They just lost a monopoly case because they paid Mozilla all that money, this theory has always made little sense and sticking to it now makes even less.

In fact, one could argue that Google losing its case is what caused this. Google provided a substantial amount of revenue to Mozilla. With that now gone, new ways(TM) to get money are needed.

They really don’t need more revenue. They are nominally a not-for-profit and in 2023, they had 250 million cash and a billion more in investments.

They’ve taken billions of dollars from Google since 2005, and now they’re turning their back on user privacy.

They spend well over 200 million a year in software development, and they've made those investments presumably expecting this revenue issue.

Building a browser is expensive, that's why there's only two of them. Even Microsoft considered it too expensive to continue.

I’m not informed enough to analyze the real cost of developing a web browser.

However, Microsoft’s mission is profits for shareholders so their calculus ought to be different than Mozilla’s.

It makes sense for a profit-seeking entity to surrender if they don’t see a path for a return on the investment, not so for Mozilla.

>I’m not informed enough to analyze the real cost of developing a web browser.

Then why post strong comments about how much funding Mozilla needs?

The calculus is very different. IE could be developed at a 100% loss for the company if it still otherwise helped Microsoft, which is what happened. Chrome operates similarly.

Firefox needs to generate enough money to sustain itself indefinitely. So when there are signs their main source of funding may vanish, they need to keep a war chest together and have investments to weather any oncoming storm. Otherwise they just collapse.

Because they’ve had twenty years to figure out how to generate sustainable revenue while being propped up by Google. Mozilla got themselves into this situation, why should their users overlook the removal of the only real advantage of Firefox?

They _should_ collapse if the only way for them to continue is to abandon their mission.

That much revenue from a single source was always a significant vulnerability, a vulnerability that leadership failed to address. Poor leadership and wasteful spending is the problem, not revenue.

>, a vulnerability that leadership failed to address.

My recollection is of leadership repeatedly trying to address it, generally for the community to get furious at them and say they shouldn't remotely think of anything except Firefox.

If you're full of methods for Firefox to magically generate several hundred million dollars a year, I believe they're still looking for a new CEO. Be warned though, if you take any of that money for yourself the community will eternally scorn you.

that's true, but now google will appeal it and with the new regime in place they will withdraw the case and give google a win.

they also couldn't have timed this better with the manifestv3 thing

Yes, of course. If Mozilla decided to do what other user here suggested (`spend $15M on a team of 20+ highly competent full time developers for Firefox, put $450M into a trust to fund future development`) I doubt that the 500M/year would continue flowing.