Are you saying that, because people don't want to buy browsers, the end result is we only get the ones that can be financed by companies that sell other things (which in this day and age is ads, with only a few exceptions)?

I'd agree. Although I'd also add: people don't want to sell software anymore, they want to sell subscriptions, and I personally do not have much desire to pay $10/month for a browser (and then get pitched more services to buy on top, no doubt).

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swiftcoder 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The subscription thing is key, although maybe a generational thing. I would happily pay a flat $60-100 for each major version upgrade I choose to adopt, but I won't just give them a direct monthly tap into my bank account.

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godelski 6 hours ago | parent [-]

So do you donate that amount every major release?

	▲	rkomorn 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I think asking people if they're one of a small of handful people donating into the void to a is a straw man.
	▲	swiftcoder 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It's purely a theoretical, since nobody has offered me a choice of that model - either I'm a source of ad revenue whether I want to be or not (Chrome, FireFox, Safari), or I'm in a captive ecosystem where I'm already paying a premium (Safari, Chrome for android)

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pjmlp 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Because unfortunelly subscriptions is the only way to make people pay that would otherwise pirate, it is the modern version of using hardware keys.