Mozilla has a close relationship with Google, as most of Firefox's revenue comes from the agreement keeping Google as the browser's default search engine. However, the search giant is now officially a monopoly, and a future court decision could have an unprecedented impact on Mozilla's ability to keep things "business as usual."
United States District Judge Amit Mehta found Google guilty of building a monopolistic position in web search. The Mountain View corporation spent billions of dollars becoming the leading search provider for computing platforms and web browsers on PC and mobile devices.
Most of the $21 billion spent went to Apple in exchange for setting Google as the default search engine on iPhone, iPad, and Mac systems. The judge will now need to decide on a penalty for the company's actions, including the potential of forcing Google to stop payments to its search "partners completely," which could have dire consequences for smaller companies like Mozilla.
Its most recent financials show Mozilla gets $510 million out of its $593 million in total revenue from its Google partnership. This precarious financial position is a side effect of its deal with Alphabet, which made Google the search engine default for newer Firefox installations.
The open-source web browser has experienced a steady market share decline over the past few years. Meanwhile, Mozilla management was paid millions to develop a new "vision" of a theoretical future with AI chatbots. Mozilla Corporation, the wholly owned subsidiary of Mozilla Foundation managing Firefox development, could find itself in a severe struggle for revenue if Google's money suddenly dried up.
So instead of fucking over google with an antitrust ruling like they very much deserve, we're going to fearmonger about how much it might hurt the ✨ sole saviors of the web ✨ Mozilla, who's finances are apparently entirely dependent on the company primarily responsible for ruining the web. Looks like a narrative, smells like narrative, to get the public to turn against the antitrust ruling.
While we're at it, we should add Microsoft to the antitrust case...again.
@MeowZedong @ssm Especially #Microsoft 's tendency to sneak into youngsters' mind as early as possible, including at school: they're one of the cheapest "education system" (outside of #libre ones obviously).
And the only "education" they contribute to consists of putting young minds into their boxes and create a lifelong dependency on their software suite and cloud... enlarging their future consumer base and scraping kid's #data 😡
Instead of nurturing youngsters' critical mind, teach them how to install and use #libre software, and push them to #diversity 😠