this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2024
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The problem is that browsers aren't profitable. Mozilla need a revenue source other than donations, and that's why they're trying to make another product that'll stick. They need to make money somehow. If Google stops paying them because of the antitrust lawsuit, Mozilla will probably disappear in a few months.
Browsers are profitable, Mozilla only exists because of the money the browser brings in.
Yes, it's true that the money is currently coming from Google but only because Google is willing to pay more than other search providers. If Google stopped paying, someone else would pay instead.
To put it another way, Google isn't forking out millions to Mozilla out of the goodness of its heart
EDIT: to everyone down voting this, please explain to me why Google also pays Apple an obscene amount of money to be the default search engine on iOS if there's no competition in this space?
No.
Google pays to keep its monopoly on search.
Chrome, Android, etc. all are just tools to funnel views on their ads.
If Mozilla would fold, Google would have a monopoly on browsers, which could cause problems for them. So they finance fake competition.
No other company could pay even close to that amount of money.
Agreed.
Google pays literally tens of billions to make sure they're the default search engine across everything - including the likes of iOS.
Why is it that when Google pays Apple hundreds of millions of dollars, it's because they're enforcing their search monopoly, but when they pay Mozilla a fraction of that, it's because Mozilla would have no way of staying afloat otherwise?
Why is Google paying apple so much if nobody else could afford it?
Make it make sense.
Because that way they avoid any competition.
Thing is, businesses like Google's ads are not linear. If you can track 90% of people 90% of the time, your ads are much much more valuable to advertisers than a company that only tracks 70% of the people 90% of the time. So it makes sense to create a moat by literally shitting money on everyone around you.
Think about the opposite: if Apple would switch to DDG by default, most people would leave it at that. And that would mean, a significant chunk of the US search traffic is gone. Europe and the rest of the world are not that apple-heavy, but Apple users are rich power users (on average), these are extremely valuable.
I think you're missing the point here. You're claiming Google only pays Mozilla to have a competitor, yet they also pay apple even more money for the same thing in an area they're just competing.
The point is that there is competition in the default browser search space, it's just that Google pays more than anyone else.
If Google stopped paying Mozilla tomorrow, someone else would pay them for the same default search engine spot. It might not be as much, but it would still be a significant amount.
A few years ago it was Yahoo that footed the bill.
Have we all forgotten that time period when Yahoo! was the default search provider in Firefox?
Judging by the replies and down votes, yes we have.