Because Mozilla, at least from the outside appears to have been horribly mismanaged for the past 20-25 years and only survived because the ad money kept rolling in.

I'm not knocking Mozilla for taking money from Google, it was a smart move. Most users would use Google anyway, so Mozilla pocketing billions by making users preferred search engine the default didn't really hurt anyone. Some of that money should however have gone into a trust or some type of investment so that funding for browser development would be safe if the ad money ever dried up.

Maybe someone at Mozilla knows something I don't, but there doesn't seem to be much planning for the future.

▲ close04 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> the ad money kept rolling in

Why "ad money"? That's a very uncharitable interpretation and for anyone not aware of the situation it's misleading. They're not paid for ads or by ads, they're paid by Google to continue being a viable alternative to Chrome. Is every Google employee getting "ad money" every month, or a salary?

The payment is more accurately described as a protection tax.

▲ yakcyll 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In this particular context there really isn't any difference. Technically Mozilla isn't in the business of delivering ads, but their revenue is mostly supported by ad money from Google, and Google, being an ad giant, can simply cut that stream off. The common sentiment seems to be that this would spell a life and death situation for the company and for the browser as a whole, which essentially makes Firefox a hostage to the whims of an ideologically hostile corporate entity.

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close04 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> Google, being an ad giant

Isn't Google also a cloud giant?

	▲	doublerabbit 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I wouldn't say so. They're not offering their cloud at the same scale other competitors. Not sure when the last was I saw advertising for unlike AWS, Azure. Felt more like their cloud services were more of a side product for when "the cloud" was the trendy buzzword and a way to justify their infrastructure costs. That and keeping a leg in the egg & spoon race.

▲ sshine 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

While the nuance is important, money from Google is ad money:

  - Directing people to Google Search means Firefox users get exposed to ads
  - The money given to Firefox was made selling ads
  - Google is an ad company

So yes, Google gives Firefox money for political reasons. Made from ads, so they can sell ads, including to Firefox users.

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close04 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm with you on the first one and that's the closest reason why you could call Firefox payment "ad money". But the rest are not too strong. Google makes a lot of non-ad money too, even if it's a smaller portion than ads. You don't call airlines "banks" just because they make all of their money from currency-like "miles", and even fly at a loss [0].

What I want to say is that calling it "ad money" makes Firefox look bad when it shouldn't.

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/airlines-b...

	▲	rntksi 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You're mis-representing things here. As in my reply further below, Q1 2026 you can see Google makes 70% of revenue from Ads, the non-ad money you refer to is only 1/3. But if you look at net income, 85% of the net income from Google comes from Services (including Ads). The Airlines story is taken out of context and different from Google, Delta for example in the Q1 2026 filing you can see they have a revenue of $15.8bn, of which ticket sales is $10.7bn ! Loyalty program income is just $1bn. However the net income supports the story The Atlantic ran, which just means that out of the $1bn, they are getting more net income from their mileage programs, than income from out of $10.7bn ticket sales, because the operating expense of flying airplane is quite high from fuel, etc. So on one side, Google has 70% revenue from Ads, and even more % if you count net income. On the other side, Airlines - like Delta - have 70% of their revenue from passenger, but relatively speaking less net income from ticket sales if you consider net income. You are not comparing the same thing. If you just compare revenue, Airlines cannot be called Banks because they still make 70% of their revenue from passenger ticket sales, just as how Google is an Ad company because their main revenue is 70% ads! If you compare net income, the airlines story can have an angle, but the Google story doesn't, because their net income from Ads is way higher!

▲ CjHuber 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Technically yes

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close04 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Well thought out commentary... Let's dig deeper and at least we make it more interesting conversation, not a blurb.

Wouldn't it be technically no because Google's revenue isn't 100% from ads? They're making almost $120bn from cloud, subscriptions and devices for example. It could be cloud money. And if Google gets ad money so whatever it pays becomes ad money, then it's ad money all the way down.

	▲	rntksi 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Where did you get the $120bn figure? FYI last fiscal results from Q1 of Alphabet, Google Cloud made $20bn revenue Q1 2026, up from Q4 2025 of $17bn. It's a bit misleading to include "subscriptions, platforms, and devices" in cloud. Q1 2026 Google's revenue totalled $109bn, of which $77bn is Ads, so 70% of its revenue is Ads. It's common knowledge that Google is an Ads company.