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There are plenty ways to fund digital commons, including people volunteering their time.
by manfredz 5mo ago
There are plenty ways to fund digital commons, including people volunteering their time.
- sylos 5mo agoI don't think volunteering is going to cut it. Big orgs have big money and public commons are just targets to be controlled exploited.
- patmorgan23 5mo agoA leading web browser can not be built and maintained by volunteers.
- glenstein 5mo agoRight. Firefox stands alone as the most successful self financed full stack browser that's ever been made without being subsidized by outside revenue streams. I like to use the example of Opera. If "make a better browser" won market share and business creativity won stable revenue, we'd all be using Opera right now because (sorry Mozilla), no browser company was ever better than Opera in my opinion. In 2026 the rules to making a good browser are (1) already be a trillion dollar company, (2) use Chromium, (3) have some form of distribution lock-in over billions of devices. Otherwise you're cooked. Mozilla swims against the stream better than anyone.
- PaulHoule 5mo agoThe EU says it cares about privacy. although it's actions have normalized enshittification; the EU could fully fund Firefox or a Firefox fork or another browser in a second and stop all the trackers right in their tracks.
- throwaway290 5mo agoIt's American company... unlikely.
- PaulHoule 5mo agoThen fork it. Besides, the one thing Mozilla could do to be relevant to 99.9% of web users is to move somewhere other San Francisco and turn their office their into a homeless shelter. They should go to Dublin or Frankfurt or Barcelona, anywhere.
- drzaiusx11 5mo agoMonetary contributions via government grants have happened in the past. Iirc that's how VLC got their start.
- manfredz 5mo agoI don’t know, but there are other ways of funding besides -completely- volunteer run. Take look at Ladybird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladybird_(web_browser)?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladybird_(web_browser)?wprov=s...
- aucisson_masque 5mo agoYou can't seriously compare ladybird, a mostly broken browser nowhere ready or even remotely close to it, to Firefox. Ladybird will be dead in a few years.
- drzaiusx11 5mo agoThere's a strong desire to keep the web an open platform, if the alternative to WebKit isn't going to be Firefox, it'll simply have to be something else. I'd gladly contribute to the cause, beit ladybird or something else. For now it would be monetarily until my impending retirement when I can contribute hours without impacting my family. I wouldn't discount ladybird or others simply because they haven't shipped their mvp just yet. They're closing in on a usable product. Maybe they never make it, but servo and others may. Saying they'll be dead in a few years isn't contributing much besides pessimism for anything but the status quo.
- drzaiusx11 5mo agoBut several entire operating systems can an do operate entirely by the volunteer model? I don't follow...
- tomaspiaggio12 5mo agomozilla employs 750 people and has a 1/2Bn dollar deal with Google and still their browser is absolute hot garbage. i think volunteering won't cut it.