single solution.

There would still be competition among high level features for the browsers which I feel is more important for users. Reduced competiton on things like performance I don't think will be so bad as either someone will optimized it benefiting everyone, or things that are not hyper optimized will become insignificant as computers get more powerful.

> We don't have multiple different type of gasoline

We have diesel and gasoline at least.

However the key difference ethere is somewhat different: We have independent supply lines, starting at different oil fields, going through different refineries, into different distribution networks, which ensures that there is some competition (even oligopolic is better than plain monopoly) and supply chain attacks on one vendor don't havoc the complete supply chain.

For a practical example: Countries were able to massively reduce the dependance on Russian gas and oil recently.

If Google however decides to havoc chromium development all dependants have trouble.

>I wish Brave or some of the other Chromium Skins would become Firefox based.

This hurts because Firefox should have been that embedded framework powering browsers like Brave and electron apps. But that would have required them to invest in R&D to match performance but also to make their rendering engine easily embeddable (with a corresponding investment in documentation and outreach).

Brave actually started out as a Gecko-based project - they were using some Gecko-based Electron equivalent, if memory serves. It was such a PITA to work with that they switched to a Chromium base.

>Blink is objectively bad in the first place

Do you mind explaining this statement?

There's always money in ~~the banana stand~~. Er, webkit.

More than one thing can be true at the same time. Deals are usually made because interests are aligned. There is a direct benefit to an overwhelmingly dominant player to be able to point to any competitor. There is also a direct benefit to having people use your product. There is even a tertiary benefit of the money theoretically going to development for Firefox that could feed back into their own product.

If you look at the situation in the reverse, what sense does it make? Why would you pay a direct competitor to exist when the amount of money you put in to them is an incredibly large majority of their revenue? Firefox continues to become more irrelevant, and the amount of their revenue they get from Google doesn't really reflect that trend.

I'm not saying the only reason Firefox exists is for Google to point at it. That doesn't mean it isn't a major one. It also is pretty clear to Mozilla because they sure keep trying (and failing) to find other revenue sources

> If Google didn't pay for being the default search engine, or tried lowballing, someone else would make a deal instead

This already happened with Yahoo. Mozilla got a ton more money, too.

It was utterly disastrous for them. It turned out that Firefox needs Google as the default more than Google needs them - well, for the stated purposes of the deal, of course.

>They should ask (not require) payment for that service.

Sure - let them squeeze out the last drop of their one and only cash cow before it becomes utterly irrelevant - instead of investing in it and making it a core pillar of their strategy.

>See how Wikimedia Foundation is basically flush with cash,

Mozilla was (is?) flush with cash. Browser market share and corresponding user eyeballs are immensely valuable. That money isn't going back into Firefox development. This is why it is borderline criminal that they choose to focus on everything except Firefox.

Alternatively, what are they without Firefox?

They have a donate button. Which is all about subscriptions. Which is why I went away without even doing a one time donation, as my original intention was.

I deeply resent being pushed into subscriptions and you should too.

That makes you part of the problem.

As long as you use something better, that isnt chrome.

Chrome blatant spyware that scans your whole pc ever since google had the bright idea of sneaking an "antivirus" into chrome and enabling it by default. Firefox is better that chrome, but there's lots better than firefox.