this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2024
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Where would the money come from then? donations? Or do you mean they should shrink, fire people and downscale.
I think it's too late for them to switch direction, not without a lot of people getting laid off. Though maybe that will ultimately happen if they finally end up bankrupt.
I reckon I do. Google is like 80% of their funding or some shit, which hinders other search products while affecting user experience in other ways as well due to their influence. If they reined in the scope of their product, they could work on a lower budget which might allow them to work towards breaking free of that oversight. As I mentioned, I don't think most Firefox users want half this crap they're working on anyway, but they're caught in the tech "infinite growth" loop where they ""have"" to crank out bs features or else be considered irrelevant.
Just make a solid browser, work in solid mod support so I can make it my own, and maintain it. I have my own tools to use instead of pocket and whatever else, I don't need Mozilla to do that.
In terms of workers being let go, if they scale back they can at least let people go in a respectful manner instead of them just showing up to a sign on the door lol.
My worry is that the other 20% might actually come from other forms of partnerships and integrations not unlike what they probably had in mind with this, and that dropping Google might actually make them more dependent on seeking this kind of initiatives, not less.
I don't know how many people you actually need to maintain a browser. But if it's actually possible to do it without any kind of money from any of those sources in a way that can be sustained, then it would make more sense to make a fork (or alternative, like Ladybird) and just use that.
Like I said, I think it's too late for Mozilla to shift course, I don't expect they'll ever do that. At least not until they are forced by a competing project if it happens to become successful (or a similar huge wake up call that leaves them no alternative).