Mozilla has confirmed that it will lay off about 250 people, or a quarter of its workforce, in a "significant restructuring" aimed in part at "fixing the Internet." While it remains to be seen how this will ultimately affect the company's Firefox browser, Mozilla's cost-cutting efforts will result in reduced investment in several areas that directly affect Firefox, including developer tools and platform feature development.

The browser maker had already planned a series of structural changes before the onslaught of Covid-19, but has now been forced to adjust on the fly.

"The economic conditions resulting from the global pandemic had a significant impact on our bottom line. As a result, our pre-Covid plans are no longer viable," Mozilla said in a blog post.

Firefox is vying for position with Microsoft's Edge browser to become the second or third most popular browser on any given day. Currently, according to NetMarketShare, Firefox is in second place with 7.83%, behind Chrome's 68.81% and slightly ahead of Edge's 7.04%.

Somewhat ironically, Mozilla's biggest rival in the browser space is also its lifeline; Mozilla generates most of its money through search contracts, and in a statement provided to Forbes, the company signed a new deal with Google in a statement provided to Forbes.

"We recently extended our partnership and the relationship remains unchanged," a Mozilla spokesperson said.

It's been several years since Mozilla posted its earnings report (PDF), but in 2018 it generated about $450.8 million, $435.7 million of which, according to Arstechnica, the search engine paid to become the default search option in Firefox paid for it to become the default search option for Firefox. This is one reason why market share is so important in the browser arena.

How much will Mozilla make from these deals in the future? It is not clear, but The Register claims that the browser maker has signed a three-year deal with Google to collect $400 million to $450 million per year through 2023. [But that full amount is not guaranteed.

"Firefox's revenue depends on overall trends in the search market and the performance of our product, not on guaranteed payments," Mozilla told Arstechnica.

We don't want to sound alarmist, but we are officially worried about Firefox's future. Its share of the browser market is down by half compared to four years ago. If this trend continues, Google could drastically reduce the amount of money it offers to become the default search, or even stop supporting Mozilla altogether.

Perhaps that is why one of Mozilla's stated goals in its reorganization is to become a "multi-product Internet organization." It has already taken a step in that direction with the recent introduction of Mozilla VPN, a $5/month subscription-based VPN service.

I hope Firefox sticks around for a long time. Not just because I still use Firefox (I also use Chrome and Edge). But also because Microsoft's redesign of the Edge browser around Chromium, the same underlying platform used by Chrome, has increased Google's control over the entire Internet. as Mozilla pointed out two years ago, this move essentially "allowed Google to dictate the possibilities available to each and every one of us."

"From a social, civic, and individual empowerment perspective, giving control of basic online infrastructure to a single company is a terrible thing. This is why Mozilla exists. We compete with Google not because it is a good business opportunity. We compete because the health of the Internet and online life depends on competition and choice," Mozilla said at the time.

Now, two years later, Mozilla's competitive edge appears to have taken a major hit.