> The minute Mozilla starts being relevant in search, Google will cut their billions USD/year sponsorship, killing Mozilla in the process.
The incentives are not there.
Google needs mozilla more than anyone. It would be a big win for the web if google stopped financing mozilla and had to deal with the consequences.
Why does Google need Mozilla at this point? Firefox has 2.6% market share. Sure, I imagine the cost/benefit ratio is slightly positive for Google, but Mozilla needs Google since that's the majority of their revenue; the reverse is definitely not true.
As likeabatterycar said, it's about avoiding anti trust / monopoly issues. Just imagine mozilla died and google had to cut lose chrome. That would really be interesting.
The minute Mozilla starts being relevant in search, Google will cut their billions USD/year sponsorship, killing Mozilla in the process.
The incentives are not there.