> Assuming that every user would donate is wildly off-target

I'm not sure what point you're refuting, since the original post says:

> I don't think every user is going to pay $1

The comparison is an illustration of the average donation necessary per user, not a prediction that every user will donate the mean amount.

My point is that it is, in fact, a prohibitive sum of money. I'm arguing that realistically, if Firefox were to make a donation drive, it would be nowhere near what they currently make from Yahoo, the Wikipedia figure gives a pretty real sense of scale in my opinion.

> the Wikipedia figure gives a pretty real sense of scale in my opinion.

As noted below, Wikipedia raises that amount because that's what they need. They could easily raise more if they wanted or needed to.

Mozilla already does have a donation drive; the question we're discussing is whether it would be beneficial (and practical) for Firefox to shift its business model to rely more heavily on user donations.

Currently, Mozilla does not raise more because they don't need to - it's not their primary source of funding, and so they're not as aggressive with their donation campaign as they could be.

Wikipedia could raise more if they tuned up the rate that banner is showing. They don't because they have more than enough.

They could also tune up the rate if they turned the site into a pay-for-view site. What's your point again?