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austhrow743 | 2 months ago

Their Google dependency is their existential problem. They're limited by what they can do with "making Firefox better" while effectively being a client state. An off the books Google department. Doomed to forever being a worse funded Chrome because they can't do too much to anger their patron.

By selling browser UI real estate to AI companies[0] they reduce the power Google has over them. If they get to the point where no individual company makes up a majority of their revenue, it allows them to focus on their mission in a much broader way.

[0]These will be very expensive listings should this feature become popular: https://assets-prod.sumo.prod.webservices.mozgcp.net/media/u...

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bambax|2 months ago

Yeah but is this entirely true though? It seems Google pays FF just for existing, to protect them from antitrust litigation (or what's left of it); so Google can't really stop paying FF and can't try to kill it, as its death would be extremely counter productive. FF may be freer than it thinks.

makeitdouble|2 months ago

Same as for Apple, the amount Google pays will vary. Firefox will probably still exist with 10% of Google's money, except execs Mozilla execs would be in a very different situation.

kevinrineer|2 months ago

Its not impossible that someday a new non-chromium browser reaches feature parity (or close enough) with the chromium browsers. At that point, Google could stop worrying about funding Firefox's development.

Krasnol|2 months ago

Is there any prove for Googles influence on their development you outline here?

bluehatbrit|2 months ago

Google pay Mozilla hundreds of millions of dollars each year to place Google as the default browser. It's by far their biggest income stream. In 2023 it was reported as 75% of their revenue.

There's no world in which 75% of your revenue coming from Google doesn't influence what you do. Even if it's not the main driver of all decisions, pissing off Google is a huge risk for them.