alt Hacker News> What would be an acceptable revenue model?
They could start with the one they've refused for ages even though many have asked for it. Let people directly donate to fund the development of firefox (as opposed to just giving mozilla money to funnel into any number of their other projects). They could even make money selling merch if they didn't tank the brand. Firefox could have a very nice niche to fill as a privacy focused browser for power users who desire customization and security, but sadly they don't seem interested in being that. For whatever reason they'd rather spend a fortune buying adtech from facebook employees and be a chrome clone that pushes ads and sells user data, and that isn't going to inspire support from users.
That said, I'm not convinced that every open source project needs to be profit generating. Many projects are hugely successful without resorting to ads. What makes it possible for VLC or even Arch Linux to thrive without advertising that couldn't work just as well for firefox? The solution is certainly not to turn Firefox into a project that their users no longer want to support or use at all, but that seems to be where they are headed by selling out their userbase.
Well said. Do you know of any recent reports or if anyone has actually gone through the funding calculations regarding the funding model you described (let’s call it “FF-direct”) versus Mozilla’s status quo funding model?
Primary questions are: How much does FF cost to sustain? How much is spent on new performance, functionality and feature development? What number does Firefox need to compete directly with Chrome? If you asked an experienced FF project contributor what is the delta between the previous two questions?
- a 20+ year Firefox power user very familiar with the FF project, web browsers, and how they compete