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The Google antitrust ruling could be an existential threat to the future of Firefox | Financials show 86% of Mozilla's revenue came from the agreement keeping Google as Firefox's default search engine (www.techspot.com)

submitted 3 months ago by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Mozilla has a close relationship with Google, as most of Firefox's revenue comes from the agreement keeping Google as the browser's default search engine. However, the search giant is now officially a monopoly, and a future court decision could have an unprecedented impact on Mozilla's ability to keep things "business as usual."

United States District Judge Amit Mehta found Google guilty of building a monopolistic position in web search. The Mountain View corporation spent billions of dollars becoming the leading search provider for computing platforms and web browsers on PC and mobile devices.

Most of the $21 billion spent went to Apple in exchange for setting Google as the default search engine on iPhone, iPad, and Mac systems. The judge will now need to decide on a penalty for the company's actions, including the potential of forcing Google to stop payments to its search "partners completely," which could have dire consequences for smaller companies like Mozilla.

Its most recent financials show Mozilla gets $510 million out of its $593 million in total revenue from its Google partnership. This precarious financial position is a side effect of its deal with Alphabet, which made Google the search engine default for newer Firefox installations.

The open-source web browser has experienced a steady market share decline over the past few years. Meanwhile, Mozilla management was paid millions to develop a new "vision" of a theoretical future with AI chatbots. Mozilla Corporation, the wholly owned subsidiary of Mozilla Foundation managing Firefox development, could find itself in a severe struggle for revenue if Google's money suddenly dried up.

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[–] Affidavit@lemm.ee 74 points 3 months ago (4 children)

I wonder how much of their income actually goes towards development. At a glance, it seems a great deal of unnecessary administrative bloat has been added to Mozilla.

I honestly don't see why a browser company needs to be so large (>700 employees).

Not that I want people to lose their jobs, it just seems unnecessary.

[–] SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone 41 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Well, a browser is a massive piece of software, especially if you include the development of a render engine as Firefox does

Web standards evolve constantly, you need to keep up somehow, together with optimizations, bug fixing, patching of security vulnerabilities, etc

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago

Indeed. People severely underestimate how complex and costly developing a browser and web renderer is.

In many ways it's far more complex than OS development.

Firefox cannot get by on user donations alone. Mozilla needs a way to generate revenue, but nobody wants Mozilla to commercialise in any way. They're stuck between a rock and a hard place.

[–] mke@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

And a JS engine! Firefox uses Mozilla's SpiderMonkey, unlike every other (Blink/chrome-family) browser which uses Google's V8.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 30 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Mozilla is not a browser producer, it's a general internet charity that earns money by producing a browser. Most of their income goes to charity and reserves of which they have about 1bn -- roughly four times as much as wikipedia just for a sense of scale, wikipedia doesn't do any business deals to get at cash but instead does annoying donation drives.

They could scale down significantly while still keeping firefox development ongoing, they probably wouldn't have much issue finding enough donations to fund development, but the strategy seems to be building reserves and diversify commercial income, things like the revenue share they get from pocket for sending people to ad-ridden pages.

When you're currently donating to Mozilla you're not donating towards Firefox: Mozilla-the-company can't receive funds from Mozilla-the-foundation, those donations are going to charity work.

And, to make this clear: None of this is a grand revelation, or new, or outrageous, it's basically always been like that and it's always been a perfectly proper way to run a charity. Most of the recent pushbacks comes from people hating that Mozilla funds stuff like getting women into STEM, being outraged that the wider Mozilla community is not keen on having a CEO which opposes gay marriage (very staunchly so), etc.

[–] mke@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Oh my, could you share more information about the homophobic CEO thing?

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Search for Brendan Eich, nowadays he's running the Brave browser.

[–] mke@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Oh, him. Thanks.

nowadays he's running the Brave browser.

Yeah, that's what I knew him from. Figures he would go on to lead a browser infamous for its controversies.

[–] stoly@lemmy.world 12 points 3 months ago

They do more. They are also a vpn, and they are standing up new services.

[–] Cornelius_Wangenheim@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago

There's a reason why every other browser maker has given up and adopted Chromium. It's not easy to support a browser and rendering engine across half a dozen OSes while keeping it secure, performant and stable.