It is a regular occurrence to hear about open source developers selling their browser extensions, only for their users to be exploited later on by the new owners.

Purchase offers for browser extensions usually range between $0.1 and $0.3 per user, depending on factors such as the geographical distribution of users, and monetization offers are also frequent.

Accepting such an offer may significantly improve one’s life, and it can be potentially life-changing. It feels like a just reward for all those years of free labor, and it’s uplifting for someone to value your work and propose to buy your project.

We are witnessing the failure of browser vendors to recognize the value of our labor and the important role it plays in a healthy browser ecosystem.

Mozilla has deprioritized the placement of the donation button during the redesign of Firefox Add-ons. The button was pushed below the fold, previously it was featured prominently near the install button. Requesting donations at the end of the install flow has also been deprecated.

The Chrome Web Store and the Microsoft Store do not offer features for supporting extension developers.

Browser vendors must recognize that developers who feel valued and are compensated by the communities they contribute to are less likely to give up on their projects and abandon their users.

Amazon offers a monthly income for the developers of popular Alexa Skills. Microsoft has recently introduced GitHub Sponsors, a feature for supporting the work of open source developers on GitHub.

These initiatives from Amazon and Microsoft are great examples for paving the way for a more sustainable open source ecosystem, and they translate well to browser extension stores.

Choosing between our users and a better life should not be a decision many open source developers are currently facing.

Mozilla, Google, and Microsoft are in a perfect position to begin addressing this issue by introducing features that enable users to seamlessly support their favourite extensions, and by exploring the possibility of sponsoring the development of popular browser extensions.

Offers

These are samples from the monetization and purchase offers we regularily get for our browser extensions.

Would you like to earn more with your extensions?

Hey Armin!

This is Daniel with ******

I just wondered you have more then 70k users and don’t earn on their shopping. We provide access to a huge number of online stores.

Just choose and run. No more restrictions and rules! You take care about traffic – we guarantee that advertisers won’t have any questions to your traffic.

Write me back, I’ll give you all details.

Daniel ****** Business Development ****** GmbH

Image Search Monetization

Hi Armin,

I’ve been using your extensions for a while now and you came to mind recently as we just launched a revenue share offering between Yahoo and Bing search.

Anytime a user searches you’ll get a payout. It’s a great opportunity to monetize and we’re looking for great developers to sign up.

If you have time to discuss on Skype I’d love to chat: ******

Andrew ****** ****** Inc

FF addon

Hi,

I’d like to buy your FF addon. Contact me please for discussion. Thanks

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