So the Spread Firefox campaign to raise money for an ad in the New York Times appears to have been a raging success, with $250,000 in donations. That’s impressive by any standard. Let me also say that I harbor no illusions that my meager software offerings will make anywhere near the difference of Firefox. But at the same time, let’s look at what you get for your donating dollar.
With the Firefox campaign, you get your name in a paper. I daresay that the name in the paper is likely to be unavailable to a large percentage of the people who donate. Most aren’t going to spend another chunk of money to get themselves a copy of the New York Times on the date of publication so that they can actually see their name in the paper. You also get a fine browser of course. One that I, in fact, use, and wholeheartedly recommend.
Naturally, the people donating to this cause are supporting the browser. But if they are solely interested in supporting the browser, why is it that only when this campaign drive was announced that the donations spiked in such a manner? It’s safe to assume that some of the people donating would have done so anyway, and this just pushed them over the edge. But others likely would never have contributed if it wasn’t for this specific campaign.
So it’s worth $30 to get your name in a paper, one which you may not even be able to see, and which will not hang around for any length of time? My thinking says that this is strange logic.