> You can't charge for it

They could try. I just keep hearing people who would pay for no extra features as long as it paid for actual Firefox development and not the random unrelated Mozilla projects. I would pay a subscription. But they don't let me.

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freehorse 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

The problem I (and others that I see here) have is the lack of trust in mozilla's model, esp long term. Their economic reliance in google, their repeatedly stated goals of trying to engineer ad-delivery systems that "respect privacy", their very high CEO salaries, and their random ventures do not inspire much trust, confidence and alignment in their goals. And also the unclear relationships with their for and non-profit parts.

If they can convince me that some subscription for firefox will strictly go for firefox development, that firefox will not pivot to ads (privacy respecting or not), and all the other stuff they have, including executives' salaries and whatnot, are completely separated, I would be more than happy to subscribe.

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qudat 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They honestly should charge for it.

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cjpearson 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

You can't effectively paywall it because not only is it open source, but there are many nearly equivalent competitors all of which are free. Any subscribers would essentially be donors.

There are people like yourself who would be happy to donate, but not nearly enough. Replacing MoCo's current revenue with donors would require donations at the level of Doctors without Borders, American Cancer Society, or the Make-a-Wish Foundation.

Turning into one of the largest charities in America overnight simply isn't realistic. A drastic downsizing to subsist on donor revenue also isn't wise when Mozilla already has to compete with a smaller team. And "Ladybird does it" isn't a real argument until and unless it graduates from cool project to usable and competitive browser.

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viraptor 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Oh no, it would be a donation and it's not going to completely replace all the funding of the parent entity of the project mentioned, therefore it's not realistic or worth trying. Right... That's a lot of arguments unrelated to what I wrote.

	▲	palata 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		> That's a lot of arguments unrelated to what I wrote. What I understand they are saying is that donations wouldn't be nearly enough. Which is related to what you wrote, which is that you would gladly donate to Firefox (not Mozilla, but Firefox). They compared it to the largest non-profits in America, presumably because if we look at the money spent by Mozilla every year, that's similar. Right now Google pays for Mozilla, and if you wanted to replace that with donations, it would have to become one of the biggest charities in America. Which does not sound plausible. If I understood correctly, I'm not the OP :)

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rtpg 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Thunderbird has succeeded at doing this and is in a somewhat similar spot (though huge asterisk there given the existence of Chrome)

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dabockster 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> You can't effectively paywall it because not only is it open source, but there are many nearly equivalent competitors all of which are free.

You're forgetting that people will buy a product on brand identity alone. If the Firefox brand is solid enough, those forks won't matter.

	▲	palata 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		I think the point is that if it was open source but free, it would require donations. And given the money that Mozilla spends every year, it would mean that the amount of donations they would need to receive would make them one of the biggest charities in America. Which sounds implausible. I think the argument makes sense, to be honest.