Ask HN: Would you pay to keep your comms secure, ad-free, based on open tech?
- Google releases Allo, and most of the people on HN don't really know what to make of it. [1]
- Facebook/Whatsapp might face legal action due to the sharing of data [2]
- Smaller contenders keep their products free, but who knows how they expect to make money?
Let's assume (for the moment) that the technical part does not matter. Let's assume that we can overcome the chicken-and-egg problem by giving paying users the ability to "sponsor" a limited number of free accounts. Let's assume that most of the infrastructure costs are low enough compared to the cost of keeping a good number of developers and UX/UI professionals focused on closing the gap between the most popular messengers and the existing open alternatives.
The main reason I am asking is that my current employer[3] is about to launch yet-another-messenger, and while there a few differentiating features (mostly about ntegration with PSTN/GSM), what we have is not different from 2003 Skype, modulo group chats and a web app?
I am wondering if there is enough of a critical mass of people willing to pay someone that will be service provider and a steward of a fully-open solution? I'd really like to make a case for higher management that taking the "be as open and consumer-oriented as possible" route can be a good strategy.
It doesn't have to be much, but if I see a good number of people saying something along the lines of "I can pay $X0,00/year to have unlimited on-net calls and messages, provided I get modern open-source clients for my platform and that I am in control of my data", or something along the lines of what is really important, then I can start figure out if any of this is feasible.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12545292
[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12547705
[3]: I am writing this on my behalf, so I'd rather not disclose the info at the moment.