Apr 11, 2024

In 2020, Mozilla signed a deal with Google for them to pay $450 million a year until 2024 to be the default search engine. This is 50% higher than what Mozilla got from Google a decade ago, despite a shrinking market share for Firefox. To make it even more painfully obvious how much Mozilla gets from this, this money makes up roughly ninety percent of their income.

Oh, yes, did I mention this contract is due to be renewed in 2024? I wonder if that has any bearings on this AI push by Mozilla. I wonder if there’s a risk that the Google money will dry up?

Mozilla is desperate to divest its income stream because it is reliant on essentially being a controlled opposition to Chrome to survive.

Show threadAlexia  

@yassie_j interestingly enough, they just announced a partnership with Qwant

They haven't really elaborated to what extent this is a partnership - whether it might replace the search engine, whether it is related to funding, or anything else :/

Empowering choice: Firefox partners with Qwant for a better web  | The Mozilla Blog

Your tech choices matter more than ever. That’s why at Firefox, we believe in empowering users to make informed decisions that align with their values. I

Apr 11, 2024 at 8:56pmWeb
Show thread   Apr 11, 2024
@cyrus I wonder how much it’s worth - definitely not half a billion a year.
Show threadAlexia  Apr 11, 2024

@yassie_j well I for sure think it won't be 500m a year, but considering the timing, the wording of the title, and (IIRC?) the fact they got a new CEO:

This might, for once, actually spell good news for Mozilla, at least partially