Comment by bad_user
1 year ago
You're overestimating people's willingness to pay for software when free and arguably better alternatives are available. Preferring Firefox to free Chromium alternatives requires a level of nuance and tech literacy that most people will never have, and even with that tech literacy, people may still prefer Chromium.
You're basically talking about asking for donations from people that prefer to ad-block YouTube instead of paying for Premium.
You are forgetting that Firefox has been around until now with no profit except Google's bribe.
They could've at least tried to sell a paid version - what's the worst that could happen? Any sale would be on top of what they're currently earning per download, i.e. pure "profit" that could be reinvested in the product.
It never was an "either/or" proposition.
> They could've at least tried to sell a paid version - what's the worst that could happen? Any sale would be on top of what they're currently earning per download, i.e. pure "profit" that could be reinvested in the product.
Assumedly, a paid version would exclude some features that Mozilla is otherwise monetizing through (like selling your data). This doesn't seem like sales "on top of" what they're already earning, but rather an alternative that replaces (at least some of) existing monetization routes.
They did try some extra services, such as VPN or Pocket. I think at this point a Pocket subscription is how one can fund Firefox.
But indeed, even if they ensure that donations go towards Firefox development, instead of other crap, that would be a step forward.
Pocket and the other Mozilla services fund Mozilla, not Firefox directly. My company uses Firefox professionally and we'd buy per-seat enterprise licences if they existed, iff they funded Firefox development.
We have no interest in funding Mozilla, whose manifesto barely mentions Firefox and who has now decided that AI is their focus.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-GB/about/manifesto/details/
Have you not heard about how successful Thunderbird's funding campaign had been? The reasons as I see them are simple: they ask for money directly, and use it for developing a good email client, not for fighting the boogeyman of the week (and/or chasing the latest fad).
Kagi, a search engine with countless free alternatives, starts at $5/month.
The people who care are willing to pay.
Is Kagi making money? I know they exist, but are they paying their own bills or living off of investors. (I couldn't find a direct statement, but their timeline implies they could be)
Today, who knows. However they were profitable in May 2024: https://blog.kagi.com/what-is-next-for-kagi#:~:text=We%20are...
> Preferring Firefox to free Chromium alternatives requires a level of nuance and tech literacy that most people will never have
I think it's already the case that only tech literate people prefer Firefox over Chrome or Edge (I bet a significant part of users don't even know about Chromium or what's the difference from Chrome). So putting a price on Firefox wouldn't change this in a meaningful way. The real question is how much tech literate people would be ready to pay, most of the users will stay on Chrome/Edge for the foreseeable future.