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this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2024
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At this point, I don't see many other options to keep everything going for Firefox. If they somehow lose the go*gle money they use to keep themselves going, they need another revenue source and I severely doubt there are enough Firefox users willing to pay enough to keep it going as it currently does. Don't like it, but I'm gonna at least play devil's advocate.
It would be nice if they at least allowed for even being able to donate to the browser itself. All the options that I am aware of are either the paid extra stuff they have, or to the overall company. Which is annoying since I imagine that the current "donation" option means that the money is being used mostly for the upper execs and routed to the extra shit that already has options for paying subs.
They could try not having an overinflated budget?
Where would you cut?
Are you kidding?
I mean I don't love it, but I'm also not sure what the argument is supposed to be about how this ties to browser market share. Mozilla made $593 million from their most recently released financials. The CEO made $6.9 million. My calculator tells me that's 1.16%.
So is the argument that Mozilla that if they set the CEO salary to $0, used it all on more developers, that would spin up a browser experience that's so improved it would lead to more market share? A 1% change in Mozilla's spending will bring them to 50% market share? 40%? 20%?
What's the cause and effect here? Do we even actually know that that's true, that it even has anything whatsoever to do with development choices at all? I get that the CEO is an easy target but I think assuming that is explaining market share ignores things like Google's dominance of search and ads, and how those piles of cash drive initiatives like Android and Chromebooks, which helps propel Chrome to dominant market share. Those are the drivers of market share. I don't even think people have even tried to begin to think through this argument in real terms, it's just a lot of knee-jerk reaction to news stories disconnected from any specific idea of cause and effect.
The CEO is for a good reason an easy target: Show me another company where this level of incompetence is rewarded with steady salary increases?!? (I am afraid you'll be able to. ;-))
Given your calculation is correct, you are correct that paying the CEO nothing would not make a big difference for Mozillas income. Although it would hopefully open the road for a better CEO.
Your argument that hitting at the CEO ignores the whole context of market dominance of Google could IMHO also used against your argument: If the CEO is so powerless that she cannot take the responsibility for the decline of Mozilla, than why does she get payed at all. If all is a function of the environment and the tides of the market, we can easily replace her with ChatGPT and have the same results w/o wasting money.
At the end of the day, we are exactly where we have been literally a decade ago: Finding a sustainable business model for Mozilla/Firefox. Once more: This core problem of Mozilla/Firefox has been well known for over a decade by now, and again the CEOs only answer is advertisement. Why do we pay money for the bullshit every first semester MBA student would come up with a brainstorming within the first 3 minutes.
Mozilla survives thanks to Google and their (rightful) fears of being outed as a monopoly.
The discussion is always if Mozilla could survive on donations. I do not now if they could. I still think there are a lot of actors with an interest of an independent browser, even whole governments. What I know for sure is, I won't donate to Mozilla as long as incompetent CEOs are payed.
That's my argument? I don't recall supporting the CEO pay. Pretty sure I said I don't like it. And just to be clear, I am finding it hard to justify that much for a CEO. So that's not turning my argument against me, because that was never my argument.
What it would really look like to, as you say, "turn my argument against me" would be something that speaks to Google's search monopoly, ads monopoly, and hundredfold advantage in revenue, and why, in light of those facts, they would imply that Mozilla should have more market share. Like if I forgot to carry a two somewhere in my math, or why they are actually proof of a synergy that Mozilla is benefiting from that I'm not accounting for. Those would be examples of turning the arg against me, and I'm happy to hear it if there is one.
So it looks like the CEO of mozilla is bleeding firefox to pad his salary. Thats disappointing. Are we sure firefox wasn't simply taken over by a private-equity firm?
It's 1.16%. I don't love it but claiming it's bleeding them to death is, I think, not what we're looking at. I think they just recognize their exposure because any given year 80 to 90% of the revenue is coming from their agreement with Google, and they're screwed if they can't diversify their income a bit more.
Any where more substantial to address the shortfall expected without Google default money?
I don't know a thing about their budget, so I'm not qualified to make any comments about how good or bad they are doing at managing it or make any comments.