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Signal

Signal is a nonprofit. But what does this mean in practice? Today we do something most tech co’s avoid: talk money. What does it cost for Signal to play in a lane dominated by billion $ corporations, while rejecting the surveillance business model?

signal.org/blog/signal-is-expe

24 comments
Signal

We’re doing this to provide transparency into Signal, and to make clear why our choice of nonprofit status isn’t just nice to have, but a fundamental safeguard against the pressures of a profitable business model that fundamentally contradicts our stance on privacy.

Signal

By being transparent about Signal, we also hope to shed light on the industry. We show how expensive the development of high- availability consumer tech is & by implication the massive profitability of the surveillance business model underwriting most tech.

Signal

We also believe it is imperative to build alternatives to the current tech ecosystem & its reliance on surveillance. And building these alternatives requires understanding the political economy of the industry, so we don’t mistake an elegant idea for a realistic possibility.

If you rely on Signal, if you believe in what we’re doing, or if you want to support tech done differently, please donate to support our work.

signal.org/donate/

AudraTran :debian:

@signalapp You'd be doing yourself a huge favor if you added a recurring annual donation in the app. I'm happy to donate $5-10/year but $60/year (the current minimum donation amount) is way too high for something barely anyone I know actually uses.

The Great Llama :fuck_verify:

@AudraTran @signalapp
Yeah, $60 a year seems like "power user" money. I basically use it as a substitute text messaging app with a small group of people.

DePemig

@AudraTran @signalapp I believe you are mistaken. At least in my app, donations of 5 swiss francs (about 5 dollars) can be made.

AudraTran :debian:

@Depemig $5/mo or $60/year. I'm talking about $5/yr.

Georg Engelmann

@signalapp I can help with German localization and Beta testing

LotharMucki 🦄

@signalapp
I'd like to, but I've got nothing out of the possibilities of donation.

Ockham

@signalapp Thanks for what you are doing. I use to donate monthly, but for quite a long time now, I still get an error about my CVC being wrong. And it's not. Either for one-shot donations or monthly ones. Fix that and I *can* literally donate again... (and reintroduce SMS within the app, which counts even more since Google is ending support of AOSP SMS app, and I'd be glad to donate even more 🙏)

Risotto

@signalapp what's that cost per user / cost per message?

I think I did a similar thing asking about mastodon user costs in terms of active vs inactive users, and came to a mostly uniform number of cents / user / month

Dan Neuman

@risottobias @signalapp They said millions of users and $50M in costs (by 2025), so I'd say less than $25/year. Which frankly is an excellent price for what you get. I can afford to pay more than the costs so that others who can't afford it can still use the service.

wnm210

@signalapp Hmm, decentralization might help reducing costs.

CC @slavistapl

mav :happy_blob:

@signalapp Signal is abundantly useful. It is interesting, also, to see how much it costs to provide services that interface with the traditional telephone network, as opposed to, say, usernames.

Filipe

@signalapp Thanks for the write up. I'd love to see the phone number registration fees decrease somehow, but I trust you are doing your research and found it's the least costly option, and also better for people (saving us from spam accounts).

I've donated, and plan to donate again once I have the capacity :)

Dan Neuman

@signalapp This was interesting to see what costs are like for a non-profit. I did not know that was Signal's structure. A per-account cost would be useful, too.

trystimuli

@signalapp Also remember that as with all US non-profits, Signal's tax filings are public. So you can see another (if less up to date) breakdown of their expenditures at projects.propublica.org/nonpro :)

RoBo

@signalapp great write-up. Love the transparency. Donated and would love more friends to move from WhatsApp but they don't because of network effects

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