I disagree. Cutting away from, and taking an adversarial stance toward, Google is probably the only thing that would keep Firefox relevant in the future. If Mozilla Corp didn't exist as-is, I believe that Firefox, SeaMonkey, Thunderbird, and other related programs would honestly be stronger and have more market share among users who are not the lowest common denominator, because they would be supported by a strong community making democratic decisions, not clamped down by whatever choices some marketing suit makes about a "brand" which is now almost meaningless.
Pale Moon is proof enough of that - the platform is viable, and people care about it. If Firefox were to discard the wrongheaded choices, I'm pretty sure sure that the PM community would fold back in. Rather than saying, "oh maybe there's a reason Mozilla Corp's not using the money for real advertising", users would still be going out like we did in the early '00s and building word-of-mouth to support a product worth supporting.
Corporations do not exist to "play nice". They exist to overtake, consume, and ultimately to destroy. Google has almost fully overtaken the Web for corp backers. Mozilla needs to develop the guts to take it back for the users.
I am sorry but this is HN idealism in full display yet again. People here time and time again vastly overestimate how little of a shit people give about their browser history, or that some company is showing them ads based on their profile, or that Google is building a walled garden (The richest company in the world is a massive walled garden). especially if you give them alternative: paying for things. The only thing keeping Firefox afloat is Google money. That's the only way they can continue to do anything. If Google stopped paying Firefox, they would cease to function. On the flipside, if Firefox took Google money for just one more year, that would equal 50 times the amount of yearly donations they receive.
"Pale Moon? What???" -- 99% of the world. It has 0.06% marketshare.
If you have a way for Firefox to make money without corporate support I am all ears, but fundamental idealism isn't going to solve anything for Firefox, it will just cause Mozilla to go extinct. I'd rather have them around than not.
because they would be supported by a strong community making democratic decisions
And close enough to zero top-tier developer hours as to make no odds, so the "democratic decisions" would make no actual difference to an app that would be suddenly dead in the water.
Yeah, I would love to see a fierce, wholly independent Mozilla both doing the technical ass-kicking it's been doing, and with a much freer hand in user advocacy. But if Mozilla's income were to be cut off, everyone would suffer: they would suddenly have zero momentum with which to continue either their technical excellence or their existing, worthwhile advocacy efforts.
I've never heard of Pale Moon until now, but if Google is so evil, and Mozilla is evil for using Google too, I can't help but notice Pale Moon still run Google Ads on their site. Just seems a bit hypocritical, especially with "We use responsible ad services to keep your visit to our websites a
safe and uninterrupted one." on there.
Pale Moon is proof enough of that - the platform is viable, and people care about it. If Firefox were to discard the wrongheaded choices, I'm pretty sure sure that the PM community would fold back in. Rather than saying, "oh maybe there's a reason Mozilla Corp's not using the money for real advertising", users would still be going out like we did in the early '00s and building word-of-mouth to support a product worth supporting.
Corporations do not exist to "play nice". They exist to overtake, consume, and ultimately to destroy. Google has almost fully overtaken the Web for corp backers. Mozilla needs to develop the guts to take it back for the users.