Andrea De PirroSep 19, 2024
Chilly  🛡️ 

This is important. So I have to agree that #Mozilla is really taking the wrong direction and betraying fundamental principles.

Still, I think people are missing some important context that is difficult for Mozilla to communicate/admit.

They are probably *very* threatened by the Google anti-trust suit. Which doesn't sound like it makes sense, right?

In 2022, Mozilla brought in $510.389 million USD revenue from the royalties Google pays them to be the default search engine. That's ~86% of their $593.516 million USD total net revenue.

The thing is... Google was just found to be a search monopoly exactly because of deals like that making it *very* likely Google will have to kill the deal if they do not win on appeal.

So what I see is Mozilla seeing the looming guillotine of a 86% revenue cut and is desperately trying to cut down and pivot to survive.

Do I think Mozilla is overall good? Yes. Certainly compared to Google. Do I approve of their recent decisions? Absolutely not. Do I understand their situation? Yes.

Sep 18, 2024 at 2:50amWeb
Show threadParigot-Manchot φSep 18, 2024
@chillybot @1HommeAzerty And cutting down AI still would be a a good thing if they want less money loss. And cutting down huge annual income of the CEO.
Show threadJulien W.Sep 18, 2024
@parigotmanchot
I don't want to defend the CEO salary, however please understand this represents just 1% of the overall revenue, so this isn't relevant to this discussion.
@chillybot @1HommeAzerty
Show threadOblomovSep 18, 2024

@chillybot good point, but ultimately it's still Their Fault™ for striking such a deal in the first place, as opposed to, for example, deals with all search ad factories and letting users choose their preferred engine on first startup.

But if they had any foresight they probably wouldn't have spent the last decade destroying the goodwill of their dwindling user base, which would have probably kept them in a better financial situation in the first place

Show threadMister Moo 🐮Sep 18, 2024
@chillybot Agreed. What we need is for not only that monopolistic deal to end but for Chrome to be spun off into its own company. No subsidy from a giant money-printing ad machine. The playing field must be leveled.
Show threadeverton137Sep 18, 2024

@chillybot how come such a small company as compared to Mozilla can run an instance and account of Mastodon much more decently?

https://social.vivaldi.net/@everton137/113155004941830939

Why not leave it to their tech community to run, if it still exists?

https://social.vivaldi.net/@everton137/113155054572799460

#Mozilla

everton137 (@[email protected])

Attached: 2 images Just a quick comparison between @Vivaldi and @[email protected] Mastodon profiles. Vivaldi vs Mozilla - 3000+ vs 87 posts - 21 vs 14 months old - ~ 21 thousand vs ~ 29 thousand followers The last revenue I found about Mozilla is of the order of USD 400+ million, while Vivaldi Technologies seems to have 10 to 100 times less on revenue. And Vivaldi browser has direct integration with Mastodon. Quite intriguing. Mozilla's instance was never a project. I think we can't even call it an experiment. At most a joke. #Mozilla #Vivaldi #Mastodon

Vivaldi Social
Show threaduisSep 18, 2024
@chillybot Mozilla _Corporation_ is paid by Google, not Mozilla Foundation.
Show threadChilly  🛡️ Sep 18, 2024
@uis
The foundation wholly owns the corporation
Show threaduisSep 18, 2024
@chillybot true
Show threadBob K Mertz Sep 18, 2024

@chillybot
This is exactly why I don't have a pitchfork in hand despite feeling very nervous about the future. At the same time, however, they are going to have to address this. They can't just keep running around like the building is on fire without explaining to everyone else that, well, the building is on fire. You should work together with those that actually care about your product rather than eventually convert them into people that want to see your product burn in said fire.

#Mozilla

Show threadScott SpencerSep 18, 2024
@bobkmertz Realistically, without the Google money, Mozilla can't go on. Nothing will make up for that loss. @chillybot
Show threadAndreu Casablanca 🐀Sep 19, 2024

@LScottSpencer @bobkmertz @chillybot Maybe not Mozilla, but some of its projects could probably find ways to sustain themselves.

For example, I doubt Firefox needs anything close to those 500M that Google gives to Mozilla wvery year. I would be very surprised if it was higher than 50M.

Show threadScott SpencerSep 19, 2024
@castarco That's quite likely. Have to wait and see what happens I guess. Competition is always a good thing. @bobkmertz @chillybot
Show threadjelteSep 18, 2024
@chillybot If they hadn't had the foresight that such a deal would eventually end and put most of that money in a fund to pay for future development of the browser core, sure, the pivot to yet another adware product could be a tiny bit understandable (but still awful). But burning money on the dead-end dumpsterfire that is genAI makes even less sense if this is the underlying reason.
Show threadtyilSep 19, 2024
@chillybot Now imagine if #Mozilla hadn't botched their relations with their userbase and could still get a lot of money from individual contributions. Additionally, if they didn't burn money like crazy on dumb short-sighted projects or insane bonuses for their management, half a million dollars can last you a very long time.

This situation was created by themselves, they chose to rely solely on #Google money, rather than listen to their (once immense) userbase and tailor to them. It is incredibly sad to see Mozilla screw themselves over like this, but it is something they did to themselves, and that makes it very hard to feel sorry for them.