That's why I'm still sceptical of Signal. It's free as well, paid for by donations but still. At the end of the day I'm not the one paying directly for the service I'm using.
Lastly, Signal doesn't collect/store any of your data on their infrastructure other than a few hashes required for operation. WhatsApp/facebook on the other hand collect, and likely keep, forever, at much metadata about you as possible. The only way to pay for this free storage is to stay more data so they can target you for advertising dollars.
This doesn't guarantee that Signal will live forever, but at the very least they've learned from previous mistakes and have taken actions to address them.
https://www.upcounsel.com/converting-non-profit-to-for-profi...
Most people use these apps for the network. The app without the network is useless, but any fork would initially be in this situation.
The signal server is also open source. The absence of federation does mean you would also need to get all of your contacts to move to a different service as well, but it is better than a proprietary system. I do wish Signal was more open to federation and/or alternative clients though.
Your example of religions is also suspect. To be blunt we perceive it that way in places and times where established Churches are legally independent and separate from the government. It’s not always and often isn’t true, or at least isn’t the case by default in some places.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_tax
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jizya
Compare and contrast with Alms, the more charitable less compulsory concept:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alms
Just one more reason to love separation of Church and State and the prohibition on Congress on making laws respecting an establishment of religion.
Not the nicest way to put it but they put in Yeoman’s[1] work and earn it.
"Protection money" means somebody is illegally forcing you to pay for something that you don't want or need, solely to enrich themselves. But it's not illegal if it's literally the foundation of the society.
Democracy is the most expensive system of government. It has to be paid for or it doesn't work. It's paid for with taxes. It's not protection money, it's fuel for a life support system that you and everyone else is hooked up to.
I mean was it legal when the local Baron came and levied a tax on your wheat? Under the King’s laws, or maybe it was just tradition, but if the alternative is you’re killed and your land is taken and given to someone more loyal, then you just had a tax levied upon you and the payment was your life.
Similarly, merchants which snuck into cities rather than paying the tax at the gates were not entitled to protections from whoever was the guarantor of laws, a city guard or the like.
So what’s going to happen if you don’t pay your taxes? Turns out the IRS, the States and the equivalents in other countries have legal means of taking what you own for what you owe. We can discuss the tradeoffs on this, but in practice it’s not overly different from a Duke or a King or a mobster. What’s different is the process, the expectancy of it, and the legality.
At the end of the day, what we’re paying for is the protection of our police, fire departments, Armies and Navies.