Genuinely curious if this could possibly work when there are so many free option pre-installed on devices (Edge and Safari) or only a click away (Chrome). What would you have to charge willing users a year to break even on this?
Firefox gets $500M/yr for making Google it’s default browser. If each user pays $50/yr that’s 10M users just to match what FF considers inadequate revenue.
Old people will show up and say: "Paid Firefox, I remember that when it failed as Netscape." Although technically that was Netscape Communicator? Maybe times have changed though.
Donations to (non-profit) Mozilla Foundation are not (afaik can not be) used to support development work done by (for-profit) Mozilla Cooperation, which is where Mozilla's Firefox development happens.
That’s by definition very different than what I’m looking for. I want to pay someone to sell me a browser that puts users (and specifically, paying customers’) needs first. Like essentially any other paid software or service.
If Mozilla wants to offer a “We won’t screw with you, like by creating new places for ads and burying the settings (like we have and will with free users)” premium plan, I’d consider it. I’d prefer to pay a company that doesn’t do that at all, though (that is, it’s built around innovating for paying customers), even if they aren’t able to offer a free browser.
Obviously being a paying customer doesn’t guarantee customer-first decisions or transparency, but as we saw this week, not being one makes it almost impossible.
The pitch is clear: "Users are our only customers. We'll always do what's best for you and we'll do it completely transparently."