I don't claim to read minds or have inside information, but there's no doubt in my mind that this is largely a $450mil annual hedge against getting antitrust'd by the DOJ.
Goggle payments have done nothing but go up as FireFox market share has done nothing but go down --- to the point of insignificance, now around 3% world wide --- less than Opera.
Paying a huge sum of money for a miniscule market share doesn't provide any reasonable hedge --- as evidenced by the fact that Google is in the middle of an anti-trust lawsuit and FireFox has played virtually no role.
Goggle payments have done nothing but go up as
FireFox market share has done nothing but go down
Your reasoning, then, is that Google is paying Firefox strictly for business reasons but they've decided to increase payments as Firefox's share has decreased. Because they're bad at business? Or some other strictly business-y reason(s)? I mean, okay, but please be explicit about this.
FireFox has played virtually no role [in Google's
antitrust case]
That suggests it's working.
The DOJ has antitrust beef(s) with Google, but monopolizing the browser market is not one of those beefs. We can't read the minds of the DOJ, but it strongly suggests Google's support of Firefox is working within that context.
It does not, obviously, give them global blanket immunity against all conceivable antitrust shenanigans -- were you mistakenly believing this is what I was suggesting?
I would expect Google aren't paying based on market share, they're paying based on the number and quality of users they get access to. If market share goes down but total market size rises, and the cohort of users selecting Firefox have more disposable income (hence are more profitable for search advertising), paying more for them over time would be a rational decision.
Not sure where you’re getting your Opera figures from, but I’m seeing 4x Firefox than Opera, even with Firefox typically shimming away Google Analytics.
Right, but Firefox’s enhanced tracking protection mode blocks Statcounter’s JS (see https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect-tracking-protecti... which is where, I believe, Mozilla source their ETP blocklist from). Given the userbase for Firefox these days, I’d be very surprised if Statcounter is even vaguely accurate.
