> The Justice Department also kept a Biden-era proposal that seeks to ban Google from paying companies like Apple, other smartphone manufacturers and Mozilla to make its search engine the default on their phones and browsers.
RIP Firefox?
RIP Firefox?
Welp. They had a chance to be default alive and they fucked it by trying to spend the money on new initiatives instead of just spending the interest payments from an endowment.
I know they cut back a little but maybe they’ve sobered up since? Haven’t had the heart to look again.
The truth is that browsers are a very complicated, very quickly moving, and very security sensitive piece of software. They spent all that money on Firefox rather than saving it because if they didn't Firefox would have fallen behind Chrome and Safari and it wouldn't be worth using today.
It makes no good goddamned sense that money that was given in order to be featured in a web browser cannot be spent primarily on that web browser, and can only be spent on anything except that web browser.
They have been saving up a bit last year if you see the financial reports their reserves are just above $1B now and there are others who paid in the past (like Yahoo did till 2017) who will pay Firefox a decent amount if not like Google does .
My guess it is likely be Bing or probably a new generation AI company like OpenAI who will replace Google and perhaps even pay similar or close to what Google pays. The traffic is worth a lot. Bing attested to click flow as the reason they cannot make a better product in their testimony in this trial.
Also Google will either be allowed to continue the contract till its current end (I believe 1-2 more years ) or will pay fully and release Mozilla from their obligations (Mozilla is not party to the case so early termination without compensation would be penalty on them for no reason ).
Mozilla will need to make some significant cuts and layoffs no doubt will be hard on the team, but the product will survive.
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For anyone who wants to know what the other side of the compensation discussion would go like..
One could argue though the Mozilla leadership has also more than quadrupled their revenue from $150M in 2011 to $690M in 2024, despite loosing market share, revenue generated from their only competitor no less. It isn't a easy job to convince your competitor to be your primary source of income to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars and keep increasing that every year.
Yes, Google is not funding the search deal out of the goodness of their hearts, but they also don't have to pay $500M+ per year to keep Mozilla alive if that is all they cared about.
Such a deal doesn't happen without a ton of work by Mozilla to build relationships, show value of paying 500M to Google etc.
If the leadership can no longer generate the growth/value they too will face the music sooner or later. Mozilla still would need competent people(this group or another) to be able make the deals to pivot to other revenue sources and they don't come cheap.
A for profit subsidiary of a non-profit in software world will always end up paying what looks like generous compensation perhaps even compared to the market for similar roles in pure for-profit companies, because unlike those companies, Mozilla cannot offer stock compensation on top of cash.
Or are you suggesting that none of these CEOs should be compensated at current rates? If so, hate the game and not the player my friend.
At that point I think Firefox lost a vision of a better future
I suspect chrome will get far less consumer friendly than chrome currently is if it is sold.
There are many who already do just this. What extra value would they get if they already repackage Chrome for free?
https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-fdn-202...
I don't love the CEO bonuses, but they are objectively less than half a percent of Mozilla's budget. Google search on the other hand is 85% of their revenue.