Firefox lost users during “failed” Yahoo search deal, says Mozilla CEO

evanuggetpi@lemmy.nz to Technology@lemmy.world – 438 points – Firefox lost users during “failed” Yahoo search deal, says Mozilla CEO
arstechnica.com

Baker's testimony shows that Mozilla depends so much on its deal with Google for revenue that "the biggest loser of a DOJ win in the Google case would be Mozilla."

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People who use Firefox probably also have some gripes against Google's work, but I sure as fuck don't want anything to do with Yahoo

I'm fine with Firefox getting paid for the 2nd step of the install being changing the default search to DDG.

the duck is always getting better, while the goog is always getting shittier

Or just use LibreWolf. It's Firefox without the crap like Google search, Pocket or Sponsored sites. It also has significant privacy improvements compared to stock. I highly recommend it, it's been my daily driver for years.

As a FF user: Mozilla has such a small market share now, they should experiment with search. Maybe don't make another "deal" with another ad based search engine, but invent your own decentralized search or mozilla search or whatever.

While I’d prefer the do that also, I think the issue is that Google pays them so much, they couldn’t afford to exist without it.

I mean, they could. They have been cutting costs in the wrong areas, though - those harder to replace if exgoogled. There's plenty of unnecessary fat in Mozilla as an organization. They have been doing lots of expensive (in terms of developer and testing resources) unneeded crap (apparently to support the appearance of relevancy, which is different from relevancy itself), they also don't need that many management people.

Let's please remember how Mozilla started. Yes, a browser back then and a browser now are two completely different things, but the imbalance in resources has always been there. It's just that now they are spreading resources where they shouldn't, to imitate Chrome in things secondary to a browser itself. They don't have the resources for that even with Google, and of course they won't otherwise.

Also supporting something like XULRunner or in general olden times Gecko would help, so that people could use FF's engine like they still do with Chromium and Webkit. That would increase the amount of people contributing in various ways.

That's how I see it, my humble opinion and all that.

You’re absolutely right. I agree with everything you said. The whole situation is really frustrating as users.

It's pretty much their only revenue stream, considering they give all the software away and don't have ads in the browser.

That's the core of the trial though, right? That through these deals and other things Google does to stay dominant, they stifle the market for competition. Ie Edge, Chrome, and every other Chromium-based browser pushes Google to the end users and FF pushes some unfamiliar search platform, then there's an uphill, arguably unfair, battle for it to gain enough market share to be sustainable.

The only reason that would work is if they used user search data to sell to advertisers or show ads themselves. That's how Google search makes money, but it's antithetical to everything Mozilla is trying to market themselves as: a privacy oriented browser.

I'd pay for a yearly subscription to a privacy focused search by Mozilla.

Most people wouldn't, which is the issue.

No you won't. I mean maybe you, personally, will, but the majority of people won't. People don't want to pay for YouTube without ads, for fox sake.

Mozilla needs sticky viable income streams. Privacy focused search might be something they can sell to other businesses as a service. I would much rather see Mozilla become the next Red Hat than fade away forever.

The problem is that no one wants to pay money and no one cares about privacy. Privacy in general is a brand new concept which only started its existence about two centuries ago in Catholic countries and still doesn't exist in many parts of the world. Privacy is a foreign concept for humans and paying for it is just silly.

Just don’t use gogle.

“Google's core argument that its search engine wins default status due to its quality, not due to anticompetitive behaviors.”

Then why pay Apple 20 billion for default star?

The answer is because someone else will

The biggest risk for Google would be for Apple to enter the search market. It’s not hard, as proven by smaller players like DuckDuckGo, but it’s risky enough that Apple takes the 20B and consider it a good deal.

It’s still the best search engine in my experience. I’ve tried using bing and DuckDuckGo. They just don’t cut it and the ai stuff isn’t particular impressive to me. Google just understands the power of defaults

Have you tried Kagi? The search results seems to be a lot better than Google. I'm able to find what I need using search terms that would only returns spammy e-commerce results on Google. I'm on a trial account but so far I'm impressed and might consider getting a paid family subscription if my wife also like it.

Boo fucking hoo. Mozilla isn't a saint and could benefit from a shake up as well. Mozilla's dependency on Google is dangerous for all of us.

The biggest loser if the DOJ doesn't win is literally everyone.

I will bite whatever bullet I have to if it means the end of Google hegemony.

Mozilla’s dependency on Google is dangerous for all of us.

But as you can see above, people leave when they don’t use Google

It’s a user issue not a developer one

Relying on monopolistic practices is an endorsement of monopoly as a practice, which is why Mozilla is no saint in this situation.

Mozilla's history is littered with poor business decisions that led them down the road to dependency on Google, they shouldn't be excused from them now that a legitimate court case is a threat to their existence.

I don’t see how this case against Google is a threat to Firefox’s existence

It’s not like they can lie under oath and say they left the contract with Yahoo that pays more to be with Google because they’re a Monopoly

This playing into Google’s argument that they are the best is just nice for them

I am aware that popularity and quality aren’t related at all though

if the judge ultimately sides with the DOJ and orders Google to break up its search business, not only could Mozilla lose revenue, but Baker's salary could potentially take a big hit, too. Baker confirmed that her salary—$2.5 million in 2020—increased after the Google deal was renewed that year.

According to Dyall's thread, Baker also testified that she thought Mozilla might be forced into a "death spiral" if it is stuck partnering with Microsoft for search as an outcome of the trial.

It's their own assessment that it's an existential threat, I'm just agreeing with it. Google is absolutely the biggest factor in their sustainability as a business.

Well that would be a pretty silly way of dealing with a monopoly

Google should be broken up into many different search engines rather than just picking/choosing which browsers get which search engine

Most internet users:

We fear change

Another interesting comment Mozilla's takeaway from the experiment was that Firefox "users made it clear that they look for and want and expect Google.”

that's not really Mozilla's fault, users are too locked into Google and that's ultimately Google's fault.

Although I don't like at all that Mozilla is funded by Google and testified in their favor.

I saw it more as testifying about why they did what they did

Ultimately the message is still 'we had to use Google to survive, they have that much control over the space'

I'm of two minds. I use Firefox for privacy reasons and don't use Google if I can avoid it, but I have to admit that chrome was leagues better than other popular browsers at the time. It's no accident that they ran away with the market share even when IE was on everyone's computer by default.

Now they've gotten huge and their search engine has gone to shit. So it goes with infinite growth. I'm with Firefox for now, but I've learned the hard way not to totally trust any piece of software.

You can export EVERYTHING, Forward email, and have alternatives for every thing. It's incredibly easy to move away from Google.

It's a choice. There is no lock in.

oh definitely. I haven't used a Google service in 5 years. But Google's lock in is not forced, it's one that relies on people tech illiteracy, comfort and not knowing better.

I disagree. It's easier to use.

Look I have commits to PHP, python, cncf, and hasicorp shit. Running that stuff takes effort and skill. I design and implement multicloud fail over resiliency apps professionally. I have zero fucking desire to run jellyfin at home.

Google offers valuable services and you don't need to be a tech illiterate boomer to find value in the services they offer. I don't want to have to explain why a raid failure lost 20 years of photos and Google is going to put a hell of a lot more effort into that than I will.

Not gonna lie. This is the kind of tech illiteracy people are talking about.

In the specific case of setting up Jellyfin, it takes about 10 minutes, you do it once, never have to do it again, and it has no programming skill requirement to it.

These services google offer thrive on ignorance of alternatives, they're not any easier to use than the alternatives.

No it's fucking not when you have to support a fucking family or ultimately are responsible for backups or service for family members.

Jellyfin fucks up just like Plex. If it's translations a busted fine from a bad torrent, usenet having incomplete manifests (yes, this is a I've been doing this longer than your life comment), or a shitty default download setting from *darr service.

I don't want to fucking deal with my family bitching at me for support when paw patrol episodes don't line up with the automated scan of my library.

Christ, even with my low key, I fucking commit to core Linux highly available services technology comment I still run into assholes trying to acklutally me while ignoring that I don't want to run a help desk.

I'm surpsied (but obviously shouldn't be) that that many potential users would instantly bounce off Firefox instead of changing the default search engine.

Honestly, the association with Yahoo just makes the platform look like a joke. Like, the first time you do a search and it pops up as Yahoo your first instinct is thinking you're using the wrong thing.

Nothing binds me to my browser besides my bookmarks which can be exported, my addons which are usually on both platforms and my history.
At home and on my phone I use FF and am mostly happy.
At work I choose Chrome because most websites work best in it.

It's not really that surprising that the average user wants the most popular search engine instead of yahoo (of all things) baked in, whatever your views on Google.

To be honest I find that hard to believe, but who knows? It's a crazy world after all.

Im also not convinced. If it were a DDG default it would just make the browser better.

To be clear, I'm not even using DDG as my main search.

DDG is just Bing on the backend. Why is the megacorp Microsoft preferable to the megacorp Google?

I was under the impression that DDG is pretty private and while underlying search is Bing, bing can't track the searches to individuals

Maybe not the individual, but you're still training an internet giant, just a different one.

I'd also be fine with Startpage, want, whatever. They have to use something and they can't exactly make some poor selfhosters searing instance the Firefox default

That's not really true. It uses multiple sources, including their own search engine, to give results. Basically the only thing they don't include is Google. In practice Bing often produces the majority of the results, but it's not "just Bing on the backend". I mean, DDG is older than Bing after all, so it would be a little weird if they didn't have their own search engine.

Even if it was just a frontend for Bing that wouldn't really be a bad thing. Ecosia is, and that's a pretty good search engine. Being one of millions of users all privately receiving the same anonymized results already makes Bing much less problematic.

DDG is older than Bing after all

Bing as a brand, sure. But Bing was just a rebranded Windows Live Search, which was a rebranded MSN Search

Sure, but nobody seriously thinks Duckduckgo was originally based off Windows Live Search, because it wasn't. Nobody cared about Windows Live Search, because it sucked. They rebranded when it became halfway competent. I don't think the ancient history of Microsoft search engines is really relevant to the point I was making.

So what if it didn't use Bing at launch? It wasn't privacy-focused then, either. I'm talking about the present, not the past. Even in their own FAQ they acknowledge that results are mostly Bing.

Do you have a response to my point that the data is just going to different megacorp?

Did you even bother to read most of my post? I literally acknowledged that most of their results are from Bing in it, and also pointed out that I would care if that was actually all they did.

The actual point I was trying to make that you completely ignored is that I care about preventing the harm of information collection, not preventing anyone from learning anything out of pure spite.

I don't trust Microsoft as far as I could throw them, but being one of millions of people sending them information that has been anonymized before they receive it doesn't actually harm anyone, so I don't think it's a bad thing. You can be privacy conscious without being completely paranoid and closed off from the world.

Is this the same CEO who fired the entire documentation team and then gave herself a raise?

Is! Yahoo! still! a! thing!?!

Surprisingly, they're still in the top 10 most visited websites. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-visited_websites

I wouldn't be surprised if it's because their stock data and viewing is pretty mature and a lot of people would go for that alone.

Yahoo finance is great at immediately displaying useful and digestible data and the redesigns have been very conservative.

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The CEO short-term logic makes sense: Yahoo search = Lower cost = Higher profit margin = Happy shareholders = Happy CEO

But she forgot that: Yahoo search = Shit

And then it happened

Really? All this over something that is very easily modified by the user?

Most people really don't care what browser or search engine they use as long as it gets the job done. I wouldn't call it lazy or stupid, it's just the reality of humans who have to pick and choose what they spend energy on. Yahoo search has been around a few years longer than Google and it sucked (and still sucks), that's why people decided it was worth going elsewhere. If you're going to try and wrench people out of their comfort zones, you've gotta put on a better first impression.

Yeah... And what about the 60 millions users lost since 2019? Will Mozilla find someone else to blame?

Google is starting to yahoo itself. The search is optimized to drive purchases and not actually finding what you want. That and delisting of some sites in the search results. Try finding a direct link to Trump's social media in a private window on Google vs on duckduckgo. Did he just break that gag order? Google doesn't want you to know!

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Terms of that deal required that if it were nullified, Verizon had to pay either "the full length of the contract, or alternately, just the difference between Yahoo's $375 million and whatever Mozilla got out of a new partner," ComputerWorld reported.

On top of revenue-sharing with Google, that payment drove up Mozilla's revenue, which in 2019 reflected "an 84 percent year-over-year increase" that was "easily the most the open source developer has booked in a single year, beating the existing record by more than a quarter of billion dollars," ComputerWorld reported.

Perhaps that bonus payment made switching back to Google even more attractive at a time when Baker told the court she "felt strongly that Yahoo was not delivering the search experience we needed and had contracted for."

This user decline wasn't entirely due to the Yahoo deal, Baker said, but Mozilla's takeaway from the experiment was that Firefox "users made it clear that they look for and want and expect Google.” Meanwhile, Google was motivated to renew its Mozilla partnership, as court documents show that Google lost search ad revenue while Yahoo's deal with Firefox was in place.

Baker did not clarify how much Google pays for that deal today, only vaguely estimating that it's “hundreds of millions of dollars” annually, Bloomberg reported.

According to Dyall's thread, Baker also testified that she thought Mozilla might be forced into a "death spiral" if it is stuck partnering with Microsoft for search as an outcome of the trial.

The original article contains 1,008 words, the summary contains 247 words. Saved 75%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

so moz can do browser, mailclient, translate, sync and so much more but they cant do their own search ...to..keep their small market share...and...goole pays well?

You'd be surprised just how few search engines the are.

Google and Bing are about all there is.

Most other 'search engines' just offload the hard work onto existing search engines.

Very few people actually know DuckDuckGo sources their results from Bing for example.

The infrastructure Mozilla uses to serve their content is microscopic compared to what they'd need to operate a fully independent and capable modern search engine.

I think yandex does its own thing, too. I agree it's very hard to compete with google when they have had so much time to improve their algorithms and infrastructure

i was thinking searxng or YaCy style maybe. i mean there were able to set up infrastructures for vpn, sync etc aswell