Mozilla, the developer of Firefox, has warned that it may be forced to exit the browser market if it is no longer allowed to receive payments from Google for offering its search engine. According to Mozilla, a ban on these payments could lead the company and other independent browser developers to withdraw from the market. [&hellip
Tldr: Google gives money to Mozilla so it can be the default search engine in Firefox. Now courts want to stop this kind of deal on the grounds that it’s against antitrust laws. So Mozilla now says that without this money they might die.
Unlike many people on Lemmy, I kinda like what the Mozilla foundation does, but if they let themselves become dependent on Google’s money they should have seen this coming.
Yes, unfortunately it’s not an easy situation. Firefox’s market share isn’t nearly as big as it once was. I think it’s in the single digit percentage world-wide. That means it will never be big enough again, which means it is 100% reliant on Google’s money.
Another weirdness is that Google is supposedly only paying this money so that they can claim they aren’t a monopoly because a competitor exists (but only because Google lets them live). Mozilla did see it coming, but you can’t really make money appear out of thin air if your projects aren’t nearly successful enough anymore.
That means stopping Google’s payments will not just hurt Mozilla/Firefox (to the point of destruction), but Google/Chrome as well (in comparison, it stings them a little bit).
The browser situation is just bad overall.
Tldr: Google gives money to Mozilla so it can be the default search engine in Firefox. Now courts want to stop this kind of deal on the grounds that it’s against antitrust laws. So Mozilla now says that without this money they might die.
Unlike many people on Lemmy, I kinda like what the Mozilla foundation does, but if they let themselves become dependent on Google’s money they should have seen this coming.
Yes, unfortunately it’s not an easy situation. Firefox’s market share isn’t nearly as big as it once was. I think it’s in the single digit percentage world-wide. That means it will never be big enough again, which means it is 100% reliant on Google’s money. Another weirdness is that Google is supposedly only paying this money so that they can claim they aren’t a monopoly because a competitor exists (but only because Google lets them live). Mozilla did see it coming, but you can’t really make money appear out of thin air if your projects aren’t nearly successful enough anymore. That means stopping Google’s payments will not just hurt Mozilla/Firefox (to the point of destruction), but Google/Chrome as well (in comparison, it stings them a little bit). The browser situation is just bad overall.