No, it’s not the same. Firedragon users have a different default. I’ll repeat the question that you didn’t answer yet:
“would a search engine be willing to pay Mozilla to have them be a default search engine if it (upstream Firefox) had no users?”
And this is just an example. There are many other forms of partnership possible beyond search engines… the point is that the number of users that actually are exposed to the default browser settings (ie. the ones using upstream Firefox, whether they change the settings or not) does give some leverage for making funds out of, while still giving options/freedom to the users who can freely change the setting.
When you watch a video article with sponsored content, even if you skip the sponsor, the creator benefits from your views indirectly because it builds up the numbers and that’s attractive for sponsors… but if someone starts re-posting the videos with the sponsor bits cut out and the re-posting channel becomes MORE popular than the original to the point that the original gets much less views… do you think companies are gonna want to have sponsor deals with that creator who gets very few views on their sponsored content?
No, it’s not the same. Firedragon users have a different default. I’ll repeat the question that you didn’t answer yet:
“would a search engine be willing to pay Mozilla to have them be a default search engine if it (upstream Firefox) had no users?”
And this is just an example. There are many other forms of partnership possible beyond search engines… the point is that the number of users that actually are exposed to the default browser settings (ie. the ones using upstream Firefox, whether they change the settings or not) does give some leverage for making funds out of, while still giving options/freedom to the users who can freely change the setting.
When you watch a video article with sponsored content, even if you skip the sponsor, the creator benefits from your views indirectly because it builds up the numbers and that’s attractive for sponsors… but if someone starts re-posting the videos with the sponsor bits cut out and the re-posting channel becomes MORE popular than the original to the point that the original gets much less views… do you think companies are gonna want to have sponsor deals with that creator who gets very few views on their sponsored content?