Firefox threatened. Being reliant on a rival for survival isn’t smart
In 2010, 84% of Mozilla’s $123 million in revenue came directly from Google. That’s roughly $100 million in funds that will vanish or be drastically cut if the deal is either not renewed or is renegotiated on terms that are less favorable to Mozilla.
I think it would be a huge pity if Mozilla was forced to scale back dramatically. Firefox has become a bloated shadow of its former svelte self, but the organisation has driven plenty of innovation on the web (even if it has a somewhat extremist stance on support—or the lack thereof—for some patented tech, such as video formats, while happily ignoring long-time support for formats like JPEG).
But if Mozilla is heavily reliant on Google for funding when Google itself is being squeezed by the likes of iOS apps circumventing a lot of browser use, leading to Google pushing rather harder for Chrome marketshare than it otherwise would be, that’s not a good sign. And it’s another warning that any organisation shouldn’t rely too heavily on another for its income, especially when that other is a direct rival.
To be expected.
I hope Mozilla have wisely invested all the cash given to them from Google over the last five years. If not, they need to come up with a new business approach and sharpish.