Can somebody explain their financial model? How are they paying for the servers and stuff.
The claim "No ads. No trackers." and that they are "free for everyone".
Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp, who left Facebook post WhatsApp acquisition, infused 50M USD too. [2] I hear he lent another 50M with 0% interest, repayable by 2068. [3]
[2] https://www.wired.com/story/signal-foundation-whatsapp-brian...
Since the OTF's own spin-off from RFA, it seems to have continued being non-trivially involved in regime change while funding communication initiatives like TOR and Open Whisper Systems etc (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Technology_Fund).
It all sounds fine, until we are reminded that AWS itself blocked Parler, no chance of recourse and completely within the law. With that in mind, how confident are you to think that CIA's support of Signal goes as far as they can ensure they can control the network?
The original reasoning why WhatsApp used the same crypto/messaging format as Signal was in large part (aside from it being Good Crypto) to make it harder to selectively block TextSecure/Signal based on message content.
So the threat model is now changing (if you're trying to avoid censorship by the US govt etc) and that's going to be interesting to watch unfold. Matrix is much less susceptible to this being an existential threat, of course.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software)
Initially funded by a $50M loan from the co-founder of Whatsapp. In addition to consulting contracts they have received millions in grants and donations from Mark Shuttleworth, Radio Free Asia, the Freedom of the Press Foundation and others.
Downvoters, kindly explain what is so wrong about my statement. There are costs to run the operation, having generous benefactors writing big checks (a) do not change this, (b) makes Signal's operation dependent on the source of revenue and (c) hide these externalities long enough to hinder the development of cheaper/more efficient alternatives.
IOW, "depending on donations" is not a solution. Just like Socialism, it works until we run out of other people's money.
There is a fine line between donation and payment laundering. The latter happens more often than people would like to believe. For the thousands of 501c3s out there, there's nowhere near enough grannies writing $25 checks to keep even half of them in the black.
edit: and we are not alone in this suspicion
It's hard to live on donations, but as a user it is still better than Signal being a for-profit company, as their goal would then be to increase the YoY revenue and eventually making unsavoury decisions.
No, there is no such thing as free lunch: either the user is at future risk or the company is at future risk. This is the best arrangement for users.
Also, if the wikimedia foundation closed tomorrow, Wikipedia's content would live on mirrors and IPFS gateways. It would still be useful - perhaps even more efficient than it is. Signal's outage yesterday that this logic does not apply for them. If they run out of money or infra, everyone is out in the cold.
> This is the best arrangement for users.
I'd argue that the best arrangement would be to stop hiding the operational cost per user and charge them for it. Donations can come later to cover users who can't afford the service. WhatsApp was doing just that with their $1/year fee and subsidizing market growth markets before Facebook got them.
I'd also make the case that part of the reason that we (as users) should not accept a centralized solution is due to the fact that a distributed/federated system gives room for competition and diversity. Switching from WhatsApp to Telegram or Signal or iMessage brings us no real progress in the aspect that we are still at the mercy of one single monopolistic entity.
Wikipedia also needs to run servers. Slope may be less steep and there is part for hosting of content but mandatory costs are also growing linearly with the amount of people accessing it.
(WMF problems and how money is spend is a bit related issue, but it is not mandatory spending)
Perhaps the downvoters disagree?