Proposed contractual remedies in United States v. Google threaten vital role of independent browsers | The Mozilla Blog
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Giving people the ability to shape the internet and their experiences on it is at the heart of Mozilla’s manifesto. This includes empowering people to ch

As written, the proposed remedies will force smaller and independent browsers like Firefox to fundamentally reexamine their entire operating model.

  • scratchee@feddit.ukEnglish
    481·
    2 days ago

    They didn’t “build” their business model on it so much as “clung desperately onto the only lifeline in existence to avoid drowning in debt”.

    There really isn’t a plan b, it’s not like they’re refusing to switch to the obviously better business models out there that could replace their search money. There just aren’t many business models that can maintain the development costs of a web browser and engine.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      2 days ago

      There are plenty of plans B. They simply want to both have Google-like politics and money literally from Google, while calling themselves independent. In Russia that’s called “to both eat a fish and sit on a d*ck”, same as “eat your cake and have it too”.

      They can break with mainstream standards represented basically by Chromium only, simplify and improve and don’t track Chromium bug-to-bug anymore. That’ll both reduce pressure and attract people.

      They can rely on donations more, which will also have the clearly positive effect of users’ opinions mattering on their further development.

      They can have useful paid services, working best with their browser. Say, those “free speech” extensions adding comments to every webpage didn’t fly well, because there were many of those extensions, and those comments were nuts. If you pay with some Foxcoin for every comment, then this won’t have the spam problem.

      So many ideas.

    • bloup@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      241·
      2 days ago

      Mozilla could solicit donations for the development of Firefox while also still being able to rely on commercial funding sources if they restructured the Firefox project so that the core technologies underlying it (stuff like Gecko and SpiderMonkey) were actually developed by the Foundation instead of the Corporation, while the Corporation could package all of those pieces together into a complete software product with branding. The way things are now, though the entire browser is developed by the Mozilla Corporation and so its development can only be financially supported by Mozilla Corporation selling products or engaging in business deals.

    • MonkderVierte@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1·
      1 day ago

      You mean Mozilla? Developing a browser doesn’t cost 300 million a year.

      Which doesn’t mean that browser engines are not inefficient and overcomplex monsters.