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sshine • today at 8:00 AM • 1 reply • view on HN

While the nuance is important, money from Google is ad money:

  - Directing people to Google Search means Firefox users get exposed to ads
  - The money given to Firefox was made selling ads
  - Google is an ad company
So yes, Google gives Firefox money for political reasons. Made from ads, so they can sell ads, including to Firefox users.

Replies

close04 • today at 8:19 AM

I'm with you on the first one and that's the closest reason why you could call Firefox payment "ad money". But the rest are not too strong. Google makes a lot of non-ad money too, even if it's a smaller portion than ads. You don't call airlines "banks" just because they make all of their money from currency-like "miles", and even fly at a loss [0].

What I want to say is that calling it "ad money" makes Firefox look bad when it shouldn't.

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/airlines-b...

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